Compares time-block scheduling efforts at two Pennsylvania high schools. The small-town school chose a semester-block system; the small rural school chose a trimester arrangement. Despite setbacks arising from changing leadership in one school and changing programs (mastery learning) in the other, the intensive time scheduling projects will…

Summarizes results of a 3-year national study of performance assessments' effects on teaching and learning, based on visits to 16 schools implementing these assessments. Performance assessments marginally affected curriculum, but substantially influenced instruction and teacher role. Changing assignment and assessment format will not increase…

Administration of 2 affective tests to 89 students with learning disabilities (LD) in grades 4-8 revealed that subjects perceived the school environment and academic tasks as 2 separate factors. LD students, compared to nondisabled students, exhibited more positive attitudes toward the school environment than for academic learning tasks. School…

Discusses teacher participation in curriculum development from the South African perspective. Views from Soweto teachers are presented; they explain that while a minimal lack of participation does exist, for pedagogical, political, and modernization reasons, participation is vital. (GR)

Teacher evaluation is problematic because it combines two conflicting tasks: improving instruction and judging performance. A Boston elementary principal gradually devised an informal supervision/evaluation system involving brief, random, and frequent classroom visits followed by praise, affirmation, suggestions, and constructive criticism. Even…

A New Zealand mail survey (n=1,376) and interviews (n=497) evaluated the long-term impact of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of female children surveyed as adults. Similarities in outcomes among the three forms of abuse were more apparent than differences, though sexual abuse was particularly associated with sexual problems, emotional abuse…

Analysis of interactions during 55 videotaped interviews of high-risk sex abuse cases found no support for the assumption that a credible disclosure of abuse must include the display of emotion by the child. Some behavioral differences between preschool and school-age children were found, but no gender differences. (Author/DB)

This study investigated "redirects," a procedure in which a teacher redirects a child's communication from the teacher to a peer, as a means to facilitate initiations to peers. Use with four preschool boys with specific language impairment found that most of the redirected initiations received conversational responses from peers. Generalization to…

Explores culture and gender differences in response styles using those of 1,717 children from 5 countries. Responses from the Self-Description Questionnaire-1 were analyzed for inconsistent responding, negativity or positivity bias, lack of profile variation, and social desirability. Relatively substantial country and country-by-gender differences…

The Adolescents' Media Practice Model is proposed and discussed. The model emphasizes a dialectical process in which the media are important cultural agents with influence on audiences that is amplified and restrained by individuals who interact with the media from their own positions. The model is grounded in "room culture." (SLD)

Studies the problem of rural Iowa school personnel classifying students according to a "folk" classification of risk rather than research-derived risk factors. The authors construct a "cognitive map" for these teachers of at-risk students. The implications of the content of this map for meeting the needs of at-risk students are…

Answers the question, "How do families engender caring in children and youth?" by pulling together diverse literatures. Examines adolescent caring behavior and its precursors, and discusses risk and protective factors in the development of caring. A model of the processes underlying caring and the associations among processes is…

Outlines a concept of political virtue, and consequently of civic education, that attempts to give both criticism and emotional engagement their due importance. Educational implications of the concept are explored in relation to the development of a sense of history among students. (SLD)

Adults with mild and moderate levels of retardation (20 living in institutions and 20 in the community) answered simulated job interview questions. The community group produced a greater number of appropriate answers to both simple and complex questions than did the institutional group. (Author/JDD)

Researchers have not yet agreed upon links between stress and illness. Levels of response mediated by the central nervous system are considered important in predicting and determining health consequences of stress. The paper uses the cardiovascular system to examine experimental evidence for the relationship between stress, health/illness, and…