This article examines the experiences of 20 students of color who voluntarily attend a racially integrated school. The study draws from the Socio-Cultural dimension of schooling as a framework to understand how the students of color fared on a social, cultural, and environmental level within a predominantly White school. Through a questionnaire,…

This article examines the High Tech High charter school, the ideas and practices that influenced its development, and the school's impact on San Diego Unified School District, which authorized the charter. The Discussion analyzes the school's program using frameworks of social bonding theory and progressive educational theory and practice. Since…

University of the Pacific is a private, comprehensive university with a College of Arts and Sciences and six professional schools, and with a population of more than four thousand students on its main campus in the ethnically diverse central valley city of Stockton, California. The signature component of Pacific's general education program is the…

A burgeoning literature has documented generally salutary relationships between various aspects of religious involvement and mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms. However, few of these studies have focused on Latinos (Hispanics), who now constitute the largest ethnic minority population in the United States. Our work addresses…

This project explores gender relations in stepfamilies from the vantage point of adult stepchildren who acquired stepparents during childhood. Drawing from 2 rounds of interviews with 15 adult stepchildren systematically selected from the 1997 wave of the University of Southern California Longitudinal Study of Generations, 5 themes of gender…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) NCLB Anniversary Prompts Renewed Calls for Reauthorization: Growth Models, High School Reform Emerge as Points of…

This study investigates how comments that Mexican nationals made about U.S. schools influenced Mexican immigrant adolescents' perceptions of and experiences in U.S. schools. I investigated the diffusion of this information at three specific points in time--prior to immigration, upon entry to the U.S., and after a few years of living in the U.S.…

Technology is central to the daily routine of university life. Yet, without any formal technology prerequisites, students come to college with differing technological skills, stratified by gender, socioeconomic status, and racial backgrounds. Beyond skills, students' varied computing histories can result in a range of technology identities that…

The social underpinnings of learning make it important to understand how people experience themselves and form relationships in web-based educational environments. Social presence is a critical factor of a communication medium that plays an important role in building community and improving the effectiveness of instruction. The components of…

As the number of English language learners (ELLs) continues to grow in California and throughout the country, there is a need to examine present policies that impact the preparation of teachers to meet the varying needs of this diverse student population. This article utilizes a framework of educational responsiveness to examine the definition and…

This study examines relations between early adolescent girls' well-being, achievement, and emerging identities. Variable-centered results showed that girls' moral and student identities were the strongest predictors of their achievement, whereas their moral, student, physical, and peer identities predicted their well-being. Person-centered results…

Drawing from a multi-year ethnography of a Latino/a immigrant Pentecostal church and from high school observations and interviews of three focal students, this article compares the language and literacy experiences of an immigrant Mexican Pentecostal adolescent in church and school contexts. I document how the youth's Sunday school class fostered…

This study critiqued the notion that a binary "digital divide" between high and low resource schools describes accurately the technology disparity in U.S society. In this study, we surveyed teachers from six southern California schools. Five of the schools were low resource schools and one school, chosen for comparative purposes, was…

Objectives: The authors examined whether the relationship between alcohol expectancies and sexual experiences while drinking differed between Latino and white college students. Participants: The authors considered students if they were white or Latino, unmarried, aged 18-25 years, reported any drinking, and had at least 1 sexual partner in the…

"Policy and Performance in American Higher Education" presents a new approach to understanding how public policy influences institutional performance, with practical insight for those charged with crafting and implementing higher education policy. Public institutions of higher learning are called upon by state governments to provide…