Expands an earlier study of educational stratification in Russia by analyzing cohorts who completed their education during the late-Soviet and post-Soviet years, when enrollments contracted. Provides information on the Russian educational system and discusses enrollment contraction and educational inequality. Presents and discusses the results.…

Investigates whether students' engagement with or alienation from instruction determines (1) the extent to which students take advantage of classroom opportunities to learn and (2) their learning outcomes. Demonstrates that the gaps between opportunities to learn and students' appropriation of those opportunities are instructionally produced and…

Examines the effects of academic achievement in the 8th grade on the sense of personal control and self esteem in the 10th grade and the effects of personal control and self esteem in the 10th grade on academic achievement in the 12th grade. Presents and discusses the results. Includes references. (CMK)

Examines the effect of participating in a senior capstone course on undergraduates' identification with a university-promoted version of the college student role. Uses a longitudinal study of undergraduate students at a public university. Provides evidence of the effectiveness of the course as a socialization agent. Discusses implications and…

Demonstrates that in a cohort of young, inner-city African-American adults (1) school reentry is a relatively common occurrence and (2) educational credentials are often acquired in a discontinuous fashion. Points to the relevance of the absence of age restrictions in U.S. schools. Aims to expand existing models of educational decision making to…

Examines the decision-making processes of 79 students who entered the law and business programs at an elite university. Argues that students' accounts for decisions reflect class-related opportunities and constraints. Finds that the majority chose their degrees for similar reasons: professional status, intellectual interest, and an…

Discusses group problem solving processes, how status can harm group problem solving, and how the politeness of students' criticisms reflects status. Reports on analyses of the determinants of group solutions, perceived leadership, and biased evaluations during collaborative problem solving in which students attempted to solve an algebra problem.…

Explores variations among states in the relationships of students' educational attainment with family backgrounds, eighth-grade course placements, and high school teachers' assessments of students' academic potential. Focuses on whether states' mandatory testing policies are associated with differences in students' attainment as measured by…

Examines the distribution of dropout and turnover rates among 247 U.S. urban and suburban high schools to study school effectiveness. Finds that dropout and turnover rates can be attributed to student background, student composition, school resources, and school processes. (Contains references.) (CMK)

Examines how low-income African American high school students situate race, class, and gender in the process of status attainment. Finds that the students emphasized the importance of hard work, individual effort, and education but their overall views were complicated by their interpretation of how race, class, and gender affect life chances.…

Analyzes the extent that black and white students differ in cultural capital and educational resources and whether these attributes mediate the relation between family background and racial disparities in achievement. Suggests that racial variations in cultural and educational resources vary while these resources have a small mediating effect on…

Examines whether youths use different ways to contact employers and whether their methods affect their job earnings. Reveals that most types of contacts have little effect on early earnings, but relatives and school contacts place students in jobs that lead to higher earnings nine years later. (Contains 52 references.) (CMK)

Presents quantitative, cross-national analysis of the effects of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) on developing nations' education. Finds consistent positive relationships between INGOs and secondary enrollments, teacher/student ratios, persistence to grade 5, and female-to-male ratios. Notes implications for theoretical debates…

Examines mechanisms that influenced access to federal vocational programs in the pre-desegregation U.S. South. Explores how local political conditions affected training opportunities. Shows that access was shaped by racially segregated labor markets and that African Americans' access was shaped by the political dimension of the southern racial…

Examines two questions about the racial gap in achievement-test scores: (1) how much can be attributed to social class differences? and (2) how much has the gap changed in 30 years? Finds that black-white differences are large and are decreasing over time, but that blacks remain under represented in the high scores. (DSK)