A study was done to compare Asian American and Anglo American students' attitudes toward motivation, learning environment, academic self-concept, involvement, affiliation, and parent involvement in the learning of mathematics. Survey data of 1,200 Asian- and 1,200 Anglo-American middle school students were collected. A stratified sampling…

Resilient Asian American students, who have shown outstanding performance and achievement in spite of adverse life conditions in urban schools, were compared with nonresilient, or marginal, students who have not done well academically. The focus was on the students' perceptions of their learning environments in mathematics. Other background…

Attempts to address the dearth of research on Asian and Pacific-Islander community college students by exploring the predictors of persistence and retention, and the course taking patterns of Asian Pacific American students enrolled in urban community colleges. This correlational study utilized data collected for the Transfer and Retention of…

Focusing on predictors of academic success may help in the design of effective educational interventions. This study explores the enhancement of education for at-risk minority students by considering educationally resilient students and the classroom learning environment. Data was collected from six middle schools in a multi-ethnic school district…

This study examined 38 thematic units prepared by preservice elementary teachers at the end of their science methods class and their second semester in an urban, field-based program, investigating how they addressed principles of diversity and multiculturalism. The units had either a science theme or science integrated with themes from other…

This study examines patterns of student attrition and retention in the Omaha (Nebraska) Public Schools (OPS). The following dropout characteristics were studied: (1) low socioeconomic status (SES); (2) minority group membership; (3) low achievement test scores; (4) low academic grades; (5) enrollment in a nonacademic (vocational or general) high…

The schoolwide projects conducted by two Muscogee County (Georgia) elementary schools under Chapter 1 are described. The Muscogee County School District is the public school system for Columbus, the state's second largest city. The student body of approximately 31,000 is 54.2 percent Black, with 2.9 percent Hispanic, and only a small number of…

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of a classroom event in which fourth and fifth grade students in a highly diverse urban school interpreted, discussed and responded to a district survey intended to illuminate the social climate of the city's schools, with a particular focus on race and racism. We drew on the three-dimensional…

This paper presents case studies of four students' experiences with writing in a fourth/fifth grade classroom. The paper focuses on the following questions: What is the relationship between children's social and intellectual identities and their successes or struggles in writing? How do writing instruction and assessments mediate that…

The administrator in charge of assessment for the San Diego (California) schools discusses the district's decision about whether or not to endorse a national test. The San Diego schools serve 135,000 urban students in 165 schools, 31% of whom are Latino, 22% Asian Indochinese, 18% African American, and 29% White. Before San Diego would want to…

The articulation or suppression of ethnicity among high school students depends on the individual's estimation of the relevancy of ethnicity, an estimation linked to structural factors in society. Data for this ethnographic study were derived from extensive observations of students by a participant-observer at a multiethnic urban high school. The…

In the 1988-89 school year, the Austin (Texas) Independent School District's Office of Research and Evaluation undertook a new dropout research project. Part of this initiative, termed Project GRAD, attempted to develop a statistical equation by which one could predict which students were likely to drop out. If reliable predictive information…

This paper considers whether ethnicity is a social construction that is constantly being recreated in a nexus of shifting social relations rather than a set of perceptions and behaviors that remain constant and stem from a youth's membership in an ethnic group. Student responses about ethnicity from a larger study of student role and engagement in…

Magnet high school attendance seems to lead to improved academic performance (Cobb, Bifulco, & Bell, 2009; U.S. Department of Education, 2008; Yu & Taylor, 1997). Likewise, perceived social support has been linked with positive outcomes for adolescents, including improved academic performance (Rosenfeld, Richman, & Bowen, 2000; Demaray & Malecki,…

This document reports the findings of a survey of the academic, social, counseling, and language needs of Vietnamese high school students in San Diego (California). All 311 Vietnamese students in grades 10 and 11 at three high schools responded. The following summary findings are presented: (1) students perceive their school experiences to be…