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The study National Survey of American Life: Multi-Generational and Caribbean Cross-Section Studies also known as the Family Connections Across Generations and Nations is a follow-up to the National Survey of American Life (NSAL): Coping With Stress in the 21st Century, the baseline study which interviewed 6,200 adults and 1,200 adolescents in households of African Americans, non-Hispanic Whites, and Blacks of Caribbean descent.

This study examines influences of family life on people's satisfaction with their lives and their health and general well-being. Specifically, it investigates family and inter-generational processes, with a special emphasis on contextual and structural influences on relationships as they affect individual and family health and well-being across, and within, ethnically and nationally diverse population samples.

Categories of variables include sections on neighborhood, health, social support, depression, social support, mental health episodes (such as depression and mania), substance use, tobacco use, discrimination, and interviewer observations. Demographic variables include the race and ethnicity of the respondent and their spouse, racial background of parents, education, employment, volunteerism, and family income.

The National Survey of American Life Adolescent Supplement (NSAL-A), 2001-2004, was designed to estimate the lifetime-to-date and current prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, course, and comorbidity of DSM-IV disorders among African American and Caribbean adolescents in the United States; to identify risk and protective factors for the onset and persistence of these disorders; to describe patterns and correlates of service use for these disorders; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent follow-up studies that can be used to identify early expressions of adult mental disorders. In addition and similar to the NSAL adult dataset (Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001-2003 [United States] (ICPSR 20240)), the adolescent dataset contains detailed measures of health; social conditions; stressors; distress; racial identity; subjective, neighborhood conditions; activities and school; media; and social and psychological protective and risk factors. Numerous variables from the adult dataset have been merged into the adolescent dataset, as the NSAL adult and adolescent respondents reside in the same households. Some of these variables apply to the entire household (i.e. region, urbanicity, and family income), while others apply specifically to the NSAL adult respondent living in the adolescent's household (i.e. adult years of education, adult marital status, and adult nativity [foreign-born vs. US born]). The immigration measures were asked of Caribbean black adult respondents only. No comparable measures assess the immigration and generational status of the Caribbean black adolescent respondents. The adult dataset measures are merged into the adolescent dataset to assist in approximating these measures for adolescent respondents. The NSAL adolescent dataset also includes variables for other non-core and experimental disorders. These include tobacco use/nicotine dependence, premenstrual syndrome, minor depression, recurrent brief depression, hypomania, and hypomania sub-threshold. Demographic variables include age, race and ethnicity, ancestry or national origins, height, weight, marital status, income, and education level.

MT21 is a cross-national study of the preparation of middle school mathematics teachers. Countries participating included Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), South Korea (Korea), Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. Data were collected from teachers in their first and last year of preparation by sampling institutions in each country. Future teachers were asked about their backgrounds, course-taking and program activities, knowledge relevant to their teaching (mathematical and pedagogical), and beliefs and perspectives on content and pedagogy.

The 1995 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data revealed that countries with higher achievement have teachers who teach substantially different content than that of their less accomplished counterparts (see Schmidt et al., 1996; Schmidt et al., 2001). The 1996 Report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future argued that what teachers know and do in the classroom matters for pupil learning. It also argued that teacher education might be a viable policy tool to improve the quality of education (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996). United States reform efforts are consistent with this line of thought. They have introduced standards to measure teacher quality as it relates to student achievement. This, in turn, led to accountability concerns regarding teacher preparation programs (INTASC, 1995; Murray, 2000; Leithwood, Edge and Jantzi, 1999; NCATE, 2000).

The MT21 Project was designed to answer the following question: how shall we prepare our future teachers to teach a more rigorous curriculum to all students? Several assumptions were made going into this work: the concepts and models defining teacher preparation are not fixed across the world. Recognizing and understanding this diversity to develop a cross-national study of teacher preparation poses a complex and challenging problem. It is hoped that the resulting international data would not only serve to provide policy insights but would also bring about change by making visible contrasts with other countries in terms of teacher preparation in the United States.