Public policies towards special needs persons in advanced countries have improved tremendously over the last 20 to 30 years, whether the concept is described as mainstreaming, integration, or normalization. Both educational and family policies are changing, with educational policies emphasizing free and appropriate education in the least…

Ten essays on the use of ethnography in educational assessment are presented. Overview essays include: (1) "Beyond the Status Quo in Ethnographic Educational Evaluation" (David M. Fetterman) and (2) "The Ethnographic Evaluator" (David M. Fetterman). Theoretical papers include: (3) "Theory in Education Evaluation: Or,…

This paper discusses the results of a field study that attempted to answer questions related to science curriculum renewal in the province of Saskatchewan. The purposes of the field study were to obtain educators' reactions to proposals for change in the science curriculum, assess teachers' needs for science teaching, and determine the nature and…

A model of technological training has two dimensions: level of cultural stability and employee's level of cognitive ability. Each dimension has two variables. The variables of cultural stability are (1) technological adoption and organizational adaptation and (2) structure of work and work processes. For cognitive ability, the variables are…

This manual has been prepared to help educators in Alberta, Canada, organize and operate a work experience program that provides meaningful learning experiences for junior and senior high school students in partnership with the community. The manual: (1) outlines the expectations of the work experience program, including benefits to students,…

Decentralization efforts in Australia after the publishing of the "Better Schools" report in 1987 are described in this paper. An overview of the implementation process concludes that the transition is halfway completed. However, the process has encountered strong resistance. Authority to determine the means, but not ends, was devolved…

This paper is concerned with the different ways that gender is represented in the English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classroom, and how this representation may contribute to the socialization of female language learners. Attention is focused primarily on the language teacher's understanding and awareness of gender representations, not to specific…

Developments within the area of new technology for disability and special educational needs have often been fragmented. The demands on innovators to exploit the new technology for specific and specialized applications have given them little opportunity to develop strategic plans in association with other innovators. Issues to be dealt with include…

Designing individual learning programs is the subject of this document, one of 9 modules within an 11-unit resource pack designed to help trainers and postsecondary and continuing education staff meet the needs of special needs students in Great Britain. Having completed the module, staff should be able to: (1) describe the learner-centered…

A study was conducted using 292 sixth-graders (aged 12) and 301 eighth-graders (aged 14) from nine comprehensive schools in Joensuu, Finland to examine the effective properties of closed and open English vocabulary tasks in individualistic and cooperative learning situations. The report is based on a larger study "Situation- and Task-Specific…

Topological and algebraic scales were compared in the representation of the concept of human worth in behavioral-semantic terms. In a first experiment, seven doctoral students of Business Administration in Sweden explored the notion of worth using definitions from at least 10 dictionaries as the intentional-semantic content. Each subject served as…

In mathematics, Canadian students perform poorly, and enrollment in Canadian postsecondary institutions is low, particularly for women. Clearly, there is a need to understand the personal and social factors that influence mathematics achievement and academic choices. A. Bandura's self-efficacy theory (1977, 1982) implies that academic choices are…

Global figures that reveal the magnitude of the problem of illiteracy in the world disguise great disparities. For example, most of the illiteracy in the world is in developing countries. Therefore, it is preferable, and more appropriate in terms of numerical importance, to concentrate the analysis of illiteracy on developing countries. Such…

The Philippines received the literacy award from Unesco in the 1986 International Literacy Day competition. The award was for the mobile tent school (MTS), an alternative school that can reach out to the most remote and deprived areas where groups of ethnic minorities exist whose cultures have resisted the lure of civilization. The nongraded MTS…

Instruction in Manitoba's French-language schools is described in this public information document. The content was originally published as a series of eleven articles on developments in the curriculum. The articles discuss aspects of the design and content of the curriculum, including the balance of play and work, learning communication skills,…