Youth who experienced abuse may have significant differences from non-abused youth in social and academic development. Often research including abused adolescents focuses on youth in foster care, which limits the ability to generalize findings outside the foster care population. The current study compared social development and educational…

A new high school on a remote inland in Belize offers important educational opportunities to students who previously only had access to primary education. This qualitative case study applied Patterson's (2000) Culture of Poverty to understand challenges that exist that keep students from achieving their academic potential despite new opportunities…

While investigations of the impact of parental factors on children's career choices have identified variables that appear predictive of career choice in males, variables which influence career choice in females are less well documented. This study used social learning theory as a framework for examining the impact of parental reinforcement,…

Various conditions which mediate, exacerbate, or reverse the tendency for heavy television viewing to correlate with lower achievement scores among junior high and high school students were studied to determine which factors had the most direct effect on this correlation. The data for the study were collected between 1974 and 1977 from about 650…

A study examined the attitudes of Aboriginal students concerning their education and their perceptions of their parents' views of education. Questionnaires completed by 473 Aboriginal students in grades 6-10 from 22 urban and rural schools in Western Australia indicated that Aboriginal children had a positive attitude toward their schools and…

This paper examines rural high school students' educational and occupational expectations and their relationships to personal, educational, school, and family characteristics. Questionnaires were distributed to all 10th and 12th graders in four small rural high schools in diverse geographic regions of Ohio. Almost all of the 491 respondents were…

A pilot study was conducted to develop a reasonably complete picture of young women as they assessed their parent's influence on them, viewed their futures, and reported on their own communicative behavior. Eighteen single, white, midwestern college women between the ages of 18 and 23 were the subjects of the study. To obtain a maximum amount of…

The study examined antecedents to high educational achievement of 42 selected Mexican Americans (university professors, third-year law students, and third- and fourth-year medical students) in 5 southwestern universities (4 in California and 1 in New Mexico). Two related considerations prompted the investigation: failure of many Mexican Americans…

A study examined rural students' academic aspirations and expectations, their perceptions of their parents' aspirations and expectations, and their parents' actual aspirations and expectations. Surveys were completed by 3,733 seventh grade-students in 54 schools in 17 West Virginia counties. Parent response rates were lower, with approximately two…

Parent and student surveys were conducted in nine primarily rural West Virginia counties to gather baseline information on incoming seventh-grade students' and parents' awareness of and aspirations for postsecondary education. The surveys are administered each year as part of Fairmont State College's GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness…

A summary is presented of the literature on motivation relating to achievement in the classroom. Special attention is given to how values, ideology, and various cultural patterns may serve to enhance motivation to achieve in the classroom. In considering what determines motivation and personal investment in educational pursuits, the following…

This study explored mothers' beliefs about their children's educational and occupational futures, and it examined relationships between mothers' beliefs and children's academic achievement and between mothers' beliefs and maternal perceptions of parental responsibilities. A sample of 141 mothers and their first- or fourth-grade child participated…

In addition to summarizing the last decade's findings on the effects of maternal employment on children, this paper integrates these data with results from earlier studies. Findings are summarized according to the age of the child (i.e., infants, preschoolers, elementary school children, and adolescents). Findings related to infants and…

This study examined variables related to college predisposition among students of different ethnic groups who attended schools enrolling high percentages of minority students and high percentages of students participating in free or subsidized school lunch programs. It is based on a subset of data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal…

To investigate the social context of education for low-income Southerners, a study concentrating on white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in a rural Southern mill village in general, and on 22 white 10th grade children and their parents in particular, used a combination of ethnographic techniques and standardized interview questions. Responses concerning…