This report measures how children from different racial backgrounds are faring in the United States and focuses particularly on children in immigrant families. The data presented are drawn from 2013-2015, and indicate significant racial and ethnic inequities among children, with Asian and Pacific Islander and white children generally doing better in almost every area of child well-being than their African-American, Latino, and American Indian peers. The data also indicate the number of children living in low poverty neighborhoods has decreased across all groups. Following an introduction,…
Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person’s life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed.Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work or school transition to higher education or employment after high school. Through its High School Internship Program, it offers participating high school seniors training, an internship, and mentoring to help them succeed. The Urban Institute recently…
All parents home school. And, in fact, even if parents send their children off to school to learn, they are almost singlehandedly the only factor that matters in their kids’ educational success. Paul E. Barton of the Educational Testing Service (which administers the GRE among other standardized tests) wrote a piece called “America’s Smallest School: The Family.” He has estimated that about 90 percent of the difference in schools’ proficiencies can be explained by five factors: the number of days students are absent from school, the number of hours students spend watching television, the…
Relationships between children and their parents are the foundation on which children learn how to form and sustain healthy relationships. Disrupting those relationships—by losing a parent to incarceration, for example—can have long-term effects on children and may lead to antisocial behavior, poor school performance, and physical and mental health problems. To mitigate the risks of parental incarceration for children, some correctional agencies offer parent-child visits in prisons or jails. There are several types of parent-child visits, but many experts believe contact visits, where the…
Launched in 1995, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative aimed to boost employment options for young Americans living in low-income communities in six cities. This report looks at how the initiative’s participating sites approached hiring and retention inequities related to race and ethnicity. Readers will learn the successes and challenges of their efforts to address cultural competence and what strategies the sites developed to expand opportunities for job seekers and workers of color. (Author abstract)
This report presents evidence for HOPE (Health Outcomes of Positive Experiences) based on newly released, compelling data that reinforce the need to promote positive experiences for children and families in order to foster healthy childhood development despite the adversity common in so manyfamilies. (Author abstract modified)
As the American family changes, fatherhood is changing in important and sometimes surprising ways. Today, fathers who live with their children are taking a more active role in caring for them and helping out around the house. And the ranks of stay-at-home and single fathers have grown significantly in recent decades. At the same time, more and more children are growing up without a father in the home.The changing role of fathers has introduced new challenges as dads juggle the competing demands of family and work. This report highlights key findings about fathers from Pew Research Center…
