Educational and psychological tests are often used in ways which touch most intimately the lives of people. For example, tests may influence who gets a job or who is selected to attend a college or graduate school. But not everyone has agreed that tests are a good thing. Over the past twenty years a wave of complaints has led to congressional hearings, court cases, and formal grievances before state and federal commissions. Holmen and Docter have analyzed these complaints and criticisms not only by considering the tests themselves but through examining the ways tests are used as elements in assessment systems.

The applications of tests in clinical and counseling work, in educational achievement testing, and in personnel selection is discussed and evaluated. While the least amount of testing is in the personnel selections area, this is where the most complaints are found. Educational achievement testing has by far the largest testing programs and a wide range of criticisms has been voiced concerning this kind of assessment. Testing in connection with clinical and counseling work has generated the least public concern.

An extensive analysis is given of the organizations which comprise the testing industry, including the various developers and publishers of tests and also test scoring organizations. The users of tests are considered from the standpoint of their professional training and also in terms of how their organizations influence technical standards of test development.

MILTON G. HOLMEN is professor of management and associate dean of the School of Business Administration, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

RICHARD F. DOCTER is professor of psychology at San Fernando Valley State College.

Makes a major contribution to current research on children by providing a broad view of up-to-date, authoritative material in many different areas. Contributors have selected and interpreted the relevant material in reference to the practitioner's interests and needs. The chapters, written by prominent specialists, cover various topics in child development from early periods of socialization to the development of higher mental processes, and include two chapters dealing with genetic and neurophysiological bases of behavior.

MARTIN L. HOFFMAN is professor of psychology and chairman of the doctoral program in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan.

LOIS WLADIS HOFFMAN has been research associate at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan, and is currently associated with the Society for Research in Child Development.

Makes a major contribution to current research on children by providing a broad view of up-to-date, authoritative material in many different areas. Contributors have selected and interpreted the relevant material in reference to the practitioner's interests and needs. The chapters, written by prominent specialists, cover various topics in child development from early periods of socialization to the development of higher mental processes, and include two chapters dealing with genetic and neurophysiological bases of behavior.

MARTIN L. HOFFMAN is professor of psychology and chairman of the doctoral program in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan.

LOIS WLADIS HOFFMAN has been research associate at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan, and is currently associated with the Society for Research in Child Development.

Winner of the 2000 Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association

"This pathbreaking book will be required reading for both the specialist in immigration and the general reader wanting an introduction to the subject. The multidisciplinary authors provide an overview of the field, a synthesis of the theoretical approaches, and cutting edge new data. It is an engaging dialogue across disciplines on one of the most important issues in our society."
MARY WATERS, Harvard University

"Considering the recent prominence of immigration in the national consciousness and the vast literature now being published on immigration, now is the right time to take stock of our understanding of the central issues. The Handbook of International Migration will be an indispensable reference work on one of the next century's most important issues."
-DEMETRI PAPADEMETRIOU, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The historic rise in international migration over the past thirty years has brought a tide of new immigrants to the United States from Asia, South America, and other parts of the globe. Their arrival has reverberated throughout American society, prompting an outpouring of scholarship on the causes and consequences of the new migrations. The Handbook of International Migration gathers the best of this scholarship in one volume to present a comprehensive overview of the state of immigration research in this country, bringing coherence and fresh insight to this fast growing field.

The contributors to The Handbook of International Migration—a virtual who's who of immigration scholars—draw upon the best social science theory and demographic research to examine the effects and implications of immigration in the United States. The dramatic shift in the national background of today's immigrants away from primarily European roots has led many researchers to rethink traditional theories of assimilation,and has called into question the usefulness of making historical comparisons between today's immigrants and those of previous generations.

Part I of the Handbook examines current theories of international migration, including the forces that motivate people to migrate, often at great financial and personal cost. Part II focuses on how immigrants are changed after their arrival, addressing such issues as adaptation, assimilation, pluralism, and socioeconomic mobility. Finally, Part III looks at the social, economic, and political effects of the surge of new immigrants on American society. Here the Handbook explores how the complex politics of immigration have become intertwined with economic perceptions and realities, racial and ethnic divisions,and international relations.

A landmark compendium of richly nuanced investigations, The Handbook of International Migration will be the major reference work on recent immigration to this country and will enhance the development of a truly interdisciplinary field of international migration studies.

CHARLES HIRSCHMAN is professor of sociology at the University of Washington.

PHILIP KASINITZ is professor of sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

JOSH DEWIND is program director of the Social Science Research Council and professor of anthropology at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

CONTRIBUTORS: Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz, Josh DeWind, Richard Alba, Susan B. Carter, Thomas J. Espenshade, Reynolds Farley, Walter C. Farrell Jr., Nancy Foner, Rachel M. Friedberg, Herbert J. Gans, Gary Gerstle, Nina Glick Schiller, Chandra Guinn, John Higham, Gregory A. Huber, Jennifer Hunt, James H. Johnson Jr., David E. López, Douglas S. Massey, John Hull Mollenkopf, Victor Nee, Joel Perlmann, Patricia R. Pessar, David Plotke, Alejandro Portes, Rebeca Raijman, Nestor Rodriguez, Rubén G. Rumbaut, George J. Sánchez, Richard Sutch, Marta Tienda, Roger Waldinger, Min Zhou, and Aristide R. Zolberg.

American democracy relies on an accurate census to fairly allocate political representation and billions of dollars in federal funds. Declining participation in previous censuses and a general waning of civic engagement in society raised the possibility that the 2000 count would miss many Americans—disproportionately ethnic and racial minorities—depriving them of their share of influence in American society and yielding an unfair distribution of federal resources. Faced with this possibility, the Census Bureau launched a massive mobilization campaign to encourage Americans to complete and return their census forms. In The Hard Count, former Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt, D. Sunshine Hillygus, Norman H. Nie, and Heili Pals present a rigorous evaluation of this campaign. Can a busy, mobile, disengaged public be motivatived to participate in this civic activity? Using a rich set of data and drawing on theories of civic mobilization, political persuasion, and media effects, the authors assess the factors that influenced participation in the 2000 census.

The Hard Count profiles a watershed moment in the history of the American census. As the mobilization campaign was underway, political opposition to the census sprang up, citing privacy issues and seeking to limit the kind of data the census could collect. Hillygus, Nie, Prewitt, and Pals analyze the competing effects of the mobilization campaign and the privacy controversy on public attitudes and cooperation with the census. Using an internet based survey, the authors tracked a representative sample of Americans over time to gauge changes in census attitudes, privacy concerns, and their eventual decision whether or not to return their census form. The study uniquely captures the public’s exposure to census advertising, community mobilization, and news stories, and was designed so people could view video clips and photos of actual campaign advertisements on their sets in their homes. The authors find that the Census Bureau campaign did in fact raise awareness of the census and census participation. The mobilization campaign was especially effective at increasing participation among groups historically undercounted by the census. They also find that census participation would have been higher if not for the privacy controversy, which discouraged many people from cooperating with the census and led others to omit information from their census form. The findings of The Hard Count have important policy implications for future census counts and offer theoretical insights regarding the influence of mobilization campaigns on civic participation.

The goal of full and equal cooperation with the decennial census and other government surveys is an important national priority. The Hard Count shows that a mobilization campaign can dramatically increase voluntary participation in the decennial headcount and identifies emerging social and political challenges that may threaten future census counts and contribute to the growing fragility of our national statistical system.

D. SUNSHINE HILLYGUS is assistant professor of government at Harvard University.

NORMAN H. NIE is director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society.

KENNETH PREWITT is Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University.

HEILI PALS is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

America’s Children offers a valuable overview of the dramatic transformations in American childhood over the past fifty years, a period of historic shifts that reduced the human and material resources available to our children. Alarmingly, one fifth of all U.S. children now grow up in poverty, many are without health insurance, and about 30 percent never graduate from high school. Despite such conditions, economic, family, and educational programs for children earn low national priority and must depend on inconsistent state and local management.

Drawing upon both historical and recent data, including census information from 1940 to 1980, Donald J. Hernandez provides a vivid portrait of children in America and puts forth a forceful case for overhauling our national child welfare policies. Hernandez shows how important revolutions in household composition and income, parental education and employment, childcare, and levels of poverty have affected children’s well-being. As working wives and single mothers increasingly replace the traditional homemaker, children spend greater portions of time in educational and daycare facilities outside the home, and those with single mothers stand the greatest chance of being welfare dependent. Wider changes in society have created even greater stress for children in certain groups as they age: out-of-wedlock births are on the rise for white teenagers, half of all Hispanic youths never graduate high school, and violence accounts for nearly 90 per cent of all black teenage deaths.

America’s Children explores the interaction of many trends in children’s lives and the fundamental social, demographic, and economic processes that lie at their core. The book concludes with a thoughtful analysis of the ability of families and government to provide for a new age of children, with emphasis on reducing racial inequities and providing greater public support for families, comparable to the family policies of other developed countries. As the traditional “Ozzie and Harriet” family recedes into collective memory, the importance of creating strong national policies for children is amplified, particularly in the areas of financial assistance, health insurance, education, and daycare. America’s Children provides a compelling guide for reassessing the forces that shape our children and the resources available to safeguard their future.

"In this conceptually creative, methodologically rigorous, and empirically rich book, Hernandez uses census and survey data to describe several quite profound changes that have characterized the life courses of America's children and their families over the last 50 to 150 years....this erudite book is destined to be a classic." —Richard M. Lerner, Contemporary Psychology

"America's Children goes a long way toward informing the debate on the causes of increasing poverty, and it challenges some widely held misperceptions....its study of resources available to children (and their families) lays a valuable foundation for surveying trends in family structure, education, and income sources....Anyone interested in the changing lives of children should read it; anyone interested in understanding the causes and patterns of poverty, and in designing a better welfare system, must read it." —Ellen B. Magenheim, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

DONALD J. HERNANDEZ is chief of the marriage and family branch of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

Winner of the 2010 Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association

"Spin Cycle is a must-read for those interested in the use of research in education policy debates as well as for scholars looking to understand how research is used and misused in policymaking. Henig's combination of close attention to detail with ability to see and tell the broader story makes Spin Cycle both an excellent read and a unique and important scholarly contribution"
-POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

"Jeffrey R. Henig's engrossing text will prove invaluable for those seeking to understand how researchers, reporters, and funders influence the production and use of research in education policy today. Spin Cycle does not shrink from the complexity of the relationships among scholars, advocates, journalists, and funders, but offers a nuanced examination of the tensions, players, and policies at work."
-FREDERICK M. HESS, American Enterprise Institute

"Jeffrey R. Henig pulls the thorn of ideology out of the debate on charter school research. He shows that weak, advocacy-oriented research might get immediate headlines, but balanced and rigorous studies ultimately have greater influence on policy"
-PAUL T. HILL, University of Washington

"Spin Cycle is a balanced, and yet optimistic, analysis of a crucial question. It deserves a wide audience and careful consideration by public officials, foundation officers, scholars, and journalists."
-ELLEN CONDLIFFE LAGEMANN, Harvard University

One important aim of social science research is to provide unbiased information that can help guide public policies. However, social science is often construed as politics by other means. Nowhere is the polarized nature of social science research more visible than in the heated debate over charter schools. In Spin Cycle, noted political scientist and education expert Jeffrey Henig explores how controversies over the charter school movement illustrate the use and misuse of research in policy debates. Henig’s compelling narrative reveals that, despite all of the political maneuvering on the public stage, research on school choice has gradually converged on a number of widely accepted findings. This quiet consensus shows how solid research can supersede partisan cleavages and sensationalized media headlines.

In Spin Cycle, Henig draws on extensive interviews with researchers, journalists, and funding agencies on both sides of the debate, as well as data on federal and foundation grants and a close analysis of media coverage, to explore how social science research is “spun” in the public sphere. Henig looks at the consequences of a highly controversial New York Times article that cited evidence of poor test performance among charter school students. The front-page story, based on research findings released by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), sparked an explosive debate over the effectiveness of charter schools. In the ensuing drama, reputable scholars from both ends of the political spectrum launched charges and counter-charges over the research methodology and the implications of the data. Henig uses this political tug-of-war to illustrate broader problems relating to social science: of what relevance is supposedly non-partisan research when findings are wielded as political weapons on both sides of the debate?

In the case of charter schools, Henig shows that despite the political posturing in public forums, many researchers have since revised their stances according to accumulating new evidence and have begun to find common ground. Over time, those who favored charter schools were willing to admit that in many instances charter schools are no better than traditional schools. And many who were initially alarmed by the potentially destructive consequences of school choice admitted that their fears were overblown. The core problem, Henig concludes, has less to do with research itself than with the way it is often sensationalized or misrepresented in public discourse.

Despite considerable frustration over the politicization of research, until now there has been no systematic analysis of the problem. Spin Cycle provides an engaging narrative and instructive guide with far-reaching implications for the way research is presented to the public. Ultimately, Henig argues, we can do a better job of bringing research to bear on the task of social betterment.

JEFFREY R. HENIG is professor of political science and education at Teachers College and professor of political science at Columbia University.

Copublished with The Century Foundation

Work first. That is the core idea behind the 1996 welfare reform legislation. It sounds appealing, but according to Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better, it collides with an exceptionally difficult reality. The degree to which work provides a way out of poverty depends greatly on the ability of low-skilled people to maintain stable employment and make progress toward an income that provides an adequate standard of living. This forward-looking volume examines eight areas of the safety net where families are falling through and describes how current policies and institutions could evolve to enhance the self-sufficiency of low-income families.

David Neumark analyzes a range of labor market policies and finds overwhelming evidence that the minimum wage is ineffective in promoting self-sufficiency. Neumark suggests the Earned Income Tax Credit is a much more promising policy to boost employment among single mothers and family incomes. Greg Duncan, Lisa Gennetian, and Pamela Morris find no evidence that encouraging parents to work leads to better parenting, improved psychological health, or more positive role models for children. Instead, the connection between parental work and child achievement is linked to parents’ improved access to quality child care. Rebecca Blank and Brian Kovak document an alarming increase in the number of single mothers who receive neither wages nor public assistance and who are significantly more likely to suffer from medical problems of their own or of a child. Time caps and work hour requirements embedded in benefits policies leave some mothers unable to work and ineligible for cash benefits.

Marcia Meyers and Janet Gornick identify another gap: low-income families tend to lose financial support and health coverage long before they earn enough to access employer-based benefits and tax provisions. They propose building “institutional bridges” that minimize discontinuities associated with changes in employment, earnings, or family structure. Steven Raphael addresses a particularly troubling weakness of the work-based safety net—its inadequate provision for the large number of individuals who are or were incarcerated in the United States. He offers tractable suggestions for policy changes that could ease their transition back into non-institutionalized society and the labor market.

Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better shows that the “work first” approach alone isn’t working and suggests specific ways the social welfare system might be modified to produce greater gains for vulnerable families.

CAROLYN J. HEINRICH is director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, professor of public affairs and affiliated professor of economics, and associate director of research and training at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

JOHN KARL SCHOLZ is professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jayanta Bhattacharya, Rebecca M. Blank, Greg J. Duncan, David N. Figlio, Lisa Gennetian, Janet C. Gornick, Brian K. Kovak, Marcia K. Meyers, Pamela Morris, David Neumark, Steven Raphael, Peter Richmond, R. Kent Weaver.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"In Ethnic Origins Jeremy Hein offers important insights into the ways in which two groups of Southeast Asian refugees to the United States-the animist Hmong, a distinct minority community in Laos, and the Buddhist Khmer, members of the Cambodian majority-become ethnic Americans. This many faceted study of adaptation and acculturation and the varied courses these two very different cultural groups follow is at once an informative, critical, and evocative examination of the backgrounds and experiences of what Hein calls some inconspicuous people living in 'some obscure places.' It is something more as well. Ethnic Origins is a fine example of the use of multiple methods of data-gathering-historical and archival research, structured surveys, focused interviews, and peer-group conversations, and a model of concise and compelling investigative reporting."
-PETER I. ROSE, Smith College

"In this meticulously researched and well-written book, Professor Hein offers a much-needed analysis of the impact of ethnic cultures on the experience of contemporary immigrants. His comparative methodology offers a powerful lens on these issues. Ethnic Origins is essential reading for those who are interested in the complex impact of history, culture, and structural location on the adaptation of immigrants."
-NAZLI KIBRIA, Boston University

"This impressive, in-depth study of Hmong and Cambodian refugees and immigrants in the United States is com parative in several senses of that word. Jeremy Hein examines the similarities and differences between the two groups by looking at their 'ethnic origins'-a shorthand moniker for their homeland histories, politics, social struc tures, and cultures-as well as the impact of locational characteristics on their patterns of adaptation. By analyz ing two large cities and two smaller towns, Hein concludes that the differences in locational characteristics have a lesser impact than ethnic origins. The book also sheds new light on how ethnic origins help filter the Hmong and Cambodian interactions with other peoples of color (especially African Americans and Asian Americans) and with European Americans. Most notably, Hein succinctly compares his own complex theoretical framework with those used by other social scientists. I know of no other studies that analyze key issues at both the theoretical and public-policy levels so systematically. A truly laudable achievement, this book encourages us to see race, ethnicity, and contemporary immigration into the United States in fresh and multidimensional ways."
-SUCHENG CHAN, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Ethnic Origins is an ambitious and original study of Cambodian and Hmong refugees in four midwestern loca tions that highlights the impact of distinctive ethnic origins-homeland histories, cultures, and politics-as well as the nature of place of settlement on the immigrant experience. The book is full of interesting material and contributes to our understanding of a host of topics in the immigration field, including the formation of pan-ethnic identities and the kind of welcome immigrants receive in small town white America as compared to large and diverse urban centers."
-NANCY FONER, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Immigration studies have increasingly focused on how immigrant adaptation to their new homelands is influenced by the social structures in the sending society, particularly its economy. Less scholarly research has focused on the ways that the cultural make-up of immigrant homelands influences their adaptation to life in a new country. In Ethnic Origins, Jeremy Hein investigates the role of religion, family, and other cultural factors on immigrant incorporation into American society by comparing the experiences of two little-known immigrant groups living in four different American cities not commonly regarded as immigrant gateways.

Ethnic Origins provides an in-depth look at Hmong and Khmer refugees—people who left Asia as a result of failed U.S. foreign policy in their countries. These groups share low socio-economic status, but are vastly different in their norms, values, and histories. Hein compares their experience in two small towns—Rochester, Minnesota and Eau Claire, Wisconsin—and in two big cities—Chicago and Milwaukee—and examines how each group adjusted to these different settings. The two groups encountered both community hospitality and narrow-minded hatred in the small towns, contrasting sharply with the cold anonymity of the urban pecking order in the larger cities. Hein finds that for each group, their ethnic background was more important in shaping adaptation patterns than the place in which they settled. Hein shows how, in both the cities and towns, the Hmong’s sharply drawn ethnic boundaries and minority status in their native land left them with less affinity for U.S. citizenship or “Asian American” panethnicity than the Khmer, whose ethnic boundary is more porous. Their differing ethnic backgrounds also influenced their reactions to prejudice and discrimination. The Hmong, with a strong group identity, perceived greater social inequality and supported collective political action to redress wrongs more than the individualistic Khmer, who tended to view personal hardship as a solitary misfortune, rather than part of a larger-scale injustice.

Examining two unique immigrant groups in communities where immigrants have not traditionally settled, Ethnic Origins vividly illustrates the factors that shape immigrants’ response to American society and suggests a need to refine prevailing theories of immigration. Hein’s book is at once a novel look at a little-known segment of America’s melting pot and a significant contribution to research on Asian immigration to the United States.

JEREMY HEIN is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

Schools are complex social settings where students, teachers, administrators, and parents interact to shape a child’s educational experience. Any effort to improve educational outcomes for America’s children requires a dynamic understanding of the environments in which children learn. In The Social Organization of Schooling, editors Larry Hedges and Barbara Schneider assemble researchers from the fields of education, organizational theory, and sociology to provide a new framework for understanding and analyzing America’s schools and the many challenges they face.

The Social Organization of Schooling closely examines the varied components that make up a school’s social environment. Contributors Adam Gamoran, Ramona Gunter, and Tona Williams focus on the social organization of teaching. Using intensive case studies, they show how positive professional relations among teachers contribute to greater collaboration, the dissemination of effective teaching practices, and ultimately, a better learning environment for children. Children learn more from better teachers, but those best equipped to teach often opt for professions with higher social stature, such as law or medicine. In his chapter, Robert Dreeben calls for the establishment of universal principles and practices to define good teaching, arguing that such standards are necessary to legitimize teaching as a high status profession. The Social Organization of Schooling also looks at how social norms in schools are shaped and reinforced by interactions among teachers and students. Sociologist Maureen Hallinan shows that students who are challenged intellectually and accepted socially are more likely to embrace school norms and accept responsibility for their own actions. Using classroom observations, surveys, and school records, Daniel McFarland finds that group-based classroom activities are effective tools in promoting both social and scholastic development in adolescents. The Social Organization of Schooling also addresses educational reforms and the way they affect a school’s social structures. Examining how testing policies affect children’s opportunities to learn, Chandra Muller and Kathryn Schiller find that policies which increased school accountability boosted student enrollment in math courses, reflecting a shift in the school culture towards higher standards.

Employing a variety of analytical methods, The Social Organization of Schooling provides a sound understanding of the social mechanisms at work in our educational system. This important volume brings a fresh perspective to the many ongoing debates in education policy and is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of America’s children.

LARRY V. HEDGES is Stella M. Rowley Professor of Education, Psychology, and Sociology in the Harris School at the University of Chicago.

BARBARA SCHNEIDER is professor of sociology and human development and codirector of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work at the University of Chicago.

CONTRIBUTORS: Charles E. Bidwell, Robert Dreeban,  Kenneth A. Frank,  Adam Gamoran,  Ramona Gunter,   Maureen T. Hallinan, Lori Diane Hill, Richard M. Ingersoll,  Susan Moore Johnson,  Daniel A. McFarland,  Chandra Muller,  Robert A. Petrin,  Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Kathryn S. Schiller, W. Richard Scott,  Christopher B. Swanson,  Tona Williams, Yong Zhao.