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This study examines the effects of changing from a five-day to a four-day school week on academic achievement for students in public elementary schools in Oklahoma, a state which ranks high on poverty and 47th on educational quality compared across the 50 states. Yet since 2013, Oklahoma school districts have increasingly adopted the four-day school week in response to less state spending on education. We use clustered-regression analysis and a sample of 633 elementary schools from public-use Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) data to examine the effect on student's academic achievement when elementary schools shifted from a five-day to a four-day school week over the period 2012 to 2016. This research finds a negative relationship between the change to a four-day school week and school report card scores, compared to schools that maintained a five-day school week. This result differs from similar studies in other states, highlighting the unique socioeconomic factors inherent to a state. Moreover, the Oklahoma shift to a four-day school week has been felt by rural children, who are already economically challenged, so this shift stands to widen the existing urban-rural, richerpoorer academic achievement gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine identity and social integration, this research asked young people of immigrant African descent: Where do you fit in French society? This research uses qualitative data gathered from in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation African-descent immigrant youth, ages 16 to 25 years old to examine cultural and structural aspects of integration. In France, where one in seven children comes from a family with immigrant parents, the implications of integration are immense. I find that culture matters in identity formation and as it patterns integration and outcomes through religious affiliation. And I also find that structure is salient, because an immigrant outsider status is conveyed to young people of immigrant African descent regardless of citizenship through racial status, and this immigrant outsider status shapes both educational and labor market outcomes. This research amplifies the sentiment of young people of African descent in France who report feeling 'French on the inside' at the same time that they navigate a social fabric that translates their visible minority status into lowered life chances overall. At the same time, this ethnic penalty is felt differently due to perceived cultural factors such as religion. Those of African and Maghrebin descent report that their skin color and perceived immigrant status are symbols that are readily misinterpreted into an outsider status meaning that they do not hold true French Republican cultural norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research draws on segmented assimilation theory and in-depth interviews of first- and second-generation sub-Saharan African youth, ages 16-25 years old, living in France, considering structural dimensions (i.e., government, social class, race) and of cultural dimensions (i.e., family norms, religion) to understand young peoples' integration experiences to profile "another France." At the individual level, African youth living in France may feel French identity on the inside but are treated as outsiders based upon the color of their skin. They exist somewhere between their parents' cultures and mainstream French society's culture as their home life education is African while they have internalized French public school teachings. At the same time, they see their parents and themselves as blocked economically and socially due to their immigrant or immigrant-descent status as symbolized by the color of their skin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines type of health insurance coverage among young children within low-income families as a barrier to good health, and as a barrier to general economic well-being at the household level. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, this study uses bivariate and multivariate regression methods to understand how type of health insurance patterns four dependent variables: 1) focal child having a routine place for checkups; 2) focal child being overweight or obese as measured by the BMI; 3) number of emergency room visits focal child experienced in the past 12 months; and 4) the number of days of work mother lost last month due to the sickness of the focal child. The first three dependent variables explore possible health effects for children due to different types of health insurance coverage. The fourth dependent variable examines a negative economic spillover of having a sick child on the overall economic well-being of the household. A parent who loses work due to a sick child may lose income and workplace status. Three health insurance categories will be used, private health insurance, public health insurance (Medicaid, SCHIP), and no health insurance. For the multivariate analysis, other variables which may be inter-correlated - such as sex of child, racial-ethnic group of child, age of mother, mother's education, family structure stability, and nativity of the mother - will be used as control variables in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American women have increasingly opted for tubal ligation surgery in recent decades. While research has begun to examine the unequal access to health care in the United States, no research has considered how this may impact whether women opt for tubal ligation surgery. Our research first profiles women with tubal ligations compared to those without tubal ligations using bivariate analysis, and then uses logistic regression models to examine the relationship between having had a tubal ligation and two focal variables: 1) type of health insurance (Medicaid compared with private, government or military, and no health insurance), and 2) rural/urban residence. Using the National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle 6, data (NSFG, 2002), we find that women on Medicaid are more likely to have had a tubal ligation compared with other insurance types. Further, we find that women living in rural areas are more likely to report having had a tubal ligation, compared with women in city or suburban areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much like a prism bends and separates light to produce unique colors, so too can the prism of poverty explain the consequent variations in child laborers in sub-Saharan Africa. Although poverty lies at the heart of all child labor, other factors ? such as age status, gender, ethnicity, culture, and level of economic development ? shape the nature of child labor. This paper examines how poverty and other factors determine the issue of child labor in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]