The thesis presented is that the faculty, or more precisely the perspective it takes on academic programs and the actions based on those perceptions, is the critical factor for most collegiate institutions in the next decade. The prospect for the eighties will be substantially influenced by how well faculty are able to deal with curricular issues…

Rural Africa includes some 80% of the African population; its people are poverty stricken, illiterate, ill-sheltered, and ill-nourished. These circumstances make rural development absolutely vital. However, past rural development policies have failed to take into consideration the structure and division of labor in the farm family, the traditional…

The Pennsylvania School Improvement Program (PSIP) was created to assist local schools and school districts in the development of curriculum improvement strategies. The process involves the use of "linkers," curriculum specialists who work with teams from the local level to ascertain needs, then connect the local teams with the research…

A study examined nine strategies for disseminating "The New Occupational Student: Mature Adult Woman," a counseling program for re-entry women at thirty-nine two-year colleges in New York State. The major purpose was to determine whether there was a particular service or combination of services that was most conducive to the implementation of the…

The District Facilitator Project (DFP) assists local schools by linking them with exemplary projects that have been proven successful in other school districts around the country. The DFP provides coordination and technical assistance, services that help to assure successful implementation in the new location. Evaluation of this project was…

The research on which this report is based has aimed at an assessment of the nature of reform of education content and associated processes in developed Western nations as well as in the Arab world. Chapter 1 is designed to clarify the concept of "education content" and to specify processes involved in "content reform," as…

Between 1965 and 1973 the Rhode Island State Department of Education underwent a series of reorganizations affecting its importance and role in the state's educational change process. These reorganizations were in part responsible for and affected by the selection of Rhode Island as a site for a Teacher Center pilot project in inservice teacher…

This is the last in a five-volume series concerned with organization development (OD) in the schools. First, along with discussing limitations of the sampling, it briefly summarizes conclusions from the review of the literature (volume 2), the study of consultants and the study of districts (volume 3), and the three case studies (volume 4).…

Differences in the self-concept of school-aged youngsters before and after interacting with preservice teachers in multicultural community-based situations and changes in their self-concept as a result of the structured teaching of self-concept activities were investigated. Tests revealed that the children possessed a more positive self-concept…

As part of a symposium intended to present a conceptual framework for networking and to discuss the implications of network usage for education research and practice, this paper presents a review of the leading change strategies and poses a definition of education change network. Education change network is defined as a linkage structure that has…

As the concept of community is changing, emphasis in community analysis is changing from a geographic focus to examination of interest clusters within a geographic location. Village communities are declining while town-country communities are becoming more numerous. The suburban community is a recent development, and although it develops its own…

Information gathered via literature review, interview, and personal observation was used to examine the effectiveness of animation rurale programs in Senegal and Niger, French West Africa. Identifiable animation rurale assumptions tested as applicable to Senegal and Niger were: nationwide development programs at the grass roots level can be…

The Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges (CASC) conducted this study of the funding and implementation of a faculty development program starting in 1973. In each of the four case studies, selected from 40 participating colleges, a team of faculty members was created as a mechanism to improve faculty development efforts. A team of three…

Employing a standard anthropological field approach, this case study examines the impact of formal education upon an Alaskan Eskimo community and provides a record of the establishment and development of a small, rural school. Emphasis is placed on the change efforts exerted by people identified with the school and the reaction to these efforts by…

Papers presented at this conference relate to redefining conceptual and program parameters for educating handicapped children and serving handicapped young persons previously unserved or underserved by the public schools. The papers address critical issues, legislation and litigation, program implications, and program practices. (Author/MLF)