Far fewer Americans speak a second language than in most other developed countries – and the problem starts in the classroom.
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Whether it’s due to native language loss or unsupported high school curricula, the lack of bilingualism in the US is notable. Why can’t more Americans speak another language? How should that change?
Thousands marched in silence against racial violence after a riot left hundreds of blacks dead and thousands homeless. The demands of black people in 2017 remain the same as they did in 1917.
When school gets tough, do you think it’s worthwhile? Or time to give up?
Pavlin Plamenov Petkov/Shutterstock.com
Daphna Oyserman, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences et Oliver Fisher, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A high school science test, a Psych 101 course, long job applications: Sometimes it’s hard to be motivated to succeed. As it turns out, how you respond to difficulty and ease can make all the difference.
Members of Patriotic Millionaires, whose privileged members advocate for higher taxes on the rich, met with lawmakers in this 2015 photo to discuss legislation to close the carried interest loophole.
Senate Democrats
When the wealthy become unlikely allies in the fight against inequality, they often take similar steps. It all starts with acknowledging their own privileges.
To honour the legacy of Nelson Mandela, South Africa could do with its citizens becoming more active in driving development - particularly efforts to tackle poverty an inequality.
Protests escalate as corruption and public sector incompetence in South Africa hamper the provision of basic services.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
The political cost of corruption is reaching unacceptable levels in South Africa. Reversing the effects of state decay on the poor will take short and long term interventions.
Debbie Ziegler, mother of the late Brittany Maynard, in Sacramento in September 2015, encouraging the passage of California’s End-of-Life Options Act. Maynard, who had brain cancer, had to move to Oregon so she could end her life legally in 2014.
AP Photo/Carl Costas
People who seek aid in dying tend to be white men older than 65, a new analysis shows. While this could be due to religious views, here’s why it could also be because of lack of access.
Abandoned industrial buildings at San Francisco’s Pier 70, with a smokestack in the background.
Lindsey Dillon
Cleaning up and reusing contaminated sites, known as brownfields, can create jobs and promote economic growth. But it also can drive gentrification that prices out low-income residents.
People have always asked for alms, including the men depicted in this 17th-century European etching.
Wenceslaus Hollar/The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The courts are saying that down-and-out Americans have a right to seek curbside alms despite efforts to ban the practice. Two scholars have come up with an alternative to anti-panhandling ordinances.
Standardized test scores drive many of our decisions about students, teachers and school districts. But research shows that the results are highly predictable, in a bad way.
The region with the most unequal incomes in Australia is Melbourne City, where the top 20% have an income that is 8.3 times as high as those in the bottom 20%.
Dan Peled/AAP
Public health experts traditionally expect that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be unwell and die before your time. But newly available data on cancer rates show that’s not always true.
Analysis shows that while land values per acre rose at 2.2% per annum, land rents fell by 0.3% per annum in the 1800s.
Powerhouse Museum/Flickr
Americans, an independent group, tend to believe that people can “pull themselves up by their boot straps.” Yet bigger forces are at play in a person’s ability to gain education, a good job and money.
Oak Grove Acapella Singers, a Gospel group of Chester County, Tennessee, being recorded while singing in the office of the preacher at the Oak Grove Church of Christ.
Tennessee State Library and Archives