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This study compared how a nonrandom sample of 112 middle‐class persons and 124 welfare recipients explained poverty and perceived the welfare system and welfare recipients. Analyses revealed that welfare recipients were more likely to make structural attributions for poverty and to reject restrictive welfare‐reform policies. However, they were also more likely than middle‐class respondents to regard welfare recipients as dishonest and idle. Both groups underestimated the percentage of European Americans receiving public assistance. Implications for intergroup relations and public policy are discussed.

Pair programming produces more proficient, confident programmers-and may help increase female representation in the field.In recent years, the growth of extreme programming (XP) has brought considerable attention to collaborative programming. Developed over a fifteen year period by Kent Beck and his colleagues, Ron Jeffries and Ward Cunningham[1], XP is a computer software development approach that credits much of its success to the use of pair programming by all programmers, regardless of experience [2]. The pair programming dimension of XP requires that teams of two programmers work simultaneously on the same design, algorithm, code, or test. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at one computer, one member of the pair is the "designated driver," actively creating code and controlling the keyboard and mouse. The "non-driver" constantly reviews the keyed data in order to identify tactical and strategic deficiencies, including erroneous syntax and logic, misspellings, and implementations that don't map to the design. After a designated period of time, the partners reverse roles. Code produced by only one partner is discarded, or reviewed collaboratively before it is integrated.Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in computer science, and the number of women pursuing college majors in this area is declining. In 1985, 37% of computer science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women; in 2001 that percentage was down to 28% [3]. A number of variables have been proposed to account for this gender difference, including traditional socialization practices that reinforce math and science as male domains, lower confidence ratings and greater math anxiety among women, and women's tendency to take fewer advanced mathematics courses. The belief that computer science is a competitive, alienating field may further discourage women from pursuing careers in this area [4].Pair programming, when used as a form of collaborative learning, has been shown to increase the number of women (and men) persisting in their previously stated intent to pursue degrees in computer science. In addition, paired teams have been found to significantly outperform individual programmers in terms of program functionality and readability, to report greater satisfaction with the problem-solving process, to have greater confidence in their solutions, and to be more likely to complete a programming assignment [5]. Nevertheless, many instructors continue to require students to complete programming assignments independently. Presumably, continued reliance on solo programming in academic settings is rooted in instructor concern that at least one of the partners in a pair will not learn as much as they would if they completed the assignment alone. In the worst case, one member of the pair might do essentially all of the work. Although this would not be "pair programming," it is often difficult, if not impossible, to monitor how students actually spend their programming time and how closely they are following the pairing protocol.

This article provides a comprehensive overview of research that has examined the content and prevalence of stereotypic media images of the poor. Research examining televised images and print media are reviewed. An analysis of media framing as well as classist, racist, and sexist imagery is provided. Additionally, to assess media depictions of the poor in the wake of welfare reform, 412 newspaper articles about poverty and welfare published during a 3-month period in 1999 were content analyzed. Although most articles were neutral in tone and portrayed the difficulties facing welfare recipients and the poor sympathetically, they did little to contextualize poverty or illuminate its causes. These findings are discussed in terms of their context and political function.The media are omnipresent in our everyday lives. Cable television provides viewers with a growing number of channels to choose from; videotapes provide easy access to films; and the Internet, newspapers, and 24-hour news radio and television programs provide round-the-clock coverage of current events. In their many forms, media have the potential to educate, raise consciousness, and shape public attitudes (Kinder, 1998).

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