Examines the residual paradigm, used for shaping U.S. child welfare policies and programs, and argues that it has failed to address the problems of child poverty and to facilitate progress for children. Another approach to child welfare is proposed that takes into account structural issues based on current knowledge and practical realities…

Analyzes legal immigrants' participation rates in major welfare programs and discusses several proposals to eliminate or restrict eligibility of legal immigrants for welfare programs, including denying eligibility to long-term legal immigrants whose sponsors' income exceeds the median family income. Competition for low-skill jobs and the limited…

Draws on the 1998 Current Population Survey to examine the poverty status and welfare recipient status of rural and urban children under 18 to inform policymakers about potential effects of welfare reform. Discusses the effects of rural versus urban residence, region, household type, race, parental age, parental education, and parental employment…

At R. B. Russell Vocational High School (Winnipeg, Manitoba), which serves economically disadvantaged, primarily First Nations students, a student-developed Web site uses virtual reality and digital video technologies to teach auto mechanics in ways that are relevant to students' diverse learning styles and needs. The project has increased student…

Explores how "corporate venture philanthropy," in the form of grants and technical expertise, could help expand the number of talented students from traditionally underrepresented groups in higher education. (EV)

This survey explored the knowledge and attitudes of 246 respondents in rural Oregon about child sexual abuse. Gaps in knowledge were found in all age and ethnic groups, with the weakest knowledge found among respondents who were men, unmarried, Latino, without children, younger, or had low incomes and/or education. (Author/PB)

Most predominantly black urban schools are considered inferior, dangerous, and ignorable. Black students attending predominantly white suburban schools are marginalized, deculturalized, academically tracked, and disproportionately disciplined. Those left behind in inner-city schools become "problem students." Due to funding inequities,…

Increasing numbers of poor Mexican immigrant families are settling in the rural southeastern United States. Most of these families are from isolated agrarian communities in Mexico and are headed by unskilled laborers or displaced farm workers with little education. Child welfare workers and other service providers in rural communities may be…

Social policy-making in the UK under the Labour government has galvanized around the issue of social exclusion, identifying young children (0-4 years) and their families living in areas of high social disadvantage to be particularly at risk. This paper attempts to recover the experiences and views of professionals concerned with the delivery and…

Thirty-two middle class and 32 lower class southern Brazilian pre-adolescent (M=12.8 years) and adolescent (M=15.7 years) participants were individually interviewed regarding their perceptions of who (adolescent or parent) should determine the adolescent's actions in cases where the parents and adolescent disagree over the action choice.…

Purpose: Low-income preschoolers' use of literate language features in oral narratives across three age groups (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) and two ethnic groups (Caucasian and African American) was examined. Method: Sixty-seven preschoolers generated a story using a wordless picture book. The literate language features examined were simple and…

The past two decades have generated numerous and varied experiments with the use of public resources to support "private" schools, which, in any case, become and behave more like public schools in proportion to their dependence on the public purse. From an equity point of view, however, no compelling moral necessity exists to use public funds to…

Factors related to American Indian (AI) high school students' self-rated health were examined. Self rated health was measured as a single-item with a four-point response option ranging from poor to excellent health. Of the 574 participants, 19% reported "fair" or "poor" health, a percentage more than twice that for U.S. high school students in…

This longitudinal study examined the relations between multiple risk indexes representing contextual adversity, income-to-needs ratios, and the elementary school adjustment of children from economically disadvantaged families. The results provide evidence for volatility in family circumstances over 2-year intervals from preschool to 5th grade, for…

Does persistent adversity over time have effects on children's behavior beyond the effects of intermittent or concurrent adversity? This study examined the relations between school behavior in 5th grade (mean age = 11 years 0 months) and indexes representing persistent poverty and contextual risk. The indexes described 2-year intervals of family…