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This landmark volume commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the Children’s Defense Fund, which has been an uncompromising champion of American youth for all of those years. Yet the book looks not to the past but at our current circumstances—and at the challenges we must meet now and in the future on behalf of our young people. The book examines critical issues—prenatal and infant health and development, early child care and education, school reform, the achievement gap, vulnerable children, juvenile justice, and child poverty—and highlights crucial practical and policy measures we need to consider and undertake if we are to better serve American children. An invaluable survey of the conditions facing American youth—and a call to action at the local, state, and national levels—Improving the Odds for America’s Children is an urgent, informative, and inspired volume that addresses shortcomings and challenges we cannot afford to ignore. Contributors include Sara Rosenbaum, Partow Zomorrodian, Jack P. Shonkoff, Joan Lombardi, Deborah Jewell- Sherman, Jal Mehta, Robert B. Schwartz, Jerry D. Weast, Greg J. Duncan, Richard J. Murnane, Michael S. Wald, Jane Waldfogel, Robert G. Schwartz, Laurence Steinberg, Arloc Sherman, Robert Greenstein, Sharon Parrott, and Eric Dearing.
Many African American males are headed down the wrong paths in school and society, but that's mostly because we as a community do not understand the challenges they face. In this guide, Dr. Alfred Brinkley, an African American studies scholar and alternative school administrator, explores how to boost the odds of success for at-risk, African American males. He focuses on helping teachers, parents, and students to promote a lifetime love of reading; narrow the achievement gap; encourage self-esteem and intrinsic motivation; and hone parenting and mentoring skills. Leaving your comfort zone and learning why this group of students needs support can better equip you to establish a relationship based on mutual respect. Educating, inspiring, and motivating at-risk African American males requires a support system that can prepare them to succeed. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders can begin to do their part with Courageous Expectations.
The American family has come a long way from the days of the idealized family portrayed in iconic television shows of the 1950s and 1960s. The four volumes of The Social History of the American Family explore the vital role of the family as the fundamental social unit across the span of American history. Experiences of family life shape so much of an individual’s development and identity, yet the patterns of family structure, family life, and family transition vary across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. Both the definition of who or what counts as family and representations of the “ideal” family have changed over time to reflect changing mores, changing living standards and lifestyles, and increased levels of social heterogeneity. Available in both digital and print formats, this carefully balanced academic work chronicles the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of American families from the colonial period to the present. Key themes include families and culture (including mass media), families and religion, families and the economy, families and social issues, families and social stratification and conflict, family structures (including marriage and divorce, gender roles, parenting and children, and mixed and non-modal family forms), and family law and policy. Features: Approximately 600 articles, richly illustrated with historical photographs and color photos in the digital edition, provide historical context for students. A collection of primary source documents demonstrate themes across time. The signed articles, with cross references and Further Readings, are accompanied by a Reader’s Guide, Chronology of American Families, Resource Guide, Glossary, and thorough index. The Social History of the American Family is an ideal reference for students and researchers who want to explore political and social debates about the importance of the family and its evolving constructions.
While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given a fair chance to be prepared for college. In communities across the U.S., children lack the crucial resources and opportunities, inside and outside of schools that they need if they are to reach their potential. Closing the Opportunity Gap offers accessible, research-based essays written by top experts who highlight the discrepancies that exist in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and life circumstances conspire to create the "opportunity gap" that leads inexorably to stark achievement gaps. They also describe sensible policies grounded in evidence that can restore and enhance opportunities. Moving beyond conventional academic discourse, Closing the Opportunity Gap will spark vital new conversations about what schools, parents, educators, and policymakers can and should do to give all children a fair chance to thrive.
This report analyses the individual and environmental factors that contribute to child vulnerability. It calls on OECD countries to develop and implement cross-cutting well-being strategies that focus on empowering vulnerable families; strengthening children’s emotional and social skills; strengthening child protection; improving children’s health and educational outcomes; and reducing child poverty and material deprivation.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
Schools, today, are in the midst of the most major, costly educational reform movement in their history as they grapple with the federal mandates to leave no children behind, says author Susan B. Neuman, former Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education under President George W. Bush. Although some efforts for investing resources will be substantially more productive than others, there is little evidence that, despite many heroic attempts to beat the odds, any of these efforts will close more than a fraction of the differences in achievement for poor minority children and their middleclass peers. As Neuman explains in this insightful, revealing book, schools will fail, not due to the soft bigotry of low expectations, but because there are multitudes of children growing up in circumstances that make them highly vulnerable. Children who come to school from dramatically unequal circumstances leave school with similarly unequal skills and abilities. In these pages, however, Neuman shows how the odds can be changed, how we can break the cycle of poverty and disadvantage for children at risk After laying the critical groundwork for the need for change—excessive waste with little effect—this book provides a vivid portrait of changing the odds for high-poverty children. Describing how previous reforms have missed the mark, it offers a framework based on seven essential principles for implementing more effective programs and policies. Building on successes while being fiscally responsible is a message that has been shown to have wide bipartisan appeal, embraced by both liberals and conservatives. Following Neuman's essential principles, chapters describe programs for changing the odds for children, when the cognitive gaps are beginning to form, in these earliest years of their lives. In a highly readable style, Neuman highlights programs that are making a difference in children's lives across the country, weaving together narratives that tell a compelling story of hope and promise for our most disadvantaged children.
Having the knowledge and capacity to deliver therapy to a diverse population is recognized as benefiting client-therapist relationships and producing positive clinical outcomes. In fact, the APA requires that psychologists be aware of and respect the cultural characteristics of their clients which includes psychologists being aware of any biases and prejudice they may hold. Being aware of cultural characteristics, which include age, gender, ethnicity, race, religion and other cultural factors, is important. In the United States, minority ethnic groups are growing substantially, with 28% of the U.S. population identifying as races other than white (U.S. Census, 2016). Additionally, approximately 65 million people in America speak a foreign language that is not English, with over 25 million people having limited English language proficiency. With a diverse pool of clients, helping professionals should be better prepared to work with diverse clients. This handbook offers clinicians a comprehensive resource with which to work with diverse populations. The myriad discussions among the chapters include: Ethical guidelines for working with culturally diverse clients Cultural considerations in psychological assessment and evaluation Behavioral health service delivery with culturally diverse clients Cross-cultural factors in the treatment of trauma related disorders Cultural considerations in the assessment and behavioral treatment of substance use disorders Handbook of Cultural Factors in Behavioral Health expertly offers clinicians a comprehensive set of resources and tools that will assist them working with diverse clients. Clinicians working with culturally diverse clients, as well as researchers and students learning about how cultural factors are relevant to the helping profession will all find this volume an integral addition to their library.
Improving Schools for African American Students is designed to provide educational leaders with a better understanding of how to recognize the diversity of strengths that Black students bring with them to school and how to use these strengths to improve achievement. The articles contained in this book discuss generic education issues such as policy reform, the importance of high quality teaching, and the improvement of schools from the perspective of the academic achievement of African American students. Part I explores institutional racism in the context of America's public schools and provides suggestions for educational leaders to eliminate harmful policies and practices within educational institutions and settings. Part II discusses the kinds of institutional and instructional changes that are needed to support successful schooling of African American children and youth. Part III focuses on the challenges presented to African American students by the current high stakes testing environment that surrounds standards, assessment, and accountability. A review of the literature on schools that have succeeded in improving achievement for African American students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels with districts moving towards narrowing the achievement gap is included. This text examines a wide variety of policies, programs, practices, and research that will provide valuable insight. The emphasis throughout the book is on the ability of educators to successfully restructure their schools, offer high quality teaching and learning standards for African American students and to make the kinds of changes that will result in high achievement for all students.