The deeply fractured nature of U.S. society is examined, focusing on poor and working class people in cities. Based on data from 154 poor and working class young adults aged 23 to 35, the study reveals the ways in which this urban generation has suffered from social change. The following chapters are included: (1) "Voices of Hope and Despair:…

The influence of paternalism upon a community's school district participation is discussed in this historical case study. Interviews and historical research explore the impact of the "welfare capitalism" of the Endicott Shoe Corporation and International Business Machines on Harrison City, New York, from 1890 through the present. An analysis of…

A study examined the news coverage given by the "Industrial Worker" to the San Diego free speech fight of 1912, the last of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union's free speech fights on the West Coast. The "Worker," a publication of the IWW, devoted columns of coverage to that conflict in the form of reports, letters,…

A rationale is presented for a new direction in educational historiography which reevaluates the treatment of the working class as active creators of history. Presently the impact of the working class on the public school history curriculum is not fully assessed or explained in light of other social and economic circumstances in the twentieth…

Reports a recent classroom analysis of Latino students who were doing well academically (as reflected both in teachers' assessments and in achievement tests). Finds that teachers were theoretically equipped, able to make curriculum judgments, and received support from colleagues. (MS)

Interviews with low-income parents revealed that they were aware of the class character of local schools and believed that high-income schools were superior. Ninety-four percent favored social class school desegregation, believing that their children would thereby obtain a better education and better preparation for social interaction in adult…

This book examines the variations in the constitution of female gender in a group of young working-class women of African American, Latina, Puerto Rican, and White European backgrounds who were enrolled in an alternative high school for students at risk of academic failure. It also analyzes the school processes that shape these young women's…

Explores the dilemmas posed by the analysis of working class issues in education by professional sociologists. Questions whether the inequalities experienced in the educational system by working class people have been "colonized" by middle class academics for their own professional purposes. (CFR)

Describes the new system of financial aid at Princeton University, which is designed to blunt Princeton's image as a school for wealthy students and to increase enrollment of gifted students from working class families. Whether this will in fact increase enrollment of black students at Princeton is questioned. (SLD)

The British New Labour Party's resocialization project is based on certain desirable middle-class attributes: active consumerism, school monitoring, transmission of cultural capital at home, and possession of social capital. Problems will continue to arise, since only a limited number of schools and jobs are deemed "excellent." (Contains…

Critical educational researchers in the United States and elsewhere are missing something essential in their inattention to considerable support among Black urban women for market-based educational reforms, including vouchers. While the educational left has engaged in important empirical and theoretical work demonstrating the particularly negative…

A press release and accompanying polling data provide a brief summary of the findings and implications of a national opinion survey, concerning federal child care assistance. The national opinion poll, conducted by Republican pollster Vince Breglio between February 26 and March 5, 1995, showed that Americans are deeply divided over congressional…

This paper discusses three topics relevant to early child care and education: changing patterns in parenting; child care entitlements; and sex-role stereotyping and racism. Discussion of the first topic highlights the effects on parenting of such factors as: (1) high divorce rates; (2) poverty; (3) maternal employment; (4) shared parenting; and…

While numerous surveys have shown that women academics are being hired in increasing numbers, white women from working class backgrounds are disadvantaged in obtaining tenure track university positions, because they have degrees from less prestigious universities, and their backgrounds have not prepared them for the publish or perish atmosphere of…

This report is an attempt to draw together the few existing studies and surveys of working class women, as well as the firsthand experiences of community leaders, organizers, and observers around the country, to provide an impressionistic overview of the ways in which working class women's lives are beginning to depart from many long-standing…