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The success of state welfare-to-work programs has been closely scrutinized as the 1996 TANF legislation underwent extensive review prior to renewal in 2003. Although most states' caseloads have been reduced by more than half, the poverty rates have not proportionately declined, and obtaining jobs that offer economic security remains a persistent problem for post-welfare women. The goal of this ethnographic study was to discern the factors that distinguished women with greater success after welfare from those who were less successful. Factors related to levels of assistance received, resource utilization, mentorship, and self-help attitudes differentiated the experiences of more successful women from those less successful. Public policy implications of these findings are discussed.

This study examined attitudes toward marriage, perceptions of partner availability, and attitudes toward interracial dating among Black male and female college students at two historically Black colleges/universities (HBCUs) and one predominately White institution (PWI). Most students had positive attitudes toward marriage, with women significantly more favorable than men. While both men and women reported insufficient romantic partner options, female students at PWIs were significantly more likely to report insufficient partner options than male students and those at HBCUs. Most students (72.6%) were favorable toward interracial dating, but males at HBCUs had more positive attitudes. However, students at HBCUs were more unsupportive of interracial dating than those at PWIs, and females at both types of institutions reported more unfavorable attitudes toward interracial dating than males. Findings reveal gender and contextual differences in attitudes and suggest a need for more nuanced studies of Black college student attitudes.

In order to be more competitive in the global marketplace, China has adopted a long-term plan to reform their higher education system. One specific aim of this plan is to facilitate the achievement of China's goal of building a world-class market-driven economy through the development of an adequate supply of MBA-trained professional managers to lead their organizations. This case study presents an exploratory and descriptive research approach to assess the effects of an instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used as a communication tool to create a cooperative learning setting in a mainland Chinese MBA course. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) model was used to determine the learning style preference of the Chinese students. The study also investigated the relation between a student's preferred learning style with gender and major (business, engineering, math, and science). Sensing-intuitive was the only ILS subscale with a significant difference across gender and major. Females exhibited a moderate preference for sensing learning while males exhibited a mild preference for sensing learning. Among majors, only business and engineering were significantly different from each other. Business majors tended to prefer the moderate sensing learning style and engineering majors indicated a preference for mild sequential learning style. Contrary to the literature on learning style differences attributed to specific cultural orientation, additional observations and results revealed that the Chinese MBA students accepted the instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used to implement a student-centered learning setting.

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