Word: explaining
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more time on their homework, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Education found, take more advanced high school courses and graduate with more credits than other American students. A higher percentage of these young people complete high school and finish college than do white American students. Trying to explain why so many Asian-American students are superachievers, Harvard Psychology Professor Jerome Kagan comes up with this simple answer: "To put it plainly, they work harder...
...then to explain the accomplishment of children whose refugee parents were less well educated? One claim is that Asians are simply smarter than other groups. A subscriber to this theory is Arthur Jensen, a controversial Berkeley educational psychologist. Jensen tested Asian children - 500 in San Francisco and 8,000 in Hong Kong - then compared the results with tests of 1,000 white American children in Bakersfield, Calif. He contends that the children with Asian backgrounds averaged ten I.Q. points higher than the whites, and believes there are "genetic differences" in the rate at which Asians and whites mature mentally...
Minnie can't explain why her children have gone wrong. She feels powerless to prevent Kemya from going out with drug dealers or the boys from sidewalk hustling. For her, unlike her children, the streets are foreign territory. "I think we lost control at some point," she says, as though trying to recall something in the distant past. "I don't exactly know when, but somehow we lost control over the kids...
Still, even that twisted logic does not explain his cold-blooded murder of Kellie Mosier. A junior in high school, she was working at her first job, behind the counter of an ice-cream parlor. While Hagan was being initiated into gangs at the age of 13, she was still playing with dolls. Resisting pressure at school to join the gangs, she selected friends who shared dreams beyond the streets, and they stuck together for protection. Poised and attractive, she dreamed of being a fashion model...
...lack of jobs for young black men translates into a lack of ability for them to take responsibility for the children they father. This, Wilson argues, helps explain the staggering growth of inner-city illegitimacy. A recent study by the Children's Defense Fund found that 90% of all babies of black teenage mothers are born out of wedlock. As Harriette McAdoo, professor of social work at Howard University, puts it, "Men are unable to maintain themselves in the labor market, and they are unable to maintain their families...