Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-olds' understanding that trait can be causal mechanisms based on desires or mere summaries of behavioral regularities. Results suggested that children change from viewing traits as behavioral regularities to understanding them as internal mediators and that advances in understanding desire underlie this…

A study of two racially diverse urban schools revealed that boys are chief teasers and bulliers and that teachers seldom intervene. A proactive curricular approach that explores differences, examines the meaning of courage, involves students in rule making, and promotes friendships across ethnic and gender lines is suggested. (10 references) (MLH)

Compared narrative representations from low SES maltreated and nonmaltreated preschoolers. Found that maltreated preschoolers portrayed parents and children as responding less often than did nonmaltreated preschoolers, yet portrayed themselves as stepping into the story more often to relieve children's distress. Abused children portrayed the most…

Why do good ideas created and promulgated by bright, dedicated people have no significant, lasting effects on teaching? The answer: reformers meddle in trained teachers' everyday practice--educating students. Few professions take kindly to laypersons forcing reforms in their practices. Any school-restructuring initiative must include teachers in…

Describes everyday strategies of principals practicing exemplary instructional leadership and how these principals influenced teachers, drawing on survey data from a qualitative study of over 800 teachers. Inductive data analyses generated two major themes, comprising 11 strategies that were used to construct the Reflection-Growth model of…

Argues that change has become so much a part of school culture that it has become the constant. Presents four considerations for school administrators: (1) teachers work hard; (2) change requires much additional time and energy; (3) support the people implementing the change; and (4) teacher and principal autonomy and authority will foster change.…

This study used observations of quality of 5-year olds' lives in Danish, Finnish, and Swedish day-care centers to examine impact of adults on development of togetherness. Findings suggest that togetherness has to do with positive emotional relations. Article hypothesizes that togetherness may contribute to building of a real community of learners…

Describes an authentic assessment framework for music educators by summarizing a collaborative project between a music-education professor and a general music teacher at DeWitt Middle School in Ithaca, New York. States that the project shows how an interactive, process-oriented approach to assessing musical understanding is both possible and…

Presents an activity that allows students to observe crawling and swimming behavior in Lumbriculus variegatus, a freshwater oligochaete worm. Contains 12 references. (WRM)

Argues that many educationists place an unwarranted emphasis upon the social construction of masculinity and literacy and give it primacy when outlining a framework for change. Claims a literacy program, which meets the needs of all students, will acknowledge that those needs vary greatly within gender groupings as well as across these groupings.…

Retrospective chart reviews of seven adolescents and young adults (ages 9-20) with autistic disorder treated with fluoxetine alone or in combination with other medications were performed. Side effects included initial appetite suppression, vivid dreams, and hyperactivity. Improvement was seen in irritability, lethargy, sterotypy, and inappropriate…

Investigated the relationship between young children's age and their recognition that helping or choosing not to help can cause feelings of pride or guilt. Found age differences in identifying helping-action or inaction as causes, but little support for the hypothesis that identification of guilt as a consequence of not helping would…

Describes how the author uses reading response journals in her composition classes. Shows how it actively engages students in the reading/writing process, and how students learn careful, active reading and develop confidence generating ideas and formulating opinions via the structure, freedom, enhanced comprehension, critical thinking, and…

Examines the relations among self-consciousness, attribution of responsibility, and differentiation of emotions by interviewing 30 Israeli medical students. Finds that in terms of student-patient interactions, students high in public self-consciousness made more internal attributions while students high in private self-consciousness made more…

Explores the encounter between teachers and research literature, examines whether this encounter has any prospects, and determines the features necessary for a meaningful encounter. Illustrates that research literature is not part of the typical teacher's library and that there is a gap between the researcher's world and teacher's world. (CMK)