The link between economic development and education in Latin America is generally well-recognized. A literate and educated work force is the largest single factor in explaining economic growth. In this study, the editors and contributors survey the various elementary educational systems to investigate the reasons behind the failure of schools to retain students in elementary grades. A group of scholars looks at the current state of education in four countries: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, with a view to designing more effective programs for reducing the dropout and grade repetition...

In this study, the contributors survey the various elementary educational systems to investigate the reasons behind the failure of schools throughout Latin America to retain students in elementary grades.

Much has been written about the issue of religious freedom and church-state relations. The contributors to this book, however, take up another side of the question: what has been the impact of religion on human rights. Representatives from various religious traditions address a broad range of topics, from environmental rights to the basic validation of human rights, to the rights of women in India and Iran and within Orthodox Judaism, to the global imposition of criminal justice, to pressures for democratization within the Catholic Church in Latin America. The six major essays, along with...

This text examines money, credit, and economic activity in the increasingly integrated global economy. It focuses on the problems afflicting the United States as it adapts to the transformation of the world economy.

This is a collection of interviews with 26 writers of China's "zhiqing" generation, relatively young artists who participated in the Cultural Revolution as teen-age Red Guards, suffered through the subsequent rustication of intellectual youth, and eventually returned to relatively normal lives, but always with a tragic hiatus haunting their formative years. While one goal of Professor Leung is to introduce to the West an important group of writers little-known outside China, she also aims to succeed, through the interviews, in providing a special perspective on the devastating political...

These articles on population growth are designed for scholars and students of demography, population issues, and economic development. Among the topics covered are, for example, the matters of the maximum number of people who could live on Earth, and the Chinese one-child-per-family rule.

An interdisciplinary case study of a project to dam the Narmada River in central and western India so that it can be used productively. Diverse opinions of proponents and opponents are expressed, as are studies on human rights of disadvantaged groups displaced by the work.

This work provides a survey and analysis of Mexico's agrarian reform, covering topics such as the agricultural provisions of NAFTA. The book also discusses the events in Chiapas that are crucial to Mexico's current political situation and the implications of reform for US-Mexican trade.

Analyzes the newly available statistical evidence on income distribution in the former Soviet Union both by social group and by republic, and considers the significance of inequalities as a factor contributing to the demise of the Communist regime.