This paper is directed at describing the informal promotion process utilized in large urban school districts and the effect of in-house selection on minority individuals and women. The sponsor-protege process (the informal promotion process of large urban school districts) and socialization (the psychological dimension of promotion) are discussed.…

Using Hawaii as an example, this framework for studying a culture focuses on understanding how people solve the problems of living. Intended for elementary school students, the guide is presented in three chapters. Chapter I defines goals and methods of cultural studies. Five concepts that students should understand are that we are all born into…

This report represents a synthesis of data related to the impact of the Parent Education Follow Through (PEFT) Program in the Yakima (Washington) School District. It was compiled from reviews of written documents and interviews with both model sponsor staff and parents, teachers, community leaders and others within the Yakima School District. The…

Ethnomethodological research involves participation in the field, with some degree of social interaction, with the subjects of the study; direct observation of relevant events; some formal and a great deal of informal interviewing; systematic counting; collection of documents and artifacts; and flexibility in the direction the study takes. This…

This analysis seeks to link discourse structure and semantic or lexical systems. The example is given of a Cuna curing chant named "the way of the pepper," in which 53 names for pepper ("kapur") are used in a projection of a paradigmatic axis (the lexical taxonomy) onto a syntagmatic axis. A corollary of the principle of…

Presents two differing perspectives on materials in Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), which provides ethnographic data to member institutions on paper slips or microfilm cards: focus on HRAF and supporting tools as data retrieval system; practical promise and limitations of HRAF materials as they relate to African cultures. (11 references) (EJS)

Detailed study of Detroit-area adolescents provides explanations for the spread of sound change outward from urban areas and upward through the socioeconomic hierarchy. Social network structure, orientation to the urban area, and phonology are contrasted for the two adolescent social categories, "Jocks" (middle class) and…

Summarizes what little is known about American Indian female undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals. Research on these women needs to take into account the varied contexts, role, and commitments--such as tribalism, tribal sovereignty, feasible cultural and linguistic traditions, and treaty obligations--that comprise the…

Combines "rhetorical narration" with K. Burke's dramatistic pentad to argue that definitional cultural myths are rhetorically meaningful in relation to social consciousness if both evolved teleologically. Delineates two phases in America's frontier myth associated with recent space fiction films' representation of a pentadic term's…

Reported are findings of a study that investigated the interaction among public-school teachers in a barroom over a three-month period. The data suggest that teachers dichotomized their professional and personal identitites and that barroom interaction facilitated the transition from a restricted professional self to a more spontaneous personal…

Willis's ethnographic study "Learning to Labour" affirmed the education system as a site of the transmission of class inequality and showed that this transmission is not the result of mechanistic social reproduction but rather of cultural processes within schools. The study and Willis's thoughts on the subject since the study was…

Presents perspective on educational integration of disabled, emphasizing how Canadians, as a society, develop and maintain personal and public attitudes, values, and beliefs about their society. Discusses use of ethnographic case studies of classrooms, schools, and communities to understand dynamics of educational integration, attitudes toward…

Reviews research on poetry in the classroom. The first part concentrates on findings that emphasize the importance of the individual teacher; the second part presents teachers', students', and observers' perception on what it is that a good poetry teacher does. (HOD)

While the significance of validation of data collection instruments in speech act research has been recognized and has attracted considerable interest, most validation studies employed a between-subjects design. In so doing, it is possible that the differences were caused by the group effects rather than different data collection techniques. This…

Rather than promote access, college admissions and financial aid processes often create a series of barriers that the poorest student must overcome to get to college. The Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis (CHEPA) of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California directed a three-year research initiative,…