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This paper uses the concept of paradigm to examine the current state of School Improvement and its relationship to quantitative School Effectiveness studies. It argues that a significant and explicit paradigm change occurred in the early 1990s, resulting in a managerialist approach; a reductionist use of the concept culture; and an inadequate response to the challenges of poverty and under-achievement. Some arguments are presented to show how this paradigm relates to a broader neo-liberal context, and an alternative paradigm is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policy intervention for schools in high poverty neighbourhoods has focused on the capacity of local schools to make a difference and on the kinds of co-ordinated human services provision that might support individual families with “high needs”. In this paper I suggest that a more detailed analysis of “the problem” represented in such schools might yield a richer and more integrated policy approach. I use the notion of “scale”, arbitrary and imperfect approximations of spheres of activity, and apply it to a specific context in Adelaide, South Australia, to demonstrate the connections between the local school and factors which impinge on its capacities to make a positive difference. I suggest that the implication of the analysis is a more holistic approach to policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ruby Payne, CEO of aha! Process, Inc., and author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty (2005), has become one of the most influential figures in the U.S. public education milieu. Payne's framework, built largely upon understanding the "culture" of poverty, instructs educators on the values and mindsets poor students carry into the classroom as well as how to help them develop middle-class values and culture. But despite Payne's popularity, scholars and activists representing a wide variety of disciplines, from critical theory to mathematics education, have been highly critical of her work. In this essay I synthesize the existing critiques, dividing them into "eight elements of oppression" in Payne's work. I then offer a vision for a more authentic framework - one for authenticating anti-poverty education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational failure is one of the costliest and most visible problems associated with ghetto poverty. We explore whether housing assistance that: helps low-income families move to better neighborhoods can also improve access to good schools. Research on the Gautreaux housing desegregation program indicated significant, long-term educational benefits, yet results from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment showed no measurable impacts on school outcomes for the experimental group. We use interviews and ethnographic fieldwork to explore this puzzle. Most MTO families did not relocate to communities with substantially better schools, and those who did often moved again after a few years. Where parents had meaningful school choices, these were typically driven by poor information obtained from insular social networks or by cultural logic centered on avoiding ghetto-type school insecurity and disorder, not garnering academic opportunity. Those factors may not shift if poor families with less educated parents are served by a relocation-only strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to draw attention to "missing dimensions" of poverty data - dimensions that are of value to poor people, but for which we have scant or no data. Amartya Sen frames development as the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value. Although the most widely known measure of human development includes income, longevity and education, many have argued that people's values, and consequently multidimensional poverty, extend beyond these domains. In order to advance these multiple areas, it is at times necessary to conduct empirical studies using individual or household-level data on multiple dimensions of poverty. A critical barrier for international analyses of multidimensional poverty is that few or no high-quality indicators are available across countries and respondents in key domains that are deeply important to poor people and of potentially critical instrumental importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following essay seeks to highlight the use of engaged qualitative community-based research in education to respond to conditions of structural inequality. As "the politics of interruption", the process of creating neighborhood public high schools is centred in community accountability. Responsibility in this mode "interrupts" the resurgence of theories of social disorganization, social isolation, social detachment, and culture of poverty used to stereotype working-class/low income African American and Latino/a communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the significant characteristics of many poor neighbourhoods is that the schools which serve them are characterised by poor performance in terms of attainment and other measures. This feature is seen as critical in the reinforcement of disadvantage, its transmission between generations, and as a barrier to social integration. Government policies in the UK have increasingly targeted improved school standards and performance, while other policies on urban regeneration and housing may interact with this issue. This paper examines the particular role of homeownership tenure alongside the other factors (notably poverty) which affect school attainment. After reviewing existing literature it presents new analyses of attainment based on linked pupil, school and small area-level datasets for selected areas in both England and Scotland. This provides some evidence to support the contention that homeownership has an additional effect on school attainment, beyond that explained by poverty and other associated variables, although there is some uncertainty about how separable these effects are at school or neighbourhood levels. It also points out the significant role of changing tenure mix in housing regeneration in transforming the overall profile of neighbourhoods and schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are indications that poor people may face obstacles to their rural-urban migration. This article pursues the question of whether this is the case in the South African context. It argues for the importance of longitudinal data, which are not available at present, to answer this question conclusively. Levels of education can be used as a proxy for income levels, and the article examines recently published multivariate data in this regard. However, using education as a proxy for income is problematic, because education has an independent effect on migration rates through its selection of those with the skill levels demanded by the labour market. The article develops an argument about the constraining effects of the costs of migration and the role of social networks in migration and ends by demonstrating how the costs of migration can solve a number of puzzles presented by empirical research on migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite strenuous attempts made by the New Labour government in the UK to progress towards its goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020, educational outcomes for disadvantaged children remain depressed compared to those of more advantaged children. The fact that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are at much greater risk of language delay, which is a key predictor of poorer educational outcomes, indicates that there is a fundamental need to enhance the language abilities of these children in their early years in order to improve educational progress. This paper discusses the extent to which two new major UK policy initiatives may impact on this situation, namely the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage, a new curricular framework for children aged from birth to five, and the development of the Early Years Professional role, seen as key to the implementation of this framework. The discussion concludes that due to insufficiently rigorous conceptual underpinnings, especially in the area of language and communication, these innovations seem unlikely to deliver the type of language-enriched preschool environments necessary to enhance the linguistic capabilities of the poorest children in UK society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for skills development and training in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing in an area where unstable economies and high unemployment create challenges on many levels. Sub-Saharan Africa is faced with great poverty, skills migration, and HIV/AIDS, which are depleting the region of skilled workers in their prime working years. The region is facing numerous challenges in the development of skills and the ability to make use of the available human resources. It can be argued that the Sub-Saharan African region needs to increase the skilled labour pool and to develop communities. Perhaps most importantly, there is an urgent need for the region to face the impact of globalization on its own terms. This involves the fusion of African philosophy and management styles with the traditional Western theories with human resource development (HRD) strategies and policies that will be suitable for the developing economies in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the Fair Go Project, research into student engagement among primary school students living in poor communities in South-Western Sydney, Australia. Taking as a starting point recent work into classroom pedagogies (Productive Pedagogies) and drawing on Bernstein's concept of classrooms as message systems, the research has developed a framework that aims to consider and evaluate ways that teachers' classroom practices can send out messages to interrupt the discourses of power that have historically worked against poor students. The Fair Go Project's proposal is that when this happens, there are real chances that these students might develop a consciousness that school is for me, rather than one of defeat, struggle and giving up. The paper describes the theoretical and empirical development of the framework, and illustrates through research data its use in a number of classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there has been considerable scholarship on the role of school and district leadership within instructional change, there has been little analysis of the values and orientations that undergird current policy debates about instructional leadership. This article outlines the importance of examining instructional leadership in the context of broader political and cultural debates about government and about how society should be organized. It identifies two distinct models of instructional leadership emerging as part of these dynamics: the market model and the polis model. Drawing on interviews and observations with 59 school staff across three cities and with 55 district administrators, it examines the tensions that these competing models create for school administrators working in improving schools within high poverty communities. In each district, system-wide press to improve instruction activated district management practices that contradicted reform goals of building a professional community of educators and administrators focused on teaching and learning. Further, how district staff viewed and approached their work departed in significant ways from the management practices of school administrators. Based on this research, the article identifies the importance of administrators' professional contexts in studies of instructional leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2002, while briefing the press in Lusaka, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) official warned Zambia to brace itself for increased sex work, crime and exploitation if food contingency measures were not immediately addressed. UNICEF feared the food and water crisis and increasing poverty in the country's southern province might create a new set of social problems for women and children. MAPODE (Movement of Community Action for the Prevention and Protection of Young People Against Poverty, Destitution, Diseases and Exploitation), an organisation running a street children and sex worker outreach programme in Lusaka City, was not surprised by UNICEF's concern. That same year, the organisation had conducted a study on sex work and trafficking of women and children in Zambia. This focus relies on these findings, pointing to the link between poverty, sex work, trafficking and the global sex industry. It contextualises these issues by pointing to gender and feminist concepts and proposed prevention and protection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In bringing together two important contemporary preoccupations, namely the development of new approaches to leadership and the push to ‘personalization’, this paper argues against the poverty of much contemporary work on personalization. In its stead it proposes an approach to leadership and management grounded, firstly, on a particular view of how we become persons and, secondly and commensurately, on a particular view of education and human flourishing. It offers a four-fold typology and practical framework severally identifying ‘impersonal’, ‘affective’, ‘high performance’ and ‘person-centred’ approaches to leadership and management. Having considered the first two it goes on to explore the third and most dangerous organizational type, the high performance learning organization, which currently dominates much of contemporary advocacy and practice. It then argues for what it suggests is a more satisfactory alternative, the person-centred learning community. Having acknowledged the dangers of what it calls ‘the soulful turn’ in leadership and management it then sketches out some of the key features of what it takes a person-centred approach to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a definition of poverty and identifies effects of poverty on individuals. It also describes a theological perspective of poverty and identifies certain curricular and pedagogical ways educators may make preferential options for the poor. Educators can make practical pedagogical and curricular choices as they relate to making a preferential option by acting in the reality of viewing students, and ceasing gossip and excluding use of stereotypical language about others.

The persistence of rural poverty in Guatemala since the early 1990s challenges the purported association between agricultural export growth and poverty alleviation. Lack of access to education, health and credit, and the historical legacies of land inequality, labour exploitation and ethnic discrimination, are preventing growth from reaching the rural poor. Most analyses, including the World Bank's recent ‘Poverty in Guatemala’ report, fail to consider how the economic and political power of the country's economic elite perpetuate and exacerbate poverty. A focus on two of Guatemala's most dynamic agro-export sectors — sugar and snow peas ( mange-tout ), both reputed to have had a significant impact on poverty alleviation — reveals the limits on pro-poor growth. Policy recommendations to promote pro-poor growth that are derived from the analysis include full implementation of the labour code, a national land-titling programme, and cultural programmes to change elite attitudes towards poverty and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. American schoolchildren show tremendous academic as well as intra and interpersonal behavioral differences in the classroom. Current service delivery models within schools may be insufficient to meet the demand and diversity of students' needs, especially in schools serving students placed at risk by adverse life circumstances, such as poverty. This article presents empirical findings about the range of normal behavioral variability within schools serving students at risk. Our findings suggest that a population-based perspective on behavioral adjustment captured this variability and was useful in predicting children's educational risk status. Our data are best explained by a model associating behavioral risk and educational status that aligns with prevention-oriented service delivery approaches specifying the needs for universal, selected, and indicated interventions in schools. We discuss our findings relative to the needs for schools to afford timely and efficient use of academic supports and mental health resources in schools serving children placed at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most educators are familiar with the principles of one of the founding mothers of peace education, Maria Montessori. Bringing an utterly fresh vision to notions of childhood and education, she re-imagined the classroom as one in which children would explore and discover their own interests and passions. With regard to conflict resolution, she specifically stated that such an education made the continuation of man’s seemingly endless cycle of war and poverty more likely to continue: further, she argued that if education truly could develop ethically and socially conscious men and women, whose moral sense had been developed as fully as their ability to read and write, mankind could begin hoping for a more peaceful world. The following profiles of international Montessori schools should help clarify the processes an educational philosophy goes through when it is adopted by another culture—essential knowledge as education becomes increasingly global—as well as the contributions of today’s Montessori schools to the development of international-mindedness in students and teachers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1995, author Earl Shorris established a small educational program designed to help young adults escape from poverty. The curriculum chosen by Shorris for this experimental program focused solely on a classically based, college-level study in the humanities. While I do not find that Shorris provided proof that a classically inspired course in the humanities provides an effective and efficient way to escape poverty, the course drew much needed attention to conditions that surround poverty in America, and also made a compelling case for challenging long-standing assumptions about who is capable of benefiting from a rigorous, academic curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In earlier ‘humanitarian’ accounts, Britain’s voluntary blind institutions exemplified successful nineteenth-century philanthropy and later became effective partners of the state. From the 1970s, Victorian charity came increasingly under criticism and subsequent studies on disability condemn the exclusion and utilitarian training of a Foucauldian ‘Age of Confinement’. Recent defences of the private record in blind welfare and education claim voluntarism’s survival proves its value and strengths. Social responses to blindness have often been complex and those involved in the early education of the blind should not be judged too categorically. The comparative poverty of Britain’s overall provision may be explained by the long absence of the state but positive initiatives did emerge. Worcester College’s pupils attained academic excellence and encouraging attempts at integration by some school boards demonstrated an alternative to confinement. The relatively small impact of these experiments, nationally, was attributable to particular elements in Britain’s educational culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All members of the United Nations have pledged to meet eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015. This study looks at the MDG objectives and linkages between poverty, education, access to water, and household water use based on primary data collected in Madagascar. We find strong links between these MDGs. Better educated and higher income households rely significantly more on private water supplies and use significantly more water. Econometric results show that, for poorer households who rely on public sources, improving access to public water taps (by reducing the distance to such a water source) would not alter dramatically water use patterns. Improved access does free up a significant amount of time that could contribute to poverty reduction. The willingness of households to pay for improved access is very price sensitive, probably because of the liquidity constraints of these households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is rooted in many mothers' experiences with their children's schooling and how they affect their ability to work in this era of welfare reform. Responding to problems identified by women participating in a welfare-to-work program, this paper explores the realities of children's schooling and its effects on their mothers' work from the perspectives of ten women of color. The study reveals that personal, interpersonal, and systemic factors such as ADHD, gang involvement, peer pressure, inappropriate teaching practices, and social promotion impede their children's learning in school. To address these issues, the mothers help with homework, sit in on classes, advocate, and problem-solve tirelessly. These issues and tasks require a considerable amount of some mothers' time, and affect their ability to get or retain work especially when they are called at work by school authorities. While no study has reported children's education as a possible impediment to mothers' work, we believe this preliminary study's central findings deserve more systematic inquiry to honor and address the lived experiences of poor women of color as they respond to welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by human capital, socialization, and institutionalization theories, this study examined mid-life health and economic well-being of General Education Development (GED) certificate recipients. Relying on a study sample (N = 1,927) obtained from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, GED recipients were found to have worse mid-life outcomes than conventional high school graduates on measures of family income and depression and to have better mid-life outcomes than high school dropouts on measures of assets, family income, depression, and self-reported physical illnesses. Findings suggested that GED recipients should not be unnecessarily lumped together with high school graduates and that programs and services targeting potential and subsequent GED recipients and high school dropouts to remain in school might not only improve their mid-life labor market and economic outcomes, but also their physical and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pathologizing the Poor: A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne's Work The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. - Gustavo Gutiérrez [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study sought to investigate the effects of employment on low-income single black mothers and their preschool children. The sample included 90 mothers from New York City communities who were welfare recipients in 1996, and followed two years later. At follow-up, 53 of the 90 mothers were employed. The findings indicated that lower levels of depressive affect or financial strain were not predictive of entry into the work force. However, once employed, mothers reported less depressive symptoms than those not working. Attaining more education predicted better outcomes for mothers and their children, and provided more of an opportunity to be successful in the job market. For example, having more education was associated with gaining employment, exiting welfare, having stable employment, earning higher wages, and better reading abilities in children. Maternal employment was beneficial to children, as mothers who entered the work force had children who performed better in math achievement at follow-up, after controlling for maternal socioeconomic characteristics and school readiness at baseline. Implications of the findings will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on research into the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa. The research investigated whether, through being active members of this social movement, HIV‐positive activists learn things they could not otherwise learn about their status and the epidemic, and how they put such knowledge to use. We show how activists develop a critical understanding of the underlying causes of their ill health and its link to economic poverty and global politics. The paper concludes by suggesting that adult educators can assume direct responsibility for poverty reduction by working in and with social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article provides statistical estimates of the level of relative poverty over time in the Western Cape province of South Africa, using data sets from Statistics South Africa. It seems that relatively large numbers of Black and Coloured households are chronically poor, and that substandard education and living conditions are likely to be causing this situation. The authors propose short-term and long-term poverty alleviation plans that aim to increase accessibility to social services and to raise educational levels, to ensure sustainable livelihoods for the people concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Mexico's Program for Education, Health and Nutrition (Progresa), as an example of neo-liberal trends influencing poverty alleviation initiatives. The stated goal of the program was to break the intergenerational cycles of poverty. This end was to be achieved by investing in the basic capacities of the poor, particularly poor women and their children. Basic capacities were to be developed through cash transfers for improved nutrition, scholarships for children, and preventative health measures. The key concern of this paper, how- ever, is to examine how cash transfers for human capital development are more than instruments of poverty reduction. Rather, cash transfers are also techniques that effect a new way of governing individual con- duct. The intended effect of Progresa was a change in the subjectivity of poor women from the passive recipients of aid to empowered market subjects who were now given the freedom to make choices, albeit limited choices. However, subjects could now also be regulated through the choices they make. The Progresa program can be said to represent a government through freedom, which in turn signals a shift from governing through the direct administration of state institutions [read "passive"I to that of governing through the "active" and responsible choices of individuals and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars, especially those located in Latin America, argue for a new rurality, one that entails changed rural-urban relations and decreasing reliance by rural residents on small-scale farming. Based on an examination of the impacts of three subsidy programs aimed at residents living near Mexico's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, I suggest these changes reinforce a continued rural poverty. The programs include a series of "conservation-development" initiatives whose architects hoped would decrease the pressure slash-and-bum farmers placed on area forests. In addition, residents of this area participated in agricultural and school subsidies. I compare the relative impact of all these programs on household incomes and consider both the opportunities for social capital these programs represented and their role in the purported "new rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Cuba has experienced difficult economic times, This paper examines the survival strategies that Cuban women have developed for making ends meet. Through working in the dollar economy and using extensive household networks of support, Cuban mothers are able to negotiate the demands of being both caregivers and wage earners. Furthermore, Cuban women's partnership with the state and the Cuban state's assistance to its citizens in the form of subsidized child care, education, health care, housing, and food enables households to survive despite difficult economic times, unlike the trends in the privatization in state services, seen elsewhere in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses cross-national data to investigate the extent to which the adoption of human development strategies has resulted in a reduction of poverty in Africa. Inter-country variations in income and human poverty reinforce the established patterns of well-being within the continent, as countries in Northern and Southern Africa have the lowest levels of poverty. The empirical analysis reveals that inter- country differences in poverty levels can be accounted for by variables indicative of the different facets of human development. These include public expenditure on education, primary school enrolment, female educational enrolment, expenditure on health, and good governance. Other significant variables apart from those pertaining to human development are economic growth, high external debt, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and the geographical disadvantage of being a landlocked country. The paper also shows that foreign aid has had a limited effect on poverty reduction in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on poverty and inequality in the U.S. The people in need of resources the most, get the least. And conversely, the more advantages people have, the easier they will find it to access resources. This skewed arrangement is most apparent in the nation's schools. There are policies and practices in place, from the way schools are funded to how poor children are taught and treated in schools, that warp the educational experiences of poor school children across this nation. Schools should be a place where children, regardless of their socio- economic status, find support and encouragement as they grow, learn and gain confidence in their abilities. Sadly, all too often this is not true for children living in poverty.

The article presents a discussion related to peace educators. Peace educators teach about peace, what the obstacles are to peace and how to achieve it. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, peace education took many forms. In Ireland, it is called education for mutual understanding. In Israel, peace educators bring Arabs and Jews together to share their disparate views of a common history. In India, peace education is often equated with Gandhian studies. In African countries peace educators talk about the sources of poverty and how to raise the standard of living. In the U.S., conflict resolution education is being widely adopted to reduce interpersonal violence in schools.

Copyright of Building Research & Information is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The fact that children growing up in poverty are likely to be in the lower ranges of achievement on standardised literacy tests is not a new phenomenon. Internationally there are a myriad of intervention and remedial programmes designed to address this problem with a range of effects. Frequently, sustainable reforms are curtailed by deficit views of families and children growing up in poverty. This article describes an ongoing research study entitled "Teachers Investigate Unequal Literacy Outcomes: Cross-Generational Perspectives", which made teacher researchers central in examining this long-standing dilemma. It outlines the research design and rationale, and analyses how two early career teachers worked their ways out of deficit analyses of two children they were most worried about. It argues that disrupting deficit discourses and re-designing new pedagogical repertoires to reconnect with children's lifeworlds is a long-term project that can best be achieved in reciprocal research relationships with teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the author starts the third decade of his life, he reflects on his childhood of poverty and the impact that it has had on my philosophy of education. He grew up raised by a single mother who worked up to three jobs, at times, to make ends meet. He was born in the Third Ward section of Houston, an inner city neighborhood where the odds were against an African-American male child. According to all of the statistics, he had a better chance of dying due to violence or ending up in prison then he did of surviving thy eighteenth birthday or going to college.

This paper reviews Mexico's mixed track record in pursuing the Millennium Development Goals, with progress in health and education but a seemingly entrenched problem of poverty. Given that the country is one of the most equal in Latin America, the paper goes on to disaggregate the data and analysis to subgroups or regions. Regional disparities are stark in terms of education and infrastructure, as well as in poverty, with a NorthSouth divide in the country and indigenous groups worst off in terms of poverty, illiteracy levels, gender equity and basic infrastructure. Nevertheless, there are positive trends based on an assessment that shows slow but steady convergence across three variables, life expectancy, education enrollment and literacy rates. The paper recommends focus on vulnerable subgroups and regions learning from successful national programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intersection of race and poverty presents the two most seemingly intractable social problems in the United States today. Despite gains in the recent decades, unacceptable levels of institutional racism and poverty persist. Increasing income and wealth gaps, desegregation of schools, absence of minorities in the highest levels of government and the private sector, and the radicalization of space all are indicators of this failure of democracy. The white majority prefers to imagine a colorblind society, not just as a goal but also as a current reality. The Bush administration's negative attitudes toward affirmative action, as well as former President Clinton's failed Race Initiative, are evidence that ‘liberty and justice for all’ are not to be achieved in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education has the potential to enable people to enhance their capabilities and functionings and can contribute to the achievement of sustainable livelihoods. The evidence for rural Tamil Nadu indicates a complex relationship between education and poverty. Educational attainment is strongly correlated with gender and caste and this study reveals that educational exclusion is related to a range of economic, spatial, institutional, social and cultural structures and processes. Statistical correlations, however, provide only partial insight into a complex problem. This study highlights the importance of the underlying conditions of life, the existential realities of different socio-economic groups and the contradictions and tensions families face in making decisions about education. Entitlements and livelihood opportunities need to be analysed holistically and the paper concludes with an assessment of the role of education in poverty alleviation and a number of policy suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eradication of poverty is the most pervasive goal of donors' foreign aid programmes. As a result, there has been much research on the degree of correlation between aid and poverty reduction. However, this work to date has shed little light on the direction of causation between the two variables. Using the method of Granger causality, and conditioning aid and poverty on the state of democracy in developing countries, this study asks whether aid flows impact poverty, whether poverty influences aid flows, or whether causality proceeds in both directions simultaneously. While the results identify no causal relationships in some of the sub-samples, they point to the existence of a multitude of relationships across others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal education is often assumed to be a positive force for change, enabling people to find a route out of poverty. However, this is not always the case. The Haramkbut community in the Peruvian Amazon are now questioning the widespread assumption that schooling can provide knowledge and skills for establishing alternative livelihoods. Indigenous knowledge and traditional forms of work have been devalued through economic changes forced upon the Haramkbut by ecological destruction and environmental degradation. The result of this has been a process of impoverishment, which has been worsened by missionary education and an adherence to the national Spanish-language curriculum. In contrast, the indigenous model of intercultural bilingual education which is currently being 'rolled out' to the Harakmbut puts indigenous knowledge and practices at the centre of its curriculum, pedagogy and philosophy. This in turn contrasts with the education reform measures currently being implemented nationally through the Ministry of Education. Education could and should be a positive force in the lives of the Harakmbut people, and Harakmbut women in particular, and in their fight against an impoverishment of their way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the links between poverty, HIV/AIDS, and barriers to education, based on the first-hand experiences of 'street children' in northern Tanzania. Within the context of national levels of poverty, 'cost-sharing' in health and education sectors, and the AIDS epidemic, poor families in Tanzania are under considerable pressure, and increasing numbers of girls and boys are consequently seeking a living independently on the streets of towns and cities. My research with street children shows that some children orphaned by AIDS are subject to rejection and exploitation by the extended family after the death of their parent(s). They are exposed to considerable risks of abuse, sexual violence and HIV within the street environment. Here, I discuss the links between poverty, HIV and barriers to education, which compound young people's vulnerability, and offer some policy recommendations in response to the young people's experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the question of how the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) can potentially help reduce poverty in developing countries. Starting with the definition and types of ICTs, the paper discusses a number of instances where various ICTs have been fruitfully applied to improve the welfare of rural people in a number of developing economies. The paper also reviews how ICTs can be an indirect instrument of poverty reduction through their impact on growth. Finally the paper discusses the various factors that influence the adoption of new ICTs and the policies developing countries can adopt to take advantage of the new ICT revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the political relationship between education and poverty reduction. It argues that authoritarian rule in Africa has exacerbated levels of poverty and sets out six ways in which this has happened. However, the achievement of greater levels of democracy will not be possible unless political culture and civil society in Africa become more democratic but this will depend on the spread of more democratic values and behaviours. As democratic values and behaviours are socially learned and are not genetic, education must play a part in fostering greater democracy. The article then discusses three examples from Africa where education has not played a significant role in furthering democracy and provides some further examples of African countries where serious attempts are being made to try to change education systems in a more democratic direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the social conditions of children in Angola as of August 2002. Increase in the number of internally displaced persons in the country since 1998; Poverty indicators in Angola; Condition of the country's education sector.

Discusses different approaches to the development of education. Relationship between education and earnings in the human capital framework; Indirect effect of education on poverty; Human component in human development approach; Inter-relationship between education poverty and income poverty.

The article discusses the common elements of high poverty middle schools with high level of academic performance. The Council for School Performance (1996-1997) reveals that middle schools are reporting higher achievement scores as compared to school with similar low income student populations. A research of the literature of high achievement middle grades is conducted to know the factors associated with their performance. The study ends that there are three common elements of high performing poverty schools including the use of a grant writer to generate proposal, the use of teams to do their work, and the use of goals and focus on specific strategies to meet the goals.

This paper shows how an effective business education program at the university level can be organized. The underlying philosophy of the program is that business education for students who will be employed by smaller companies which feature de-specialization of job tasks, resource poverty, and self-employment must be different from business education for larger companies. As part of their business education, students should gain managerial experience during their studies. Within the program described, entrepreneurs and small business owners or managers train students, and students (with the help of academicians solve real business problems. The program unites academicians and managers or entrepreneurs in pursuit of the same objective: effective small business education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although he was much influenced by David Ricardo when he wrote the classical part of his Principles, John Stuart Mill was not a Ricardian when he penned his theories of wealth and distribution. They are based on a triple foundation. First, a belief that economics is a moral discipline. Second a theory of custom-driven human behavior. Third, an empirically formed conviction that the institutions of state, education and business cooperate to structure the distribution of income. On the basis of these presuppositions, Mill formulated 1) an institutional theory of the formation of human and non-human wealth and 2) an even more institutional theory of distribution demonstrating how the aforementioned institutions malignantly skew the distribution of income to the advantage of the propertied classes and to the extreme disadvantage of the working class. As a social economist, Mill recommended institutional reforms designed to eradicate the poverty of the working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]