The Interactive Relationship Between Class Identity and the College Experience: The Case of Lower Income Students

To probe the role that college context plays in influencing the class-based aspects of identity for lower income students, we interviewed 30 lower income students, 15 from an elite college and 15 from a state college. Significant disparities of wealth between students at the elite college heightened awareness of class, and led to feelings of intimidation, discomfort, inadequacy, deficiency, exclusion, and powerlessness among lower income students, feelings that were less prevalent among state college students. Students at both colleges acquired new forms of cultural capital and coped with class-based discontinuities between who they were before college and who they were becoming, but these issues became heightened for the elite college students.     

The Diverse Experiences of Hispanic Students in the American Educational System

Hispanic students have long been considered at risk in the American educational system. A better understanding of the diverse experiences of Hispanics can help to counteract this risk—in what ways, and where, do they do well or poorly or some mixture of both? To further this understanding, this study applies developmental and demographic perspectives to a representative sample of Hispanic high school students. First, analyses of the sample identified four student profiles based on various indicators of academic achievement and school orientation: (1) low-achieving and weakly oriented, (2) low-achieving and strongly oriented, (3) high-achieving and moderately oriented, (4) high achieving and strongly oriented. Second, compositional analyses mapped these profiles onto different segments of the Hispanic population and different sectors of the American educational system.     

The World Bank,INGOs, and Civil Society: Converging Agendas? The Case of Universal Basic Education in Niger

This paper explores, through a case study of the World Bank's pursuit of universal basic education, the gulf between the Bank's dialogue with international civil society elites and its treatment of grassroots civil society in its development practice. It argues that the World Bank is pursuing a conscious program to build a global elite governance system similar to Bank vice-president J. F. Rischard's concept of global issues networks, in which experts from business, government, and civil society will set globally binding social and economic policies. There is a risk of co-optation of international NGOs into this autocratic global managerial system.     

Assessing the Reliability and Validity of the Jump$tart Survey of Financial Literacy

Financial education represents an area of popular interest, owing largely to the Jump$tart surveys of financial literacy. However, while the surveys represent indicators of financial knowledge among high school seniors, these measures have not been statistically validated. This article describes an assessment of the surveys reliability (internal consistency), and validity. It reports a moderately high degree of consistency overall, however, discloses low to moderate internal consistencies among subscales. It also finds significant response differences to one quarter of comparable items between surveys. The researcher observes challenges to affirming the surveys validity and offers statistics suggesting social bias among survey items. He calls for further research into measures of financial literacy.The author appreciates the guidance and support of Dr. Duane Giannangelo, Dr. Jean Steiz, Dr. Lou Franceschini, and Dr. Steven Ross.     

The Relationship Between Wife’s Education and Husband’s Earnings: Evidence from 1960 to 2000

Previous research finds a positive relationship between a wife’s education and her husband’s earnings using data from the 1960s. Earlier theories suggest that benefits accrue from informational sharing between partners in a marriage. This paper tests the hypothesis that a wife’s education is positively associated with her husband’s earnings, using data from the 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses. Between 1960 and 2000, the educational attainment and labor-force participation of married women has increased dramatically. As women have embarked upon their own careers, has their education continued to be positively associated with their husbands’ earnings? Yes. The coefficient of the wife’s education remains positive and significant for all the years under study. The size of the coefficient decreases, however, from 1960 to 2000.     

“The Motherhood Wage Gap for Women in the United States: The Importance of College and Fertility Delay”

One of the stylized facts from the past 30 years has been the declining rate of first births before age 30 for all women and the increase rate of first births after age 30 among women with four-year college degrees (Steven P. Martin, Demography, 37(4), 523–533, 2000). What are some of the factors behind womens decision to postpone their childbearing? We hypothesize that the wage difference often observed between like-educated mothers and non-mothers (Jane Waldfogel, Journal of Labor Economics, 16, 505–545, 1998a; Journal of Economic Perspectives 12(1) 137–156, 1998b) may be affected by the postponement of childbearing until after careers are fully established. Hence, we focus on college-educated women because they are typically more career-oriented than their non-college educated counterparts and also the group most often observed postponing maternity. We use individual-level data on women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) in order to control for individual-level unobserved heterogeneity as well as human capital characteristics, such as actual work experience, in our empirical analysis. We estimate wage equations, first producing base-line results to compare to the existing literature. Then, we expand the basic wage equation model to address fundamental econometric issues and the education/fertility issue at hand. Our empirical findings are two-fold. First, we find that college-educated mothers do not experience a motherhood wage penalty at all. In fact, they enjoy a wage boost when compared to college-educated childless women. Second, fertility delay enhances this wage boost even further. Our results provide an explanation for the observed postponement of maternity for educated women. We argue that the wage boost experienced by college-educated mothers may be the result of their search for family–friendly work environments, which, in turn, yields job matches with more female-friendly firms offering greater opportunities for advancement.JEL Codes: J13 and J3     

Networking of Intellectual Capital in Southeast Europe: Boosting the Transition to Meritocratic Societies

Being aware that brain drain is perceived as a menace for national economies in the region of Southeast Europe, this paper will closely address the possible beneficial aspects of highly skilled migration and ways to achieve regional sustainability utilising this kind of migratory movement. In this sense, the appearence of a scientific diaspora and other knowledge networks would be stressed not just as a crucial result of their migration but also as a potential method of deriving benefits that can ensure development and consolidation of a meritocratic society. The process would be elaborated in the context of the regional integration with the European Union and accepting inherent standards, but also in the context of the wider social reforms which contain a transition process as whole. The paper will try to argue that civil societies in the region have the capacity to utilise accumulated human capital in the networks to a more significant extent.     

试论高校“两课”中英文双语教学的实践意义

在高等学校"两课"教学中开展中英文双语教学有利于实现传授理论知识与培养实践能力相结合,帮助大学生深刻地理解"两课"的教学内容,培养学生的理论创新能力,有利于推动中国高等教育走向国际化、现代化.     

视频点击流数据挖掘在远程教育中的应用

Web数据挖掘已经成为数据挖掘技术一个重要的应用领域,文章主要通过对远程教育网站的视频点击流日志文件进行数据挖掘,寻求用户访问规律,构建动态的个性化教育网站.     

三个面向:21世纪高校德育创新之路——学习邓小平教育理论的一点体会

以知识创新为重要特征的 2 1世纪 ,对人才素质提出了更新更高的要求。高校德育也应跟上时代的步伐 ,克服传统模式的弊端 ,走出一条 2 1世纪高校德育创新之路。高校德育只有以邓小平教育理论为指导 ,从邓小平“三个面向”的战略指导思想中吸取精华 ,实现工作目标、工作视野和工作观念的全面转变 ,才能建立起适应时代发展潮流的创新机制