This report presents the findings of a Harris survey of high school students' attitudes on human rights and racial relations, with special emphasis on minority group athletes. The following findings are included: (1) a majority have seen or heard about violent racial confrontations; (2) 30 percent would intervene to stop or condemn the incident;…

The educational experiences of female graduate students at Harvard University were studied. Based on 258 responses from an open-ended questionnaire sent to all graduate women in fall 1979, the kind of sex discrimination that occurs at the university is described. The types of experiences that reduce women's equal educational access are also…

Intended to provide students in grades 6-12 with a global perspective, these ready-to-use activities deal with the concept of cultural differences. The materials can fit into courses dealing with cultures, American cultural diversity, and human relations. There are five parts. The activities in part 1 will help sensitize students to a…

Six popular high school American history textbooks are examined to address accusations of overcompensation by textbook publishers as a result of the raised ethnic consciousness of the 1970s. The textbooks are: "Our American Heritage" (Silver Burdett); "The Pageant of American History" (Allyn and Bacon); "A History of Our American Republic"…

This review of the literature, litigation, and legislation summarizes special education classification patterns for children with disabilities in the rural Southeast. Focus is particularly on those socially constructed and culture bound disabilities (such as specific learning disabilities (SLD), educable mental retardation (EMR), and mild…

This program manual is a distillation of a 5-year, 10-site national experience in the development of a 7-step model for increasing the enrollment of women and girls in education and training that is nontraditional for their sex. It is intended to extend the impact of the Educational Equity Options Project by making the process accessible to…

The military has responded to recent demographic projections by upgrading its literacy standards: almost 95 percent of new recruits are high school graduates. In order to maintain its high recruitment standard, the military relies heavily on a standardized test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Those who have not graduated from high…

A procedure was developed to detect differential item functioning (DIF) in a standardized essay test using the Partial Credit Model, the general polychotomous form of the Rasch model. Using a panel of experts in the writing process, hypothesized explanations for DIF at some score points were developed. Data for the study included averaged…

Two reforms are suggested as ways to improve standardized testing. They are Truth-in-Testing legislation and the Golden Rule bias reduction principle. Test publishers, state departments of education, and colleges who administer tests are often reluctant to provide statistical data on test results. It is also difficult for researchers to see test…

This case report describes a series of conflicts centering on gender issues at a large metropolitan high school. The case is accompanied by discussion questions designed to present prospective teachers with complex professional problems, asking them to interpret the situation and decide upon possible solutions. The report was written to develop…

Following a thorough review of current studies and literature on women in leadership, this document examines the results of a study conducted to determine the significance of female gender in educational leadership, and how attitudes, values, perceptions, and life experiences of women differ from those of men and are reflected in female leadership…

Seven widely-used high school world history textbooks were analyzed to test the proposition that alternative political and economic systems, such as American democracy and Soviet communism, are treated neutrally, as if they are morally equivalent. This proposition has been advanced by leaders in the U.S. Department of Education as a criticism of…

In a study of the detection of test item bias, Chinese speakers and Spanish speakers were administered a measure of pronunciation accuracy for the (d) and (z) morphemes. Six indices were calculated for each item: item difficulty, point biserial correlation coefficient, item variance, chi-square, Rasch logit of difficulty, and the average…

The effects of faculty training in sex equitable and effective interaction skills were assessed. Twenty-three professors participated in a two and one-half day training workshop that focused on (1) the elimination of sex-biased teacher-student interactions in the classroom; and (2) the distribution, precision, and quality of teacher responses to…

This report discusses the school-to-work transition process of Hispanic youth in Boston. The report was prepared in response to the high rates of unemployment and participation in low-paying service sector jobs by Hispanics and was funded by a grant from the Hispanic Policy Development Project as part of a national effort to identify key public…