This book describes the experiences of an inexperienced young teacher who, with the support of parents and teenagers in a Los Angeles (California) neighborhood, created a one-room schoolhouse and began to teach 30 gang members, ranging in age from 13 to nearly 20. He had no teaching credentials or college degree and the school had a tiny budget,…

This collection explores the struggles of the varied Latino peoples for identity, recognition, and legitimacy in the United States. Issues such as what it means to be Latino/a, what a just immigration policy should be, relations between Latinos and other cultural groups, and whether being Latino is a race or an ethnicity are explored. The 94…

The narrative essays in this collection offer a vision of the race and identity of Native Americans, focusing on American Indians that have grown up in cities and towns. It is a unique collection in that it represents the ways that mixed blood people ("mixbloods") envision Indian race and heritage. It is also unique in that it extends the…

This book is about teenage pregnancy among Latina teenagers in East Los Angeles (California). It focuses on teenage pregnancy and motherhood among economically disadvantaged Latinas aged 17 and under. The young mothers in this study were participants in a series of intervention efforts to prevent repeat pregnancy at a family planning clinic. This…

This book presents papers from some leading social scientists and scholars who examine the contemporary contours of America's gang problem. New material is provided on wilding (i.e., running amok for no specific reason) gangs, migration and drug trafficking, and public education disruption. Other topics involve organization of gangs, their social…

This study of six urban children ages 8-12 years challenges the prevailing misconception that poor city children are troubled, passive, and unintelligent. The research involved interviewing children about how and what they played and having them discuss drawings that they made about play. Guided by these children, who live in New York's East…

Minority gangs of the 1980s are examined as groups of juveniles and young adults and as a fraction of the forming underclass. Gangs today no longer disappear as their ethnic groups rises socially. Instead, gangs are becoming institutionalized in the central cities. This discussion of prior research in Los Angeles (California) and more recent…

This study is the first effort to produce a systematic description and analysis of the experience and performance of immigrant children and youths in the U.S. educational system. Data from the High School and Beyond (HSB) study initiated in 1980 were complemented by 1970, 1980, and 1990 U.S. Census figures to compare the performance of immigrant…

Books in the New Americans Series are designed for high school students and general readers who want to learn more about the immigrants who have become their new neighbors. This volume deals with the experience of Dominican Americans, a settled community in its North American abode. The book begins with a brief historical background that traces…

This book attempts to assist readers in expanding their knowledge base in the area of quality practices for Latino students. The chapters contain many practices that can be implemented in educational settings from preschool to secondary school. The following chapters are included: (1) "Successfully Educating Latinos: The Pivotal Role of the…

This study examined how intraurban job accessibility and other factors impinged upon the employment and school enrollment decisions of teenagers. Prior research showed the magnitude of the black youth employment problem and how this problem has evolved over time. A review of the spatial mismatch literature provided strong and consistent support…

The focus of this book is a study of voice through writing among poor, urban preadolescent fifth-grade girls. Voice became a central focus when the researcher, engaged in observations of peer writing conferences for students who were not native speakers, noted that the girls appeared to lose their voices as the year went on. The loss of voice was…

The seven short stories in this collection portray the lives of Puerto Rican children and adolescents in the South Bronx (New York City). The hopelessness of many Puerto Rican and Black youth is vividly depicted in stories dealing with drug use, discrimination, unwanted and early pregnancy, and a host of other urban social ills. Titles of the…

This chart book is designed to document current differences in well-being by race and Hispanic origin and to describe how such differences have evolved over the past several decades. The charts included in this book show key indicators of well-being in seven broad categories: (1) population; (2) education; (3) labor markets; (4) economic status;…

This book discusses patterns and trends in crimes committed by children and adolescents, analyzing youth crime as a subset of general crime and studying the impact of race and gender. It evaluates different approaches to forecasting future crime rates. Data come from a national panel that examined what is known about juvenile crime and its…