Within the course of a decade Ireland has emerged from being a country of emigration to a country of immigration. Since the mid-1990s, Ireland has undergone rapid economic expansion with the recent economic growth resulting in approximately 252,000 migrants entering Ireland over the last 6 years, according to the Irish Times (2003). While a large…

Research on media effects has documented the media's influence on beliefs and behavior while cross-cultural psychology has documented the effects of the language used in communication on identification with the ingroup and the outgroup. Media usage in the outgroup language should, therefore, affect identification patterns. This research…

Introduction: Identifying talent is the first step in a process that leads to an educational response for students with talent and high ability. Can talent be identified from an early age? Does talent remain naturally throughout the different stages of schooling, or, on the contrary, does it require orientation in order to be developed? The study…

Burakumin, Japan's largest minority group, have been discriminated against throughout Japanese history for engaging in jobs that were considered to be defiling, e.g., slaughterers, tanners, and undertakers. Specifically, burakumin played the social and occupational roles despised by the majority Japanese, but those without which the Japanese…

Social identity is multilayered and complex. Schools, communities, and nations can implement structures and approaches that help youth to understand one another and respect differences. (Contains 5 notes.)

Educators face many challenges in the classroom. One of the most difficult challenges is structuring school success for students who do not meet the goals and objectives of the educational system. Enrollment of these students, generally referred to as "at-risk", has dramatically increased (more than 250%) over the past two decades (Franklin,…

Musicality is a loosely used term with many meanings. It can be applied to a small child who chants a nursery rhyme, or to a harmonica player who plays by ear, or to a conductor like Toscanini. Some educators and philosophers believe that musicality is manifested in the technical achievements of musicians. Others believe that technique is…

Special education as a percentage of total enrollment has risen significantly across the nation, increasing from 8% of the school-age population in 1975-76 to 12% in 2001-02. These growing numbers have garnered increased public attention and have raised questions as to whether the type of special education funding formula used by states may be…

This article challenges the reader to think of homophobia as a negative social force affecting all members of an urban school community. The author argues that homophobia can only be undone if it is attacked at the intersection of race, class, and gender. A description of an anti-homophobia plan for an urban high school follows a brief discussion…

In terms of the attention that they have attracted from researchers, and in comparison with teachers of other subjects, religious education specialists would seem to be a neglected and marginalized group. This paper looks at some of the reasons why this might be and also describes a study that is using a life history approach to explore what it is…

Objective: This article reports the validation of the Caregiver Role Identity Scale, designed to measure the prominence of helping professionals' identity as personal and professional caregivers. The authors developed the measure to test its application to burnout, depression, and professional impairment among social workers. Method: Data from a…

The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of the Differential Ability Scales (DAS) in distinguishing preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) and specific subtypes of language delays. Three hundred forty-eight language-impaired preschoolers' response patterns across DAS General Conceptual Ability (GCA), Ability cluster, and…

This article contends that students whose discourses differ from the dominant academic discourses of school may develop negative writer identities as a result of their language struggles in the academy. Using Critical Discourse analysis, the study explores the writer identities of two college writers in order to understand how embedded ideologies…

This paper examines the exclusion of bi/multiracial Maori women from dominant representations of Maori women's identity and engages with a new articulation of Maori women's difference through a narrative of cultural hybridity. Through a study of key texts on the history of New Zealand and dominant articulations describing Maori nationalists'…

Problem solving begins with problem identification. Conventional knowledge suggests that because patrol officers work specific geographical areas (beats) on a fairly constant basis, they come to see where the problems exist; thus, police experience alone can be relied on to identify crime problems. However, few have examined whether officers are…