The purpose of the Eliminating the Achievement Gapis to provide a resource for scholars and students into many of the most salient issues, trends, and factors that are most effective in reducing the achievement gap. Eliminating the Achievement Gap is particularly unique because it will: 1) utilize a meta-analysis to determine what factors contribute the most to reducing the achievement gap and 2) examine potential achievement gap reducing variables from across disciplines. These disciplines include education, sociology, economics, family science, psychology, public policy, and educational psychology. The second emphasis is largely based on the meta-analysis, because the results of the meta-analysis indicate that the best way to completely eliminate the achievement gap is to initiate a multidisciplinary approach to the achievement gap. It is the intention of this book to make scholars, educators, policymakers, parents, and the general public more aware of the factors that best bridge the achievement gap, so that they can take major steps to implementing comprehensive and multidisciplinary efforts. The more such efforts are inaugurated, the more the achievement gap will be reduced. The nine chapters of this book are therefore divided into four parts to reflect this extent of this comprehensive approach.
