Determined the effects of classroom music instruction featuring the keyboard on the spatial-temporal reasoning of 62 kindergartners assigned to keyboard or no music conditions. Found that the keyboard group scored significantly higher than the no music group on both spatial-temporal tasks after 4 months of lessons, a difference that was greater in…

Studied whether the language spoken affects the way subjects think about time in 3 experiments involving: (1) 26 English-speaking and 20 native Mandarin-speaking college students; (2) 25 bilingual students; and (3) 70 native English speakers. Results suggest that language is a powerful tool for shaping thought about abstract domains and habitual…

A study of high school seniors' perceptions of colleges, conducted in 1979, was replicated 23 years later. The study affords an opportunity to examine perceptual changes over time and provides an additional perspective on the positioning of colleges, apart from other well-known surveys. This information may be useful for those involved in…

While recent studies have demonstrated the importance of material structures in shaping writers' roles and practices in academic settings, relatively little attention has been focused on temporality, which exists as an embedded aspect of all such structures. Using the perspectives on temporality articulated in Anthony Giddens' concept of…

The phrase "in times of war" suggests that there are also times of peace. War and peace are much more complex social and political phenomena than simply armed militaristic conflict between and among nation states or the lack thereof; their complexity lies in the fact that victors of "war" inevitably determine the substance of "peace." As such the…

In this article, I examine my attempts as an instructor in a university-based school leadership program to cross the generational divide with my students by using democracy as the central concept for understanding what is meant by a quality American education for all children. I guide the course according to the democratic learning principles that…

Navajo and Anglo college students' time orientation scores from the Future Time Orientation (FTO) Scale (Bristol & Amyx, 1996) were analyzed and compared. Anglo students were found to be significantly more future time oriented in two of the three dimensions: temporal distance and involvement with time. Future time orientation was used to explain…

This paper examines the organization and representation of time in certain kinds of undergraduate programs, here represented by a sociology program in a US university. Written requirements for the major are analyzed as constituting a "chart" that defines academic time in terms of units of before-after relationships. The paper shows how students…

School superintendents meet situations that range from those that require quick thinking to those that need thoughtful reflection and long-range planning. But almost every challenge requires some degree of political thinking and behavior. The authors have witnessed many school leaders get into sticky predicaments as a result of trying to maneuver…

September 11, 2001, was a critical teachable moment that provided the author of this article and his team with an avenue to middle level curriculum that was relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory. Hurricane Katrina opened a similar window of opportunity for middle level educators to focus the minds of young adolescents on important…

The effect of time-related mean differences on estimates of association in cross-sectional studies has not been widely recognized in developmental and aging research. Cross-sectional studies of samples varying in age have found moderate to high levels of shared age-related variance among diverse age-related measures. These findings may be…

Sociologists have documented how important place is in people's lives. C. Wright Mills (1959) argued that people must understand that they do not exist in a vacuum, but that their values, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by the particular time and place in which they themselves exist. The development of this "sociological…

Results of longitudinal studies suggest that the stability of preferences varies across individuals, although it is unclear what variables account for these differences. We extended this work by conducting periodic assessments of preference for leisure activities over 3 to 6 months with 10 adults with developmental disabilities. Although previous…

There is an important relationship between history and geography that needs greater emphasis in the social studies curriculum. By emphasizing the temporal and spatial relationships in geography and history, geographers can help develop curriculum that focuses upon the fundamental themes in geography, the relationship of the themes to the study of…

Futures study is a forward-looking equivalent of history--not predicting the future, but attempting to discipline our anticipations of the future (or of a future) as we perceive it now. This paper investigates the extent to which futures study shares with history and comparative study an empirical, as distinct from normative, starting point for…