Literacy and reading performance in the United States, from 1880 to the present
TL;DR: The authors reviewed literacy and reading achievement trends over the past century and place current debates in a historical perspective, and suggested that students' reading performance at a given age remained stable until the 1970s and much of it can be explained by the changing demographics of test-takers.
Abstract: THE AUTHORS review literacy and reading achievement trends over the past century and place current debates in a historical perspective. Although then-and-now studies are methodologically weak, they suggest that students' reading performance at a given age remained stable until the 1970s. The test score decline that then occurred was not as great as many educators think, and much of it can be explained by the changing demographics of test-takers. The decline pales when compared to the tremendous increase in the population's educational attainment over the past 40 years. However, the strategy of ever-increasing schooling to meet ever-increasing literacy demands may have run its course. High school dropout rates are increasing, and educational attainment has leveled off. Researchers have identified substantial mismatches between workers' skills and job demands, and between job and school literacy skills. In spite of their flaws, functional literacy tests suggest that 20 percent of the adult population, or 30 million people, have serious difficulties with common reading tasks. Upgrading literacy skills now requires new initiatives by coalitions of educators, community groups, employers, and government agencies.
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2014
3 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the impact of Head Start and Chapter I on parent-child literacy involvement through interviews of parents whose children participated in the programs and recommended a more inclusive policy perspective on literacy learning that is sensitive to linguistic diversity and biculturalism.
Abstract: The impact of two federally funded education programs, Head Start and Chapter I, on parent‐child literacy involvement was examined through interviews of parents whose children participated in the programs. A more inclusive policy perspective on literacy learning that is sensitive to linguistic diversity and biculturalism is recommended.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the question: "does the Heckscher-Ohlin theory adequately account for the major aspects of the trade pattern observed prior to WWI, or are there other influences that mattered?" They conclude that although the perfect competition H-O model does not do all that well for the post-world war II period, it is perfectly adequate for the late nineteenth century, the period which motivated Eli F. Heckcher and Bertil Ohlin in the first place.
Abstract: espanolEn este ensayo se contrasta para una muestra dr 18 paises hacia 1913 una version estatica de la teoria de Heckscher-Ohlin, en la formulacion de Vanek. La conclusion alcanzada es que si bien el modelo de H-O con competencia perfecta no resulta plenamente explicativo para la segunda posguerra mundial, es muy adecuado, sin embargo, para los anos finales del siglo XIX y primeros del siglo XX. EnglishThis paper will focus on the question: ?does the Heckscher-Ohlin theory adequately account for the major aspects of the trade pattern observed prior to WWI, or are there other influences that mattered? I conclude that although the perfect competition H-O model does not do all that well for the post-world War II period, it is perfectly adequate for the late nineteenth century, the period which motivated Eli F. Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin in the first place.
3 citations
TL;DR: For example, this paper found that women developed a kind of "rhetoric of use" apart from other instrumental and secular literacies that were, in the late eighteenth century, practicable mainly by men.
Abstract: Recently, rhetoricians have engaged themselves in the project of revising histories of nineteenth-century American rhetoric so as to account for the practices of women. We wish to enlarge the scope of this project to include the late eighteenth century. Yet, to discover women's place in (or outside of) the rhetorical tradition in late eighteenth-century America, we cannot turn to familiar sources: for example, the college curricula that schooled early political and religious leaders. From this particular schooling, women were excluded. Nor can we study those textbooks that promoted reading and writing as commercial skills. Women were, for the most part, scarce in this realm as well.' Rather, for women there developed a kind of "rhetoric of use" apart from other instrumental and secular literacies that were, in the late eighteenth century, practicable mainly by men.2
2 citations
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Book•
01 Jul 1983TL;DR: In this article, the piedmont: textile mills and times of change, and the teaching of how to talk in Trackton and Roadville, are discussed, as well as the teachers as learners and the townspeople.
Abstract: Photographs, maps, figures, tables, texts Acknowledgments Prologue Note on transcriptions Part I. Ethnographer Learning: 1. The piedmont: textile mills and times of change 2. 'Gettin' on' in two communities 3. Learning how to talk in Trackton 4. Teaching how to talk in Roadville 5. Oral traditions 6. Literate traditions 7. The townspeople Part II. Ethnographer Doing: 8. Teachers as learners 9. Learners as ethnographers Epilogue Epilogue - 1996 Notes Bibliography Index.
4,564 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the piedmont: textile mills and times of change, and the teaching of how to talk in Trackton and Roadville, are discussed, as well as the teachers as learners and the townspeople.
Abstract: Photographs, maps, figures, tables, texts Acknowledgments Prologue Note on transcriptions Part I. Ethnographer Learning: 1. The piedmont: textile mills and times of change 2. 'Gettin' on' in two communities 3. Learning how to talk in Trackton 4. Teaching how to talk in Roadville 5. Oral traditions 6. Literate traditions 7. The townspeople Part II. Ethnographer Doing: 8. Teachers as learners 9. Learners as ethnographers Epilogue Epilogue - 1996 Notes Bibliography Index.
4,208 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1981
TL;DR: The Mismeasure of man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits, and yet the idea of innate limits-of biology as destiny-dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould.
Abstract: When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits-of biology as destiny-dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould. In this edition Dr. Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."
3,879 citations
Book•
16 Nov 1972
TL;DR: Most Americans say they believe in equality. But when pressed to explain what they mean by this, their definitions are usually full of contradictions as mentioned in this paper. But most Americans also believe that some people are more competent than others, and that this will always be so, no matter how much we reform society.
Abstract: Most Americans say they believe in equality. But when pressed to explain what they mean by this, their definitions are usually full of contradictions. Many will say, like the Founding Fathers, that “all men are created equal.” Many will also say that all men are equal “before God,” and that they are, or at least ought to be, equal in the eyes of the law. But most Americans also believe that some people are more competent than others, and that this will always be so, no matter how much we reform society. Many also believe that competence should be rewarded by success, while incompetence should be punished by failure. They have no commitment to ensuring that everyone’s job is equally desirable, that everyone exercises the same amount of political power, or that everyone receives the same income.
2,315 citations