The Social Science Research Council's activities during its 50th anniversary year are summarized. In addition to presenting detailed accounts from 30 committees which comprise the Council, the report includes a staff essay on social development during early childhood. The report indicates that the Council pursued the advancement of research in the…

This paper, a discussion of papers by Robert S. Randall, Greta Fein, Richard Bauman and Murray Newman, looks at informal learning from an anthropological viewpoint with an emphasis on inversive theory. It is suggested that the irrational elements of informal learning, the combinations of order and disorder, allow children to relate to reality by…

This paper reviews recent evidence on a new treatment procedure for dating anxieties and inhibitions based on real-life practice dating interactions. The procedure involves randomly pairing opposite-sexed partners (both of whom are volunteers for the treatment program) for a series of practice dates, each with a different partner. Data from five…

This book discusses the moral development theories of Piaget and Kohlberg and presents practical applications of these theories for teachers and parents. The author's purpose in writing the book is to present an exposition of the work of these men to the general reading public. Chapter titles are Introduction to Developmental Theories, presenting…

Frequency of aggression in 5- to 8-year-old children was examined in relation to frequency of helping, comforting and sharing. Subjects (39 boys and 40 girls attending a summer day camp) were each observed for two hours and their aggressive and prosocial behaviors recorded. This study differed from previous investigations of this issue in two…

Presented as the outcome of a summer institute involving 30 graduate students are case histories and educational prescriptions for 34 low functioning severely handicapped individuals ages 2 to 26 years. The case histories provide information on identification, reports of previous evaluations, other contacts and assessment of present functioning…

The author offers some tentative hypotheses regarding barriers which limit progress of mature, married, black females in preparing and entering academe. The assumptions are based on limited data which are still coming in for a larger study on women in academe. The barriers discussed include: (1) limited role models, (2) limited encouragement to…

This review brings together some general findings on empathy that have emerged during the last decade of research with children. From a recent review of the research on social cognitive development (Schantz, in press), this paper responds to three specific questions: (1) What is empathy? (2) Under what conditions is empathy likely to occur? and…

Three instruments measuring different kinds of attitudes were utilized to study whether sex differences existed among university students (34 males and 17 females) in school administration. The Attitude Towards Handicapped Individuals Scale was used to measure attitudes of acceptance or rejection of handicapped individuals; the Is of Identity…

This research is primarily concerned with discovering how children's behavior (in relation to altruistic giving) is affected by the verbal advice and behavioral example of a same-sex model on a television screen. The subjects were a group of 600 children drawn from first through fifth grade. They were placed in a situation in which they could give…

In a longitudinal study, a group of 41 children from lower class families were examined for differences in child-mother and mother-child attachment patterns at 30 months of age. Twenty-three children had been cared for by their mothers from birth until 30 months of age, and 18 had been enrolled in a day care center for at least 1 year. Data…

This study provides evidence for the validity of the Social Adequacy subscales of the Psychosocial Maturity Inventory: Social Commitment, Tolerance, and Openness to Change. A group of students who invested substantial time and energy in social action projects directed toward helping others was compared with a randomly chosen control group. The…

Disadvantaged preschool children directed in the role-enactment of imaginary stories were found to be superior to control children (who did not engage in role playing) on several measures of social and cognitive development. Fantasy play training resulted in a higher incidence of spontaneous sociodramatic play, higher scores on an interpersonal…

The classroom behavior and academic achievement of 32 educable retarded children (EMR) with a mean age of 11.24 years were studied in two types of open classrooms, graded and multi-age, and compared to that in a special education class. The three different instructional environments were found to generate characteristically different patterns of…

This book of readings related to community development and citizen participation in Canada, and therefore, the material is almost exclusively Canadian. The seven sections of the book are as follows: The Ideology of Participation; Change and Intervention; Community Development and Learning: Concepts and Implications; Sharing Experiences; Relating…