Pushing Excellence in Pupils (PEP) was established in Dallas to provide instructional services for intermediate level (grades 4-6) black students identified as talented and gifted. This report discusses the descriptive analysis and results of a needs assessment to be used as decision making data for PEP curriculum development. A questionnaire was…

It is well documented that there continues to be a gap between white and nonwhite student achievement. A study develops and tests a measure of white-nonwhite achievement gap reduction. The ultimate purpose is to use the measure as the dependent variable in a qualitative study of what works in reducing the gap. The strategy used in addressing this…

This paper discusses an analysis of adult-child social interactions to discover which instructional stimuli are effective in producing a classroom milieu rich in storytelling events. Ten fifth-grade students with low reading scores, eight black and two white, were tape-recorded over 8 weeks as they created stories in their journals and in…

Effects of sex, ethnicity and their interaction on initial status and year-long change in (1) Language Arts and Social Studies achievement; (2) attitude toward school, and (3) self-rated coping were examined. Subjects included 1657 sixth graders from 51 classes in Austin, Texas. Each class was comprised of a mixture of Anglos, Blacks, and Chicanos…

This study examines influences on the high reading achievement of two low-income, African American fifth graders, both girls, and both of whom lived with their grandmothers. Data came from interviews with the students, their teachers, and their custodial guardians and from observations of the students at school and at home. Results indicated that…

This study investigated individual achievement change over time in mathematics for African American students, whether this differs from student to student, and whether individual growth parameters for this domain were related over time. The study also sought to gain a deeper understanding of individual change in student academic achievement…

This study sought to determine whether the self-concepts of African American at-risk and not-at-risk elementary school students differed significantly. The research was based on the self-concept theories of Mead, Lehy and Shirk, and Purkey. Ninety-four fifth and sixth grade students from a South Mississippi school district, half of them at risk,…

An examination of the incidence of eight activities believed to be associated with gang membership indicates different patterns of gang involvement for urban Black and Hispanic males. The following activities are examined: (1) perceived advantage in gang membership; (2) hanging out where gang members hang out; (3) having friends identified as gang…

In the 1982-1983 school year, the Public Education Association, an educational advocacy organization in New York City, undertook an action research project on young adolescents' stress in school. The project was located in one inner-city intermediate school for 4 years and is now following graduates of that school in the city's high schools. As…

A study determined the effects of a pedagogical approach using rap music on the learning of musical forms among urban African American youth and whether there were differential effects among students of different levels of self-esteem. Urban African American youth (n=66) from the St. Louis County Public Schools who were enrolled in general music…

This paper presents a description of a northern Florida middle school and of the students enrolled in the school, 92% of whom are African-American. Three quarters of the entire student population is eligible for free or reduced price government assisted lunches. This figure is double the state average. During academic year 1991-92, expenditure per…

An attributional intervention was designed to reduce aggressive males' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers and their concomitant reactive aggression. Subjects were 162 African-American and Latino elementary school boys--aggressive and nonaggressive--in grades 3 through 6. Subjects were randomly assigned to the attributional…

This study examined distinctions between self-esteem as a general attitude of self and the underlying self-beliefs which link the self with a positively or negatively valued attribute. It was hypothesized that black adolescents would have higher scores on the general self-esteem measure, while they would not have have higher scores on all specific…

Through a partnership with a large research institution, an historically Black university in the rural southeast transformed its Applied Psychology course from the traditional lecture format to a service learning experience. This new format integrates community service with academic instruction and focuses on developing critical thinking skills…

Studies were undertaken in four counties in North Carolina to determine if the learning styles of African American children described by J. Hale (formerly Hale-Benson) (1986) could be identified among African American high school males through the use of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Learning style differences between minority (n=184)…