This article discusses the complex and subtle reasons why many people of Spanish-speaking ancestry, both Latin Americans and Spaniards, like to call themselves Latinos. Among other things, this word, coined by the Mediterranean countries to resist Anglo dominance in the 19th century, is currently being used by people of Spanish-speaking ancestry…

A survey shows that in 1992, 60.9 percent of American adults read at least one book in a year, which was 56.6 percent in 2002. For literary texts the figure was 54 percent in 1992, which reduced to 46.7 percent in 2002. According to the California State Librarian Emeritus Kevin Starr the decline in reading is connected with several cultural…

The Battig and Montague (1969) category norms have been an invaluable tool for researchers in many fields, with a recent literature search revealing their use in over 1600 projects published in more than 200 different journals. Since 1969, numerous changes have occurred culturally that warrant the collection of new normative data. For instance, in…

Rosenak has shown that contemporary Jewish education must negotiate the tension between relevance and authenticity. For those who embrace authenticity as a goal, education is often mediated through heroes--who are ideal cultural types. Such education is hampered by the diminution of heroes in contemporary culture: The hero has been replaced by the…

For a long time, researchers have reported on the low academic performances of Black Americans in comparison to other minorities and non-minorities. During this time, there have been debates over the causes of the differences in education achievement between the various sub groups (i.e. ethnic subgroups) of students studied. The purpose of this…

The high dropout rate in urban high schools, particularly among poor and racial minority youth, continues to be a vexing problem confronting public education in the U.S. Although much research and many prevention efforts have been devoted to this issue, dropout rates continue to soar. In this article, the authors present a case study analysis of…

This paper argues that current globalizing forces are profoundly affecting the policies of nation states, and particularly those in education, and producing a situation where educational professional work is both increasingly controlled and increasingly fragmented. This being the case, it is argued that professionals' understanding of the nature…

Understanding the prevalence and demographic correlates of physical activity is important for public health and epidemiological research. This analysis examines the association between acculturation and physical activity in a large (similar to 5,000) sample of Hispanic adults from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey. Scores for eight…

Keeping in mind the Chinese character-combination "yuyan," with its multiple meanings of language, parts of language, the processes of language, and the products of those processes, the author depicts English as kept alive by many people and by many different ways of using it in a wide range of personal, social, and historical contexts.…

Homework has become an accepted staple within education in the United States. However, little is acknowledged regarding the influences homework has on students. The purpose of this extended literature review is to look at the influences of homework on students in the elementary grades. The following research on homework was found through books,…

The United States is currently experiencing the largest wave of immigration in its history. This contemporary immigration is unprecedented in its diversity of ethnicity, class, and countries of origin, and large urban areas are no longer alone in absorbing arrivals. The author reviews children's picture books about dilemmas that immigrant children…

This essay uses the concept of the constellation to characterize the relations among interdisciplinarity, cultural memory, and comparative literature. To do so entails: (a) reviewing the paradoxical interdisciplinarity of comparative literature, (b) tracing its establishment at a liberal arts college (Bryn Mawr College, USA), and (c) describing a…

Online learning is growing in higher education contexts around the world, but very few research-based studies have addressed the cultural aspects of online teaching and learning. In this study, we focused on international students from Taiwan and examined their perspectives of taking a synchronous online course in the US. Specifically, we were…

Growing concerns about the experience and achievement of Black pupils (especially Black males) underpin calls for more Black people to serve as teacher and lay mentor role models in schools. Calls for increased numbers of Black teacher role models assume firstly, that Black teachers regard themselves as role models and want to perform such a role…

Libraries share a perception of embracing and providing for all users. However, they also share a common philosophical stance shaped by librarians' individual discursive formations and the dominant cultural hegemony that values some users over others. Latinos constitute one of the fastest-growing, nondominant populations in the United States, and…