Assessing the oppositional culture explanation for Mexican students.

Using nationally representative data from the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS), I assess the oppositional culture explanation for Mexican students. First, I examine if there are differences between Mexican and White students in their academic behaviors, attitudes, and friends' academic orientation. Second, I examine if these measures account for the racial disparity in academic outcomes between Mexican and White students. The results show that there are few differences between Mexican and White students in measures of school-related behaviors, attitudes, and friends' academic orientation. The second part of the analysis suggests that, in general, these measures for behaviors, attitudes, and friends' academic orientation do not explain much of the differences in academic achievement between Mexican and White students. The findings from the study indicate that the oppositional culture explanation does not account for this disparity in achievement.

Serviço Social: um enfant terrible na institucionalidade burguesa? / Social work: an enfant terrible in the bourgeois institutionality?

Resumo: Esta é uma reflexão que, aproveitando-se do ensejo comemorativo dos oitenta anos do Serviço Social no Brasil, faz um retrospecto da performance desta profissão na ordem burguesa, partindo dos países capitalistas que lhes serviram de berço. Esse périplo, no entanto, pretendeu realçar um denominador comum no Serviço Social mundializado, que é a sua propensão a remar, em qualquer contexto, contra os ditames do sistema que o engendrou. E com essa tendência - que não é unânime, mas historicamente persistente - ele tem sido um profícuo "ponto fora da curva" das profissões sucumbentes ao conservadorismo.

Abstract: This is a reflection that, taking advantage of the commemorative occasion of the eighty years of Social Work in Brazil, does a retrospect of the performance of this profession, in the bourgeois order, starting with the capitalist countries that served as its birthplace. This tour, however, intended to highlight a common denominator in the globalized Social Work, which is its tendency to row, in any context, against the system dictates that engendered it. And with this trend - which is not unanimous, but historically persistent - it has been a fruitful "point off the curve" of the rendered professions to conservatism.