An analysis of a court decision, Podberesky v Kirwin, finding a University of Maryland scholarship targeting black students to be racially discriminatory reviews both what the Supreme Court has said about use of racial classifications and how it has not said what constitutes permissible affirmative action. (MSE)

Examines the way in which integration or mainstreaming policies in Australia have been subverted by labeling disruptive young people as defective and by deploying the practices and culture of disability as a means of imposing social control on such students. Suggestions are given for reframing the issue of school failure as interactional rather…

This article describes a theoretical model of reading disability that integrates research findings in cognitive psychology, reading, and education. The model identifies four patterns of reading disability: (1) nonalphabetic readers, (2) compensatory readers, (3) nonautomatic readers, and (4) readers delayed in the acquisition of word recognition…

Examines barriers faced by African-American students at predominantly white colleges, suggests a typology of discrimination, and presents a tentative theory of cumulative discrimination. Data from interviews with 24 college students, administrators, and faculty members from a sample of 180 middle-class urban African Americans indicate that the…

Discusses the future of computer networks and libraries in light of rapid advances in technology. Topics discussed include information growth; decreasing costs and increasing performance; and changes needed in libraries, including organizational structure and culture, increased access rather than increased holdings, more classification schemes,…

Discussion of issues related to the development of navigational tools for networked resources considers parallels and differences between traditional library materials and networked resources. Four domains of the networked environment--applications, information containers, information content, and users--are identified; and results of a pilot…

Proposes a taxonomy to aid decision makers in selecting computer software consistent with their educational values regarding the nature of instruction and the use of information technology, based on beliefs about human development and learning. Characteristics of instruction, properties of software, and the congruence between them are discussed.…

This study found that 27 Chinese teachers' perceptions of 196 elementary students nominated as learning disabled or educable mentally retarded (based on identifying characteristics used in the United States) were significantly less favorable than ratings of students nominated as average or gifted. Discriminant analysis yielded 72.19 percent…

Examines how users interact with text to devise a more effective information retrieval interface. Research in cognitive psychology and information science that relates to the use of metaphors and document categorization is reviewed, and an example of text organization and retrieval by historians is presented. (60 references) (LRW)

Discusses subject searching problems in online library catalogs; explains advanced information retrieval (IR) techniques; and describes experiments conducted on a test collection database, CHESHIRE (California Hybrid Extended SMART for Hypertext and Information Retrieval Experimentation), which was created to evaluate IR techniques in online…

Current research on the basic characteristics of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (childhood hyperactivity) is reviewed, and a critique of the most recent classification system is given. The current definition ignores important distinctions among the attention deficit disorders. Primary symptoms and associated adjustment problems are…

A review of the literature on biological and environmental effects of cocaine use suggests that the classification of infants and young children as prenatally cocaine exposed is neither descriptive nor predictive of behavior. The classification of behavior rather than labeling of the child is encouraged, as are partnerships with families of…

A study in one private university classified four academic disciplines as hard or soft and pure or applied, then compared student evaluations of courses for organization, breadth of coverage, group interaction, enthusiasm, grading, and individual rapport. Results suggest a single evaluation form may not be appropriate for all disciplines.…

A discussion of tracking, or student grouping by academic ability, looks at arguments for and against such tracking, outlines several alternatives, including cooperative learning, active teaching strategies, and extended learning time for low-achievers. It is concluded that tracking is ineffective, harmful to many, and undermines democratic…

An international project is setting a research agenda for examining ways in which demands for change in higher education are shaped and interpreted by the higher education community in different countries. The research focuses on (1) the regulatory relationship between government and higher education institutions, and (2) classification and…