Provides theoretical underpinnings for reminiscence by reviewing and evaluating previous research, and integrating it within a theoretical framework. Using continuity theory perspective, generates propositions that may facilitate reminiscence research across the life span. Three global functions of reminiscence are derived--private, social, and…

Describes instructional use of brief first-person accounts of mental disorders. Explores the benefits of using first-person, autobiographical accounts as required reading in a course on abnormal psychology. Finds that first-person accounts were more helpful in increasing student appreciation of the experience of having a disorder and empathy for…

Discusses the role of student projects to provide opportunities for self-expression and self-knowledge as a first lesson in peace education. Describes activities for 3- to 6-year olds, including creating a memory book; 6- to 9-year olds, including developing an illustrated timeline of their lives and daily journaling; and for 9- to 12-year olds,…

According to autobiographical memory theorists, past event conversations provide children with a framework for evaluating and connecting past events into a coherent autobiography (R. Fivush, 1994; K. Nelson, 1993; M. K. Welch-Ross, 1995). Two studies were conducted to empirically examine the association between past event conversation style and an…

The authors have come to believe, based on several years of collaborative work in an alternative literacy program, that developing the multiple literacies of struggling youth requires a curricular playfulness with students' ideas, biographies, and imaginations across genres and media. Social literacy and multiliteracy theories are powerful and…

This study examined the emergence of cultural self-constructs as reflected in children's remembered and conceptual aspects of the self. European American and Chinese children in preschool through 2nd grade participated (N=180). Children each recounted 4 autobiographical events and described themselves in response to open-ended questions. American…

As part of a larger research project examining the biographies of university adult educators who entered the field between 1975 and 1985, the aim of this paper is to highlight a number of themes that have emerged from this investigation around the issue of sustaining commitment to social purpose. Our objective was to find out whether those in the…

The Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex sends regular "directives" to its panel of volunteer correspondents around the UK asking them to reflect on various issues relating to the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Two directives from the 1980s and 1990s relate to libraries, books and reading habits. These sets of…

This article argues that while social entrepreneurship shares concerns similar to those of social justice activism, the corporate and business ethos in the idea of entrepreneurship is not suited to the social concerns that teachers and other educators deal with in their everyday lives. The article points out characteristics of social…

Biography and other forms of life writing were once considered vital sources of information on leadership. However, early in the establishment of the pursuit of a "science of leadership" in the first quarter of the last century, they were abandoned as too subjective and hence unreliable. Recently, however, as scholarship regarding leadership has…

This essay demonstrates how American Indian autobiographical narratives work to construct a sense of American Indian subjectivity for competing communities--indigenous and white--by simultaneously promoting and protecting tribal knowledge. Both Black Hawk and Parker understood the power of print circulation in the dominant culture. One of the…

In 1916, May Wynne, a 27-year-old teacher, traveled from Seattle, Washington, to Akiak, Alaska, to teach in a government native school. This book presents her account of the 3 years she spent in Akiak, which consisted of an Eskimo village on one side of the Kuskokwim River and a white settlement of miners, trappers, and traders on the other. Her…

Despite a long history in the arts and humanities as curricular mainstays and a continuing presence as sociocultural mythological anchors, biographies and other forms of life writing have been neglected as sources for teaching educational leadership. Besides biographies, these include autobiographies, portraits, profiles, case studies, memoirs,…

This study analyzes Israeli students' memories of television in the context of family life, and considers culture and systems as well. The study was geared toward broadening the understanding of individuals' perceptions of the role of television in the family, as well as gaining insight into the collective story or stories of life with television…

The common thread that runs through the activities in a literacy course for undergraduate preservice teachers is text. One such activity is a literacy autobiography in which students focus on themselves as learners and teachers. Students are treated as professionals and make their own decisions about how they want to present themselves to their…