Few preservice and beginning teachers are prepared for the diversity of today's classrooms. Educators must be aware of the many ways in which people are diverse and recognize that diversity is an enormous advantage. By 2010, 40 percent of students will be minorities. U.S. teachers are predominantly middle-class European Americans, yet one in four…

Reviews research on ability grouping, focusing on policies and practices that result in placing students in groups that are more or less homogeneous with respect to academic performance. It is concluded that ability grouping is ineffective at best and harmful to many students. It inhibits development of interracial respect. (SLD)

D. M. Stewart draws no implications for connecting African history and culture to academic achievement. Racism continues to exist; and only education that leads to cultural liberation, political solidarity, and economic strengths will prevail against it. Howard University must see itself as a center for academic and cultural excellence. (SLD)

This paper looks at the Teacher Education Equity Project, which was designed to bring gender equity to teacher education. Carried out from 1993 to 1996, the project worked with 61 teachers in 27 states who taught methods courses in mathematics, science, and technology to help them teach their preservice students about gender equity. The project…

This document contains a symposium paper and a conference paper. "Equal Opportunities and European Educational and Vocational Policy" explores the symposium theme of concepts of difference as it relates directly to the European discourse of equal opportunities and its influence on European educational and vocational policy. It outlines…

This critical qualitative study explored the obstacles older women encounter as they pursue doctorates. Introductory material identifies steps in a critical qualitative approach including monological data collection, preliminary reconstructive analysis, dialogical data generation, and description and explanation of system relationships. Four women…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined 60 school board members' perceptions of school desegregation and other policies aimed at enhancing the educational attainment of minority groups. Interviews were conducted with school board members in 12 American cities--Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Green Bay,…

This review of research focuses on policies and practices that result in placing students in groups that are more or less homogeneous with respect to academic performance. Recent analysis of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 provides the largest and best-controlled multi-year study of ability grouping ever conducted…

The use of classroom assessments in the context of the new assessment system for California schools, the California Learning Assessment System, is discussed by describing the California Learning Record (CLR). The CLR emphasizes the central role of teachers in equitable assessment of student learning for students of diverse cultural and ethnic…

This study examined issues of educational equity, emphasizing how native Hawaiian women came to be educators, how their experiences as pupils influenced their professional development as teachers, how their commitments developed over time, and how their professional development could be fostered in preservice and inservice settings. The five…

In recent years, there has been growing interest in helping teachers develop culturally responsive teaching strategies. This paper profiles crucial aspects of a culturally responsive pedagogy and proposes a holistic framework for integrating different levels of culture into culturally responsive teaching. A literature review examined 13 documents…

A study was done to determine the extent to which children in public high and low poverty schools receive similar services and levels of supports, and whether public schools receiving Chapter 1 assistance appear to have more services and support than do similar non-Chapter 1 schools. The study used data from the base year Schools and Staffing…

Since its introduction in 1988 the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the main public examination for pupils at age 16 in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, has become an obvious area in which to investigate gender-related differences in performance. As a complex attainment test, the GCSE is largely made up of a coursework…

This working paper reviews World Bank project experience in gender issues within higher education over the last two decades. The study's objectives were to: (1) assess the attention given by the Bank has given to gender issues in postsecondary education; (2) examine policies to increase women's access to postsecondary education; and (3)…

An abstract introduces this collection of three papers and two abstracts of papers from a symposium at which experts presented their viewpoints about the social, political, and economic issues surrounding the use of computers in schools. Each of the following five investigations provides an important perspective on such issues: (1) "Educational…