Maintains that a common component of geography courses is to show how a globe is an accurate representation of the earth whereas flat maps give a distorted view. Presents a case study and lesson plan in which the Muslim practice of praying while facing Mecca is used to illustrate this idea. (CFR)

Asserts that writing a critical atlas review is often a requirement for cartography courses because it forces students to think analytically about cartographic presentation and theory. Presents a choropleth map review exercise that can be used as an alternative to the atlas review or as an independent instructional activity. (CFR)

Data from 805 California high schools are used to examine teacher education and experience in relation to student dropout rates. Dropout rates tend to be higher where faculties include a greater percentage of minimally educated teachers or teachers with little experience. These relationships are independent of school size, student poverty, and…

A longitudinal study assessed the impact of gender, social class, and location on the development of occupational aspirations and expectations of 13- to 16-year olds. Findings suggest that area and social class have an impact on academic attainments and that efforts to broaden occupational horizons must begin prior to secondary school. (Author/JOW)

Explains embodied fieldwork as learning to act and think like a geographer. Examines how students are assumed to be able-bodied (ability to walk/climb) and what occurs when they are not. Demonstrates how the selection of rugged outdoor environments for fieldwork reinforces assumptions about students and staff as able-bodied. (CMK)

Describes the development by the Alexandria Digital Library of a gazetteer (dictionary of geographic names) composed of a Gazetteer Content Standard, a Feature Type Thesaurus, and an operational interactive gazetteer service. Illustrates the use of this tool in a georeferenced digital library and relates progress in working with Federal agencies…

A national survey identified predictors of school-age children's and adolescents' amount and type of milk intake. Findings indicated that geographic region, child's gender, and amount of milk mothers consumed predicted the children's milk consumption. Predictors of child milk type included the children's age, gender, race, geographic region,…

Although the past 20 years have seen an increased focus on fatherhood, few studies have examined the relationship between a father's geographic location and his psychological well-being. To address this gap, this study examined low-income, noncustodial, predominantly African American fathers' depression in relation to locality, social support, and…

Since the early 1980s, the vast majority of states have implemented enterprise zones. This paper analyzes urban zones in six states, examining the factors that states use to choose zone locations and the subsequent effect of the zones on business activity and employment. The source of outcome data is the U.S. Bureau of Census' longitudinal…

Statistics in European countries show the same trends, for example: social inclusion depends on inclusion in education, training or employment, and life chances are greatly improved if the level of qualifications is high; in all European countries, economic growth still leads to the existence of "pockets" of poverty and economic and…

This paper studies the relationship between net social welfare spending and university enrolment rates among low-income students over the 1983-1996 period in Italy. Students enrolled at universities located in the south of Italy are used here as a proxy for low-income students. A first quantitative examination shows that enrolment among southern…

Despite differences in geographic location, district size, and student characteristics, district special education leaders reflected similar views on opportunities and challenges of NCLBA. Challenges included making AYP, meeting the highly qualified teacher requirement, addressing budget shortfalls, aligning of federal policies, predicting the…

This study extends the macro-level criminological research tradition by examining the links between socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty concentration, and homicide in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan U.S. counties. Most research in this tradition has tested structural theories using urban areas as the unit of analysis. This "urban bias"…

Place of death was determined for all 58,689 seniors (age greater than or equal to 66 years) in Ontario who died during fiscal year 2001/2002. The relationship of place of death to medical and socio-demographic characteristics was examined using a multinomial logit model. Half (49.2 %) of these individuals died in hospital, 30.5 per cent died in a…

Proponents of school choice argue that schools of choice build stronger parent communities. Using data from the National Household Education Surveys Program, a nationally-representitive cross-section of U.S. households, I examine the empirical evidence for this claim. To account for the difficulties in identifying causal effects in cross-sectional…