Asserts that the Big Sisters Programme in Hong Kong provides a good example of a scheme that transcends personal and school issues and facilitates a more participative and democratic view of society. Characterizes the program as a benign form of a "hidden curriculum" and recommends establishing it in secondary schools. (MJP)

A profile of leadership behaviors that describes principals who successfully improve schools has emerged from effective schools literature and research of the corporate world. Instructional leadership involves four technical tasks that comprise a leadership profile: curriculum development, teaching supervision, staff development, and teacher…

Comprehensive or nonselective schools have been in existence in the United Kingdom for over 40 years, having gradually replaced the old selective system of grammar schools for able pupils and secondary modern schools for less able pupils. In spite of their growth in numbers, comprehensive schools have been subject to continual controversy, and…

A study was done to examine the effort put into their undergraduate study by University of California Davis students and their estimates of what they think they have gotten out of their study. The study used data collected from a stratified random sample of 300 Black students, 300 Chicanos, and 886 other students all of whom received a survey in…

Children mature into adults through their own activities and the influence of their social environment. One such social influence, education, is purposeful, planned, and institutionalized. Educational psychology investigates the psychological foundations of this process, particularly in the development of humankind. The publication focuses on such…

An input-output model for studying student outcomes is examined, along with the results of a longitudinal study using this approach. An Entering Student Survey was designed to measure characteristics of incoming students, including demographics, expectations, and aspirations. A Follow-up Survey measured outcomes that were relevant to the college's…

This reaction paper offers evidence for the effectiveness of nondirective instructional models with special needs young children. The construct of "developmentally appropriate practice" is viewed as a working hypothesis and as a continuous variable, not a dichotomous variable. Relationships between early childhood education and early childhood…

Questions the effectiveness of the career guidance that Soviet secondary students receive. Discusses a survey of 2,605 students that investigated students' life goals assessments of their labor training and work experiences. Argues that Soviet schools need to correlate career guidance more effectively both with development of individual student…

This report examines the biography, elementary school social studies teaching goals, and specific U.S. history-social studies goals and curriculum mediation practices of one fifth-grade teacher, Ramona Palmer. Daily lessons and classroom teacher-student interactions are described in detail as Palmer moved through a 6-week unit on the American…

This report examines the biography, elementary school social studies teaching goals, and specific U.S. history-social studies goals and curriculum mediation practices of one fifth-grade teacher, Sara Atkinson. Daily lessons and classroom teacher-student interactions are described in detail as Atkinson moved through a 6-week unit on the American…

This study described ways in which two groups of urban, low-socioeconomic children remained the same and differed after a transition year in skills-based curriculum and a continuing year in whole language curriculum. Both groups had experienced whole language instruction in the first two years in kindergarten and first grade. This investigation…

This research study reports the results of an attempt to build a model of individual differences in undergraduate student development based on factor analysis of a wide range of students' beliefs and behaviors. An 127-item inventory named the Dakota Inventory of Student Orientations was administered to 738 male and female undergraduate students in…

The research on effective schools has identified the superintendent's role as critical in the success of school improvement efforts. The New Brunswick school improvement program is featured as an example of a successful program. In 1980 the New Brunswick school system selected a new superintendent who faced a district with myriad problems…

Reviews the "Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning's" section on students. Examines currentness of research comprehensiveness, clarity, and evaluative analysis. Specifically analyzes chapters on student development, educationally disadvantaged, culturally diverse, and gifted students. Finds the section reveals the…

This study examined what makes college students feel positive about the potential and need for change in racial relations, particularly whether a student's own race is a significant factor. Data were drawn from an initial sample of 24,847 first-time freshmen who completed the 1985 survey and a 1989 follow-up instrument to measure how students'…