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This chapter presents the educational experience and achievements of the Northwest alumni. Children in foster care are at high risk for school failure because of childhood deprivation and other adversities, frequent school changes, and lack of educational supports. Because of the extended time in care (an average of over six years), educational achievement is particularly relevant for the Northwest alumni. The educational achievement of alumni is tabled at the end of the chapter.

This chapter examines the educational outcomes of pupils from Muslim families in Scotland and the forms of capital mobilised by their parents to achieve social mobility through education. Over recent decades, the experiences of Muslims in Scotland and the rest of the UK have been very mixed. On the one hand, Muslims have sometimes been seen as a security threat and a challenge to social cohesion (Commission on Integration and Cohesion, 2007). On the other hand, the UK Government has taken the lead across Europe in passing equality legislation relating to protected characteristics, including race and religion/belief. Systems have also been put in place for gathering and analysing administrative data to investigate the implementation of equality policies.

This chapter discusses the great importance of cultural dissonance between Haitian youth and Haitian adults, between Haitian youth and school personnel, and between Haitian youth and other southern Florida youth, to Haitian students. Haitian students consider the cultural dissonance as more important than their grades, test scores, and, for some, even going on to college. The chapter explains that Haitians, along with West Indians, perceived discrimination far more than other CILS students. They were more likely to claim they did not know their native language, although ethnographic data indicate they did indeed understand and speak Haitian Creole. Haitian youth in southern Florida are undergoing powerful transformations. They move toward adopting less-assimilated labels, their behavior reflects more Americanization, particularly African American styles. The educational achievements of Haitian youth indicate that a few of them are likely to remain aware of their Haitian heritage.

This chapter looks at what works to help young people overcome the barriers to Safe Passage. It summarizes the lessons learned about program components and compiles those factors that successful programs appear to have in common. It organizes the factors compiled at four different levels: individual, family, school, and community. Success factors at the individual level include early intervention, one-on-one attention, and youth empowerment. Those at the family include parental involvement and reaching across generations. Factors at the school level are educational achievement, effective principals, on-site facilitators, social skills training, group counseling, and community service. Success factors at the community level involve the location in the community, community outreach, cultural responsiveness, community police, safe havens, financial incentives, multiagency multicomponents, food, residential care, and intensive and long-term involvement in a program.

This chapter examines the aspiration and suburbanisation of ethnic minority groups in East London, England. It argues that the concept of aspiration underwent something of a rediscovery in the New Labour renaissance, when Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, and Gordon Brown found common ground in asserting that individual aspiration was not a dirty word but a key part of the New Labour project. The chapter explains that ethnic minorities consider aspiration and educational achievement as a key part of the process of upward social mobility.

Teachers and administrators explain the educational differences between students. Such explanations focus on biological and cultural arguments where Asian Americans are assumed to value schooling and hard work more than Latinas/os. Along with a discussion of the general silence regarding Whites, white privilege, and whiteness in general at the school, there is also consideration of how federal educational policies that emphasize performance on standardized tests influence school discourses and practices.

Significant changes in both parenting and teaching over the last half century have serious negative consequences for some children's educational achievement. This historical convergence is termed the “perfect educational storm.” This chapter discusses the historical trends and their impact in the state of literacy in America's children. It examines the psychological impacts and demographic and social trends relevant to child development and literacy.

This chapter links the black–white achievement gap to racial segregation and analyzes the capacity of the US policymakers, including the justice system, to tackle the problem. It takes as a starting point the observation that US courts seem to have concluded that residential segregation is no longer de jure but entirely de facto, the product not of government policy but of individual choice about where to live. By examining a wide array of social policies, the chapter shows that de jure segregation and its effects are extremely alive and well and belie assumptions about de facto segregation embedded in major court decisions on school desegregation.

Beginning with students’ reflections on the racial/ethnic divides on campus, this chapter provides the book’s socio-political and academic context. I challenge the limitations of studies and policies that focus on a so-called achievement gap. I then explain the neoliberal and neoconservative context, how this work adds to the academic scholarship, the book’s macro-meso-micro framework (which includes a brief history of Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans). The introduction ends with a chapter outline.

This chapter presents the research evidence that supports the development of three new environmental categories — environmental comfort, environmental management, and environmental distress — which is illustrated through in-depth analysis of eight case studies conducted with older people living in deprived urban neighbourhoods of Manchester, England, and Vancouver, Canada. It aims to clarify some of the factors that underpin older people's desire to age in place despite multiple risks presented in their environment and conversely why others reject ageing in place. It provides a summary of the key characteristic of the research participants in two cities. This profiles the sample in relation to such factors as gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, health status, housing tenure, educational achievement, and rating of quality of life.

The chapter describes the link between educational experiences and early outcomes in the labour market, with a strong focus on the gender differences in the choice of subjects studied by girls and boys at school and university. Following a life stage approach, the chapter takes us through the stages girls and boys go through in moving from education to the labour market. The authors provide evidence on the educational achievement of girls and boys, including higher educational achievement, but also apprenticeships, and the effect these have on gender differentials in the labour market (specifically employment and pay) soon after leaving education.

Reflecting on my experiences sharing the research findings with the school, this chapter conveys the urgency and the difficulty of change. While presenting, I learned that some heard my analysis through the same frameworks that I aimed to critique. Others found it difficult to transform school practices in the current period of schooling where assessment drives education.

This chapter enunciates how mobile media have engendered the conditions for transcendent parenting practices to emerge, thereby transforming family life in Asian urban middle-class households. It argues that although mothers generally seem to be more involved in their transcendent parenting duties, a more desirable state of shared transcendent parenting between fathers and mothers will ultimately alter the practice of transcendent parenting. It also discusses how the Singapore-focused transcendent parenting experiences in this book are relevant to urban middle-class societies in other parts of the world. Finally, it highlights the negotiation of the consequences of transcendent parenting.

Students describe the school policies and practices influencing their educational trajectories and peer relationships. Of particular importance are the significance of segregated and unequally valued middle schools and the inequalities attached to a rigid track system that includes placement in the International Baccalaureate Program, Advancement Via Individual Determination Program, or non-honors college preparatory classes.

This chapter reveals the intensification of a tutoring industry. Some students—primarily middle and upper middle class Asian American students–receive extensive tutoring in Chinese schools and from for-profit organizations. In contrast, many Latina/o students across class position receive no tutoring or limited tutoring. Such unequal access to tutoring fuels academic and social differences, and some teachers are even changing their curriculum in ways that benefit students with tutoring.

Beginning with a discussion of a program that was established at the school after my research, this chapter discusses what the high school teaches us about the detrimental impacts of the current state of U.S. schooling. In many ways, the high school under study is any-school USA. Just as it is premised on competition, individualism, and assimilation, it overlooks the significance of opportunity and social gaps and the wealth of knowledge, experiences, and resources that its students, their families, and the surrounding communities possess.