NEW YORK - Women are now as likely to use the Internet as men — about two-thirds of both genders — yet a new study shows that gaps remain in what each sex does online.
American men who go online are more likely than women to check the weather, the news, sports, political and financial information, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported Wednesday. They are also more likely to use the Internet to download music and software and to take a class.
Online women, meanwhile, are bigger users of e-mail, and they are also more likely to go online for religious information and support for health or personal problems.
Use the link the to read the entire article.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
CNN.com - College counselors adapt to diverse, reluctant students - Dec 23, 2005
CNN.com - College counselors adapt to diverse, reluctant students - Dec 23, 2005: "ITHACA, New York (AP) -- Janie Cisneros was having a crisis and needed to talk to a counselor. But there would be no embarrassing or intimidating visit to the campus clinic.
Instead, Sigrid Frandsen-Pechenik took Cisneros to the mall, where they had coffee and talked in English and Spanish.
It was not the usual approach to mental health counseling. But as campuses become more diverse, colleges are finding the old ways don't always work.
There are language barriers and cultural stigmas that equate mental health problems with being weak or crazy. There are the pressures of immigrant families who send their children to college and do not expect to see them fail.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Instead, Sigrid Frandsen-Pechenik took Cisneros to the mall, where they had coffee and talked in English and Spanish.
It was not the usual approach to mental health counseling. But as campuses become more diverse, colleges are finding the old ways don't always work.
There are language barriers and cultural stigmas that equate mental health problems with being weak or crazy. There are the pressures of immigrant families who send their children to college and do not expect to see them fail.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Thank you!
To our faithful readers,
Thank you for your support and encouragement. We appreciate your comments, ideas and sharing. We hope you will continue to visit our blog throughout 2006 as we strive to keep you up to date on diversity and equity related issues in our schools and workplaces.
Happy holidays and best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.
The Diversity Training and Development Team
Thank you for your support and encouragement. We appreciate your comments, ideas and sharing. We hope you will continue to visit our blog throughout 2006 as we strive to keep you up to date on diversity and equity related issues in our schools and workplaces.
Happy holidays and best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.
The Diversity Training and Development Team
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Top-Notch School Fails to Close 'Achievement Gap'
Information Center - Media: "Learning: Berkeley High tried to lift urban black and Latino pupils to the level of high-performing Asians and whites. But a sizable divide persists.
BERKELEY -- Here in one of the best-educated corners of America, this city's sole public high school suffers a split personality: One exhibits a steady stream of National Merit Scholars, the other an undercurrent of failure.
Viki Rasmussen is a product of one Berkeley High School. The confident 17-year-old took an array of college-level courses before graduating in the spring and leaving last week to attend Brown University. Viki is white.
LaShawna Candies is a product of the other Berkeley High. The 15-year-old, timid and self-doubting, returned last week to start her sophomore year. As a freshman she scored Fs in most subjects, and reads at a second-grade level. She may never be able to decipher a job application, let alone a college text. LaShawna is black.
Attending one of America's most reputable urban high schools is just about all Viki and LaShawna have in common. The two girls came through the schoolhouse gate, just blocks from California's flagship university, with vastly different backgrounds and skills. Rather than equalize their opportunities, though, Berkeley High may have succeeded only in maintaining even widening the academic chasm between them.
"This despite the best of intentions."
Use the link to read the entire article.
BERKELEY -- Here in one of the best-educated corners of America, this city's sole public high school suffers a split personality: One exhibits a steady stream of National Merit Scholars, the other an undercurrent of failure.
Viki Rasmussen is a product of one Berkeley High School. The confident 17-year-old took an array of college-level courses before graduating in the spring and leaving last week to attend Brown University. Viki is white.
LaShawna Candies is a product of the other Berkeley High. The 15-year-old, timid and self-doubting, returned last week to start her sophomore year. As a freshman she scored Fs in most subjects, and reads at a second-grade level. She may never be able to decipher a job application, let alone a college text. LaShawna is black.
Attending one of America's most reputable urban high schools is just about all Viki and LaShawna have in common. The two girls came through the schoolhouse gate, just blocks from California's flagship university, with vastly different backgrounds and skills. Rather than equalize their opportunities, though, Berkeley High may have succeeded only in maintaining even widening the academic chasm between them.
"This despite the best of intentions."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Overcoming Apartheid
Overcoming Apartheid: "Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States. Hypersegregated inner-city schools--in which one finds no more than five or ten white children, at the very most, within a student population of as many as 3,000--are the norm, not the exception, in most northern urban areas today.
'At the beginning of the twenty-first century,' according to Gary Orfield and his colleagues at the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 'American public schools are now 12 years into the process of continuous resegregation. The desegregation of black students, which increased continuously from the 1950s to the late 1980s, has receded to levels not seen in three decades.' The proportion of black students in majority-white schools stands at 'a level lower than in any year since 1968.' The four most segregated states for black students, according to a recent study by the Civil Rights Project, are New York, Michigan, Illinois and California. In New York, only one black student in seven goes to a predominantly white school."
Use the link to read the entire article.
'At the beginning of the twenty-first century,' according to Gary Orfield and his colleagues at the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 'American public schools are now 12 years into the process of continuous resegregation. The desegregation of black students, which increased continuously from the 1950s to the late 1980s, has receded to levels not seen in three decades.' The proportion of black students in majority-white schools stands at 'a level lower than in any year since 1968.' The four most segregated states for black students, according to a recent study by the Civil Rights Project, are New York, Michigan, Illinois and California. In New York, only one black student in seven goes to a predominantly white school."
Use the link to read the entire article.
How One Suburb's Black Students Gain - New York Times
How One Suburb's Black Students Gain - New York Times: "SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio
IT is hard to pick up an education article these days without reading about some excited governor or mayor who is busy closing the achievement gap. Test scores of minority children go up a few points, and there stands the politician on the 6 o'clock news declaring that merit pay for teachers or laptops in the classroom or the federal No Child Left Behind law is closing the gap between white and minority children.
Here in this integrated, upper-middle-class Cleveland suburb, you would think they would be boasting. African-Americans' combined math and verbal SAT scores average 976, 110 points above the national average for black students. The number of black sixth graders scoring proficient on the state math test has nearly doubled in three years and is more than 20 percentage points above the Ohio average for blacks.
Top black seniors get into top colleges. In recent years, Charles Inniss went to Princeton, Karelle Hall to Dartmouth, Winston Weatherspoon to Georgetown and Danielle Decatur to the University of Virginia.
While many a politician discovered the gap in 2002, when No Child Left Behind required that test data be separated by race, Shaker Heights has battled it for decades."
Use the link to read the entire article.
IT is hard to pick up an education article these days without reading about some excited governor or mayor who is busy closing the achievement gap. Test scores of minority children go up a few points, and there stands the politician on the 6 o'clock news declaring that merit pay for teachers or laptops in the classroom or the federal No Child Left Behind law is closing the gap between white and minority children.
Here in this integrated, upper-middle-class Cleveland suburb, you would think they would be boasting. African-Americans' combined math and verbal SAT scores average 976, 110 points above the national average for black students. The number of black sixth graders scoring proficient on the state math test has nearly doubled in three years and is more than 20 percentage points above the Ohio average for blacks.
Top black seniors get into top colleges. In recent years, Charles Inniss went to Princeton, Karelle Hall to Dartmouth, Winston Weatherspoon to Georgetown and Danielle Decatur to the University of Virginia.
While many a politician discovered the gap in 2002, when No Child Left Behind required that test data be separated by race, Shaker Heights has battled it for decades."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
CNN.com - Number of children getting school breakfasts rises - Dec 14, 2005
CNN.com - Number of children getting school breakfasts rises - Dec 14, 2005: "More children than ever are getting free or reduced-price breakfasts at school, an anti-hunger group said Tuesday.
Still, the School Breakfast Program only reaches two in five youngsters who need it, according to a report released by the Food Research and Action Center.
'No child should have to start the school day hungry to learn, but unable to do so because of a hungry stomach,' said James Weill, the center's president. 'The states and schools that are leaving millions of hungry children behind need to act now. '
In the 2004-2005 school year, 7.5 million kids got breakfast for free or at a reduced price, the group said. The number represented a 5.3 percent increase from the previous year and was the biggest hike in a decade, the report said."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Still, the School Breakfast Program only reaches two in five youngsters who need it, according to a report released by the Food Research and Action Center.
'No child should have to start the school day hungry to learn, but unable to do so because of a hungry stomach,' said James Weill, the center's president. 'The states and schools that are leaving millions of hungry children behind need to act now. '
In the 2004-2005 school year, 7.5 million kids got breakfast for free or at a reduced price, the group said. The number represented a 5.3 percent increase from the previous year and was the biggest hike in a decade, the report said."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Plan Takes Shape For Special-Ed Tests
Plan Takes Shape For Special-Ed Tests: "Education Secretary Margaret Spellings outlined new testing rules for disabled students yesterday, formalizing an initiative that has already helped more than 100 public schools in Maryland and Virginia meet the standards of the No Child Left Behind law.
In a speech at Guilford Elementary in Columbia, which she cited as a model for special education, Spellings fleshed out a plan she first proposed last spring. The plan builds on existing rules that allow alternative testing for the most severely disabled students, a change that raised the scores of up to 1 percent of all students tested in a public school system or state."
Use the link to read the entire article.
In a speech at Guilford Elementary in Columbia, which she cited as a model for special education, Spellings fleshed out a plan she first proposed last spring. The plan builds on existing rules that allow alternative testing for the most severely disabled students, a change that raised the scores of up to 1 percent of all students tested in a public school system or state."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
CNN.com - AP: Blacks likely breathe most unhealthy air - Dec 14, 2005
CNN.com - AP: Blacks likely breathe most unhealthy air - Dec 14, 2005: "CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A dozen years after former President Clinton ordered the government to attack environmental injustices, black and poor Americans still are far more likely to breathe factory pollution that poses the greatest health risk, an Associated Press analysis found.
The AP analysis of government pollution, health and census data found that blacks are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial air pollution is suspected of causing the most health problems."
Use the link to read the entire article.
The AP analysis of government pollution, health and census data found that blacks are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial air pollution is suspected of causing the most health problems."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Minorities suffer most from industrial pollution - Environment - MSNBC.com
Editor's Note: The Associated Press obtained a federal environmental health database under the Freedom of Information Act and, with the help of government scientists, mapped the risk scores to every neighborhood used during the 2000 Census. A three-part series based on the resulting analysis provides an unprecedented snapshot of the social, racial and economic legacy of air pollution from America’s factories.
CHICAGO - Kevin Brown’s most feared opponent on the sandlot or basketball court while he was growing up wasn’t another kid. It was the polluted air he breathed.
“I would look outside and I would see him just leaning on a tree or leaning over a pole, gasping, gasping, trying to get some breath so he could go back to playing,” recalls his mother, Lana Brown.
Kevin suffered from asthma. His mother is convinced the factory air that covered their neighborhood triggered the son’s attacks that sent them rushing to the emergency room week after week, his panic filling the car.
Use the link to read the entire article.
CHICAGO - Kevin Brown’s most feared opponent on the sandlot or basketball court while he was growing up wasn’t another kid. It was the polluted air he breathed.
“I would look outside and I would see him just leaning on a tree or leaning over a pole, gasping, gasping, trying to get some breath so he could go back to playing,” recalls his mother, Lana Brown.
Kevin suffered from asthma. His mother is convinced the factory air that covered their neighborhood triggered the son’s attacks that sent them rushing to the emergency room week after week, his panic filling the car.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Monday, December 12, 2005
U.S. immigration boom hits record levels - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com
WASHINGTON - Immigration — both legal and illegal — has accelerated, pushing the percentage of the U.S. population born in other countries to the highest point in nearly a century.
There are 35.2 million foreign-born people living in the United States — about 12.1 percent of the population, according to a report Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.
The report comes as the House prepares to take up a bill to curb illegal immigration by boosting border security and requiring workplace enforcement of immigration laws.
Use the link to read the entire article.
There are 35.2 million foreign-born people living in the United States — about 12.1 percent of the population, according to a report Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.
The report comes as the House prepares to take up a bill to curb illegal immigration by boosting border security and requiring workplace enforcement of immigration laws.
Use the link to read the entire article.
New Pittsburgh Courier
Home Schools Becoming More Popular Among Blacks
New Pittsburgh Courier: "RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - When Denise Armstrong decided to teach her daughter and two sons at home instead of sending them to public school, she said she did so thinking she would do a better job than the school of instilling her values in her children.
At the time, Ms. Armstrong was the only Black parent at gatherings of home-education groups. But she said that has been changing.
'I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community,' said Ms. Armstrong, who lives in Chesterfield County.
The move toward home schooling, advocates say, reflects a wider desire among families of all races to guide their children's religious upbringing, but it also reflects concerns about other issues like substandard schools and the preservation of cultural heritage."
Use the link to read the full article.
New Pittsburgh Courier: "RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - When Denise Armstrong decided to teach her daughter and two sons at home instead of sending them to public school, she said she did so thinking she would do a better job than the school of instilling her values in her children.
At the time, Ms. Armstrong was the only Black parent at gatherings of home-education groups. But she said that has been changing.
'I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community,' said Ms. Armstrong, who lives in Chesterfield County.
The move toward home schooling, advocates say, reflects a wider desire among families of all races to guide their children's religious upbringing, but it also reflects concerns about other issues like substandard schools and the preservation of cultural heritage."
Use the link to read the full article.
Spanish At School Translates to Suspension
Spanish At School Translates to Suspension
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; A03
KANSAS CITY, Kan., Dec. 8 -- Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are "like," "whatever" and "totally." But Zach is also fluent in his dad's native language, Spanish -- and that's what got him suspended from school.
"It was, like, totally not in the classroom," the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. "We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he's like, 'Me prestas un dolar?' ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I'm like, 'No problema.' "
But that conversation turned out to be a big problem for the staff at the Endeavor Alternative School, a small public high school in an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood. A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school.
Watts, whom students describe as a disciplinarian, said she can't discuss the case. But in a written "discipline referral" explaining her decision to suspend Zach for 1 1/2 days, she noted: "This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school."
Since then, the suspension of Zach Rubio has become the talk of the town in both English and Spanish newspapers and radio shows. The school district has officially rescinded his punishment and said that speaking a foreign language is not grounds for suspension. Meanwhile, the Rubio family has retained a lawyer, who says a civil rights lawsuit may be in the offing.
The tension here surrounding that brief exchange in a high school hall reflects a broader national debate over the language Americans should speak amid a wave of Hispanic immigration.
Use the link to read the entire article.
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; A03
KANSAS CITY, Kan., Dec. 8 -- Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are "like," "whatever" and "totally." But Zach is also fluent in his dad's native language, Spanish -- and that's what got him suspended from school.
"It was, like, totally not in the classroom," the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. "We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he's like, 'Me prestas un dolar?' ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I'm like, 'No problema.' "
But that conversation turned out to be a big problem for the staff at the Endeavor Alternative School, a small public high school in an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood. A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school.
Watts, whom students describe as a disciplinarian, said she can't discuss the case. But in a written "discipline referral" explaining her decision to suspend Zach for 1 1/2 days, she noted: "This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school."
Since then, the suspension of Zach Rubio has become the talk of the town in both English and Spanish newspapers and radio shows. The school district has officially rescinded his punishment and said that speaking a foreign language is not grounds for suspension. Meanwhile, the Rubio family has retained a lawyer, who says a civil rights lawsuit may be in the offing.
The tension here surrounding that brief exchange in a high school hall reflects a broader national debate over the language Americans should speak amid a wave of Hispanic immigration.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness
Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness: "Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis.
Advocates have circulated draft guidelines and have begun to conduct systematic studies. While the proposal is gaining traction, it is still in the early stages of being considered by the professionals who decide on new diagnoses."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Advocates have circulated draft guidelines and have begun to conduct systematic studies. While the proposal is gaining traction, it is still in the early stages of being considered by the professionals who decide on new diagnoses."
Use the link to read the entire article.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Poll: Nearly one out of six employees claim bias - Race in America - MSNBC.com
Poll: Nearly one out of six employees claim bias - Race in America - MSNBC.com: "WASHINGTON - Nearly one out of every six U.S. employees say they were discriminated at work in the last year, with women more than twice as likely as men to claim bias over hiring and pay, according to a new poll.
The poll released Thursday by the Gallup Organization found that middle-aged women and minorities were more likely to report being victims. Out of the part-time and full-time workers interviewed by telephone, women were more than twice as likely to claim discrimination (22 percent) as men (9 percent).
Among racial groups, Asians and blacks led the field (31 percent and 26 percent, respectively) in saying they were treated unfairly, followed by Hispanics (18 percent) and then whites (12 percent)."
Use the link to read the entire article.
The poll released Thursday by the Gallup Organization found that middle-aged women and minorities were more likely to report being victims. Out of the part-time and full-time workers interviewed by telephone, women were more than twice as likely to claim discrimination (22 percent) as men (9 percent).
Among racial groups, Asians and blacks led the field (31 percent and 26 percent, respectively) in saying they were treated unfairly, followed by Hispanics (18 percent) and then whites (12 percent)."
Use the link to read the entire article.
The Bias Breakdown
The Bias Breakdown
Asians and Blacks Lead in Perceived Discrimination at Work
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; Page D01
Fifteen percent of all workers say they have been discriminated against in their workplace during the past year, according to a new Gallup Organization poll.
The survey was conducted to discover workers' perceptions of discrimination in their workplaces during a year that marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC's chairwoman, Cari M. Dominguez, said the information will help the agency compare employee perceptions of discrimination with complaints actually filed with the agency.
For example, 31 percent of Asians surveyed reported incidents of discrimination, the largest percentage of any racial or ethnic group, with African Americans the second-largest group at 26 percent. But Asians generally file fewer discrimination complaints than other groups, according to the EEOC.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Asians and Blacks Lead in Perceived Discrimination at Work
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; Page D01
Fifteen percent of all workers say they have been discriminated against in their workplace during the past year, according to a new Gallup Organization poll.
The survey was conducted to discover workers' perceptions of discrimination in their workplaces during a year that marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC's chairwoman, Cari M. Dominguez, said the information will help the agency compare employee perceptions of discrimination with complaints actually filed with the agency.
For example, 31 percent of Asians surveyed reported incidents of discrimination, the largest percentage of any racial or ethnic group, with African Americans the second-largest group at 26 percent. But Asians generally file fewer discrimination complaints than other groups, according to the EEOC.
Use the link to read the entire article.
Friday, December 02, 2005
U-Md. Students Protest 'Racial Tension'
U-Md. Students Protest 'Racial Tension': "Yelling 'Expose racial tension! It's time to change the system,' a group of students marched across the University of Maryland campus yesterday to the police station with a list of demands.
Ever since a party last month ended with the arrests of three people, the College Park campus has been embroiled in a debate about race, equality and integration. Yesterday, on the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat on a bus, student protesters called for an end to racial injustice."
Use the link to read the entire story.
Ever since a party last month ended with the arrests of three people, the College Park campus has been embroiled in a debate about race, equality and integration. Yesterday, on the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat on a bus, student protesters called for an end to racial injustice."
Use the link to read the entire story.
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