Women on the Civil War Battlefront

Review of: "Women on the Civil War Battlefront," by Richard H. Hall

Insiders or outsiders? : the rhetoric of compromise in post-Reconstruction institutionally-sponsored African American literacy.

This dissertation examines the history of Berea College in Kentucky. Founded before the Civil War, it was a small, private southern college that educated blacks, whites, women and men equally, an early model of cooperation and social harmony. Its rigorous college curriculum was modeled after northern elite institutions, and black graduates before 1904 held a variety of positions: professors, principals and superintendents, ministers, attorneys, physicians, and civil engineers. However, in 1904 Kentucky passed legislation requiring blacks and whites to be educated separately. Berea College set aside funding and established the all-black Lincoln Institute near Louisville. While Lincoln Institute was presented as a positive achievement, it offered no college department and only provided secondary and industrial levels of education, similar to Tuskegee in Alabama and Hampton in Virginia. Although Lincoln Institute\u27s trustees specified arrangements for “the higher education of such graduates of this department as show special character and ability for leadership,” this promise was never realized. Using literacy theory and archival research, this research emphasizes differences between working class and classical educations, in education for freedom versus servitude, and places the loss of access to a collegiate-level education for blacks into a larger historical milieu. Chapter I identifies the boundaries and theoretical foundations of this archival research, and sets the historical context for the more detailed evidence in Chapters II-III. Chapter II examines institutional, national, and state sponsorship of education and uses W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington as examples of national pressures brought to bear on Kentucky. Chapter III focuses on community sponsorship through individual voices affected by the policy changes at the College. Finally, Chapter IV concludes the research with a brief summary and argues the importance of both institutional and community sponsorship in understanding the current challenges of encouraging diversity and social equality on college campuses

Surface-plasmon wave at the planar interface of a metal film and a structurally chiral medium

The solution of a boundary-value problem formulated for a modified Kretschmann configuration shows that a surface-plasmon wave can be excited at the planar interface of a sufficiently thin metal film and a nondissipative structurally chiral medium, provided the exciting plane wave is p-polarized. An estimate of the wavenumber of the surface-plasmon wave also emerges thereby

Let Them Be Little: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study of the Experiences of Kindergarten Teachers during an Era of Educational Reform

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences and perceptions of kindergarten teachers who taught through an era of federally mandated, standards-based educational reforms. This study was guided by two theories as each contributes to an explanation as to how educational reform has strayed far from the central purpose for kindergartens. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development sought to explain how a child constructs a mental model of the world and postulated that there are four distinct stages of human development from birth to adulthood. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory stated that children learn through play and the social interactions that occur when they play. Kindergarten teachers in the southeastern United States were selected as participants to gather their lived experiences with the phenomenon of teaching kindergarten during a shift from a social-emotional and play-based model to a standards-based, academically focused model. Data was collected via individual interviews, focus groups, and letter writing by participants and analyzed using the methods described by Moustakas. Five major themes were revealed: pre-shift environment and pedagogy, post-shift environment and pedagogy, academic standards, accountability, and collateral damage. These themes, in alignment with the research questions, described the experiences of kindergarten teachers during an era of sweeping educational reform. Overall, the most substantial finding from this study was that the collateral damage, or unintended negative consequences, occurred because of educational reform. These negative consequences affected educators, students, and almost every aspect of the classroom, which is contrary to the perceived intent of the legislation

The Latino Labor Force at a Glance

[Excerpt] At nearly 23 million, people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity represented 15 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2011. By 2018, Hispanics are expected to comprise 18 percent of the labor force. In 2011, 58.9 percent of Latinos aged 16 and over were employed and just under 1 in 5 of those employed was working part-time. Women comprised 41 percent of all Latinos in the labor force in 2011, compared to 46 percent among the white labor force. Women represent a smaller share of the Latino labor force both because of the high labor force participation of Latino men and the lower labor force participation rate of Latina women when compared to Whites. Employed Latinos are much less likely to have a college degree than are either Whites or African Americans. Approximately one in six employed Latinos aged 25 and over have completed a bachelor’s degree, less than half the proportion among employed Whites. Since 2000, this gap in the share of employed Latinos and Whites who are college graduates has widened. Between 2000 and 2011, the gap between employed Whites with a college education and employed Latinos with a college education grew from 17.6 percentage points to 20.1 percentage points. Latinos are more likely than either Whites or African Americans to be employed in the private sector, with more than 8 in 10 employed Latinos working in the private sector, not including the unincorporated self-employed. Conversely, Latinos are less likely to work for government than are either Whites or African Americans

Social Distances of Whites to Racial or Ethnic Minorities

Prior research on social distance between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has focused mainly on attitudes of white Americans toward African Americans. Extending previous research, this study analyzes social distances of whites to racial or ethnic minority groups by investigating how whites feel about blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. The main hypothesis is that whites feel coolest toward blacks, warmest toward Asians, and somewhat in between toward Hispanics. The 2002 General Social Survey and ordinary least squares regression are used to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that contrary to our hypothesis, whites feel coolest toward Asians, warmest toward Hispanics, and somewhat in between toward blacks. Nativity, religious similarity/ dissimilarity, racial hierarchy and tension, proximity of the country of origin, and group diversity may offer plausible explanations for the unexpected result. This study also examines which types of whites are more likely to maintain a greater or smaller social distance with the three minority groups. Implications of the findings for race and ethnic relations today are addressed