This article critically analyzes Obama's singular political victory. The author begins by laying out current racial, socio-economic, educational and political challenges that await President-elect Obama. He goes on to analyze Obama's political discourse and then questions whether or not Obama would be able to meet these challenges. The author…

This article explores the extent to which funding is used to steer the public higher education sector towards meeting the social, political and economic imperatives of post-1994 South Africa. It argues that the design of the funding framework influenced the direction of higher education after 1994, and that funding mechanisms explicitly or…

At an international level, the peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa has often been lauded as miraculous. While political transformation might have been highly successful, changes in other spheres have proved to be much more problematic. This paper examines the change in higher education in South Africa and, more particularly, the role…

This fact sheet highlights the statistics of the status of the American Indian and Alaska Native high school students living in the continental United States in terms of: population; graduation, dropouts, and preparedness; schools, segregation, and teacher quality; and special, gifted, and college preparatory education. There are an estimated 4.4…

Much recent research has been directed at illuminating the role of education in major conflicts between ethnic groups. It is increasingly well understood that education does not necessarily have a positive, peace-supporting influence, but that the wrong kind of education can serve to reinforce divisions. However, in many conflicts there are…

The U.S. District of Columbia's Federal Circuit Court decision in "Hobson v. Hanson" (1967) case eliminated racial discriminatory tracking practices in the nation's capitol's public schools. The court ruled that D.C. Public Schools' tracking violated African American and low income students' rights to equal opportunities to education…

Following the 1949 recommendations of the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons (SJC), the Canadian government shifted away from a policy of segregated to integrated schooling for Aboriginal children. This paper examines the minutes and proceedings of the SJC. Fewer than 10% of the briefs presented to the SJC called for integration…

The Civil Rights Project (CRP) is in the midst of an analysis of rapidly growing charter school enrollment, which the authors anticipate releasing next month. Similar to trends described in their 2003 report and in other research on racial isolation in charter schools, they find higher levels of segregation for black students in charter schools…

The post-apartheid National Physical Science Curriculum was implemented for the first time in South Africa in grade 10 during 2006. A variety of new textbooks for grade 10 have been published. This study was a comparative analysis of three popular textbooks, one prepared to support the previous curriculum, and two prepared for the new curriculum.…

Because of segregation in neighborhoods and schools, college may provide the first opportunity for many young adults to interact closely with members of different racial and ethnic groups. Little research has examined how interracial friendships form during this period. This article investigates changes in the racial composition of friendship…

Social workers are the professionals most engaged with families living in low-income and subsidized housing and most familiar with the problems associated with inadequate housing. Yet the discussion of public housing policy has been left largely to economists and housing activists and the clear implications for family social work practice have not…

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between…

This study captures the impact of school choice decisions by comparing the racial composition of the district schools students exited to the charter schools they entered. Charter school catchment areas are operationalized using a statewide student-level database to track school attendance patterns of individual students over 4 years. Charter…

The year 2006 saw the implementation of a new curriculum for teaching English First Additional Language (FAL) in grades 10-12 in South African high schools. The curriculum includes the teaching and assessment of visual literacy--a challenge for teachers whose apartheid-era teacher education did not address visual literacy at all. The article is a…

This article reviews educational initiatives of state and federal government that were designed to remedy the effects of racial segregation on Black public school students in the United States after the famous "Brown v. Board of Education" decisions. Several policy and legal initiatives are reviewed, including school desegregation,…