Personal narratives can reveal the nurturing dimension of the teaching role, characterize important changes in teachers' professional lives, and encourage more reflective practice. Such stories are not superfluous features of teachers' lives, but rather are basic to their continued individual and professional growth. (25 references) (MLH)

Individual development planning, intended to improve job performance, involves identifying what needs to be improved; what is the evidence of this; what root skills need development; how behavior changes will be measured; what ideas/principles lead to successful development; and how these elements form a coherent sequence of actions. (SK)

Professional who works with at-risk youth reflects on his own childhood, his mother's series of marriages, and his removal from his family at age eight. Describes odyssey of 15 placements in 11 years in family foster homes, group homes, and various institutions, such as orphanages and detention homes. Identifies number of factors that contributed…

Critiques Lytton's article in this issue that argues against focusing on the relative strength of child effects versus environmental effects. It is recommended that researchers should instead focus on the issues on which mechanisms operate and how they interact during transactional development. (RH)

Compared women's (n=40) and men's (n=20) levels of self-evolvement based on Kegan's Constructive-Developmental Theory. Findings from U.S. military personnel in Europe revealed no gender differences in self-evolvement. Results suggest stereotypically masculine orientation toward individuation and increased autonomy and stereotypically feminine…

The educational needs of gifted children are discussed in the context of the educational program at the Mirman School in Los Angeles (California). (DB)

Discusses identity as the development of functional and intellectual independence and as an involvement in such aspects of life as intimacy, sexuality, and vocation that give one a sense of belonging to the world. Suggests that establishing identity is an on-going process. Describes the Montessori professional's identity as director or directress,…

In two studies, adolescents and adults planned a hypothetical party with and without planning aids. Found that adolescents made no more planning errors than working adults when they were given planning aids and that retired adults made more errors than working adults when planning with and without planning aids. (MM)

Reviews empirical studies of cognitive self-efficacy from childhood through old age, addressing issues of definition and measurement related to the self-efficacy construct. Integrates findings of research on self-efficacy and establishes generalizations regarding the relationship of self-efficacy to choice and goal-setting behaviors, a sense of…

Rebuts the Burgess and Molenaar commentary in this issue on the authors' paper concerning sociobiology and human development, maintaining that genes (nature) cannot usefully be construed as independent of the coactional developmental system of which they are a part. (BB)

In the controlled environment of prison education, students can learn to be creators of their own learning and to cooperate with others in pursuit of knowledge. They assimilate important social and thinking skills that can produce individual empowerment and prosocial awareness. (SK)

A radio journalist uses examples from her "Late Bloomers" program as illustrations of creativity, self-esteem, and self-fulfillment in later life. (SK)

The introduction to this journal issue on gender equity and the special needs of gifted males examines the role of choice for gifted young people and the significant adults in their lives noting factors that affect choice, social and emotional well-being, achievement and career choice, and breaking free of past patterns. (DB)

Counselling with nature (CWN) is an approach based on the law of nature by which everything seeks to survive, to grow, and to be interconnected. CWN incorporates outdoor sensory activities, allowing individuals to use their 53 natural senses (stifled by our predominantly indoor lives) to reconnect to the natural environment. (KS)

A Ruskin College course for unemployed persons contains a range of cultural activities that include critical reflection on work, leisure, employment, and unemployment. The course challenges both narrow, market-oriented training and narrow liberal education focused exclusively on individual development. (SK)