Describes Public School 146, a public elementary school in New York City where the principal has created a school community that builds on the strengths of the parents and makes the school an extended family for each child. Describes special services, a student leadership program, and student achievement gains. (JB)

Using the example of the African-American community and its own distinctive voice, argues that schools can draw upon routine practices within the cultural life of communities to enhance the literature students' skills. This paper explores "signifying" and links between literature and talk in the African-American community. (JB)

Describes the Project LEAD: High Expectations! (PLHE) program, a targeted, nontraditional, primary prevention demonstration project that focuses on African-American youth who are children in one of five at-risk categories. Discusses the prevention curriculum, site selection, trainers, implementation, evaluation, and continuing efforts of the PLHE.…

Argues that much can be done to solve the problems of U.S. children by building on the lessons from past successes. Removing the risk factors we know how to remove can bring about improvements. Strategies are offered to build responsive programs that deal with children as part of families. (SLD)

Investigates the attitudes of urban mothers and junior high school students toward microcomputers and examines the relationship of sex and other factors to those attitudes. Both students and mothers were found to hold similarly positive attitudes toward computers, viewing computer knowledge as important for academic achievement and for future…

Reviews the rap song "Black Korea" by Ice Cube as a summation of interracial conflict in an environment of deteriorating opportunities and as an artifact of popular culture. How the hierarchy of racial power in the media and the marketplace shaped the dynamics of the conflicts is reviewed. (SLD)

Examines the relationship of self-esteem and cultural identity to psychosocial adjustment in African-American children through a literature review with an overview of identity research and a discussion of the development of self-esteem and cultural identity among African-American children. Implications for clinical and educational interventions…

Examines research on racial bias, focusing on the discretionary decision-making junctures of the juvenile court system. Research and statistics continue to suggest that the public, the police, the prosecution, and the jury all treat blacks more unfairly based to a large extent on race. (SLD)

The use of the Absence Registration System (ARS), a computer-assisted system that supports registration of absent students, and its effects on truancy were studied in 30 Dutch urban secondary schools. Reasons why results do not show a significant reduction in absenteeism are discussed. (SLD)

Examines methodological problems that metaphorical nonequivalence poses for cross-cultural survey research. Data from 1,105 urban ninth graders (including 105 Laotian Hmong) in St. Paul (Minnesota) illustrate problems of the translation of psychological instruments and the difficulties of administering a single instrument to culturally different…

Examined the perceptions of 70 urban and suburban African-American students regarding the influences on their decision making to participate or not participate in higher education. Findings show the importance of racial and cultural considerations and highlight the need for studying students' perceptions. (SLD)

The police, court officials, social workers, and the public in general perceive street children negatively: their behavior is deemed deviant. This paper examines the concept of deviance as a label placed on the powerless by those in positions of power. (Author)

Discusses Project YES, a model of urban programming that provides youth with a support structure wherein their voices about pressing social issues can be heard by a wider audience. Youths participate in project-based workshops in which they develop critical-thinking, problem-solving, leadership, and consensus-building skills. (GR)

Charter schools, performance contracts, and school choice programs are among the initiatives for change that can be made into an integrated program for reforming urban education, one that shifts from a bureaucratic and archaic system into a deregulated system that focuses on student performance. (SLD)

Urban school districts in the Northwest are not immune to the challenges facing inner city schools such as poverty, teacher shortages, and low test scores. Strategies for turning obstacles into opportunities for urban youth include recruiting strong school administrators, building a stable source of committed capable teachers, closing achievement…