Many education reporters are drawn to the beat because of its complexity and rich variety. Few topics provide such a wealth of political, business, human interest, breaking news, feature, and investigative stories. A reporter's day can start in a classroom with 4-year-olds struggling to learn to read, and end at a school board meeting with…

Introduces social network analysis as an approach and set of techniques for the study of information exchange. Social network analysis differs from other analysis techniques by focusing on patterns of resource exchange relationships and by emphasizing empirical observation. Measurement techniques used in social network analysis are described.…

Notes that social network mapping techniques have been advanced as means of assessing social and environmental resources. Addresses issue of convergent construct validity, correlations among dimensions of perceived social support as measured by social network data with other standardized social support instruments. Findings confirm that structural…

Observation of low-literate Southeast Asian refugees encountering literacy demands of U.S. life showed how they use social networks and develop multilingual competence, which they use to teach themselves English literacy. (SK)

Objective:: Understanding the impediments that prevented sexually abused adolescents from disclosure to their family or to professionals, and analyzing the responses they received when they did disclose. Methods:: In depth anonymous interviews were conducted in Italy through a toll-free telephone line with 36 young people who experienced sexual…

Institutions of higher education are complicated, unwieldy things. This is part of their beauty, but it is also part of their difficulty, for their complications make them slow to change, even when the value of change is widely agreed upon. Whether change grows from a campus-wide mandate with strong support, or is the aspiration of a small group…

China's class structure is changing dramatically in the wake of post-1978 market-oriented economic reforms. The creation of a mixed "market-socialist" economy has eroded the institutional bases of a cadre-dominated social hierarchy and created conditions for a new pattern of social stratification. Although conditions remain dynamic,…

Students in the US are increasingly discovering that online socializing is far from private and that sharing personal details on social-networking Web sites, such as Facebook, can have unintended consequences. A growing number of colleges are moving to disabuse students of the notion that the Internet is their private playground and what they type…

Bullying incidents in schools are getting more attention since the Columbine High School shootings on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Many national and state policies have been enacted since that fateful day. In Virginia, legislation passed by the 1999 General Assembly (section 22.1-208.01) required local school boards to establish a…

This qualitative research study used a phenomenological approach to examine educators' experiences in the virtual world of Second Life[TM]. The rationale for this study's focus on educators using a virtual world stems from an interest in the factors that influence educational practices in virtual worlds. The researcher conducted focus groups…

As they move toward adulthood, most young Americans are either in school, in the workforce, or in the military. Their lives are shaped by the challenges and routines of these anchoring institutions and by the social networks they encounter there. But far too many are disconnected from the roles and relationships that set young people on pathways…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the values of children using Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) kiosks and identify any changes in these values as a result of using the kiosks. Design/methodology/approach: The sample consists of 85 children residing at the Vivekananda Camp. There are 44 boys with an average age of 11.62 years and 41…

In the online learning world it is easy to become so preoccupied by technology that technology solutions are mistaken for educational solutions. Long-term improvements in online departmental and university communities require an educational approach that recognizes the reduced delivery of community in the online world, just as research has shown a…

For a growing group of educators, the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment's massively popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is a place to go to relax, network, and discover potential learning strategies-- and slay a few monsters if they get in the way. The online role-playing game World of…

This article examined online learners' preferences in personalized, relationship-based social awareness information sharing in course management systems. Three hundred seventy-seven online learners' willingness to share social awareness information was measured through a national survey. Results indicated that today's online learners are open…