Educational mass marketing approaches are like fast-food franchises; they offer homogeneous, standardized products that cannot satisfy every consumer's needs. A niche market looks inside the masses to address more individual, specialized choices missing from the menu. Variability, not uniformity, should guide development of public schooling. (MLH)

Tests the hypothesis that holistic students tend to use communication strategies that are based on holistic comparison, and analytic students tend to use strategies that are based on description and segmental perspectives. Suggests that individual differences in patterns of communication strategy usage can be attributed in part to cognitive style.…

Examines adolescent attitudes towards Christianity, science, creationism, and scientism among high school students (n=1584) between the ages of 14-16. Reports that the apparent independence of attitude towards science and attitude towards Christianity is transformed into a positive relationship after taking into account individual differences in…

Discusses the theory of multiple intelligences and what it tells English teachers about students' writing processes. Discusses results of a study of the writing processes of 10 high school juniors whose cognitive profile featured visual-spatial intelligence and subordinated linguistic aspects. Discusses the importance of matching instructional…

For 39 sibling dyads, assessed siblings' relationships through observation and maternal interviews at 4 times, and family life events through maternal interview at 3 times, over a 7-year period beginning when the younger sibling was 3. Found stability of individual differences in the sibling relationship increased with age and that life events…

Examined the effects of gender on academic achievement for 138 mono- and 125 dizygotic twin pairs, ranging in age from 6 to 12 years. Results suggested that individual differences in academic achievement may be more influenced by genetic than environmental variance in females, and by environmental than genetic variance in males. (BC)

Reacts to C. H. Patterson's article (this issue) concerning multicultural counseling. Suggestion that all counseling is generic in nature contributes to the retardation of the developmental process of culturally diverse persons. Supports the notion that cultural competence is imperative in resolving the challenge of counseling with members of…

Reacts to C. H. Patterson's article (this issue) concerning multicultural counseling. Asserts that there are problems with historical concepts of counseling, the definition of culture, and the practice of counseling in multicultural settings. A cultural-centered approach to counseling recognizes that the client has internalized patterns of…

Focuses on the conceptual implications of analyses of individual differences in francophone post-Piagetian research. Maintains that these analyses are preoccupied by the "American question" of measurement and method, instead of attempting a theoretical account of the issues raised by intraindividual and interindividual variability in…

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures were used to study the potential effects of individual differences in verbal working memory capacity on the processing of sentences with a local syntactic ambiguity in German. Results indicate that syntactic processes in language comprehension are related to individual differences in…

Ten professional academic advisors were observed in advising sessions with 35 traditional-aged undergraduates to determine whether advising styles are observable and whether conceptual differences between prescriptive and developmental advising approaches are distinguishable. Individuals were observed to use one of three styles and did not vary…

Two studies examined models that preschoolers, fifth-graders, and adults use to guide predictions of self-beneficial, goal-directed action. Found that preschoolers' predictions were consistent with an animal-based model, fifth-graders' with biology-based and complexity-based models, and adults' predictions with a biology-based model. All age…

Eye fixation patterns were used to identify reading strategies of adults as they read multiple-topic expository texts. A clustering technique distinguished four strategies that differed with respect to the ways in which readers processed text. Findings indicated that qualitatively distinct reading strategies are observable among competent, adult…

Examines the responses of 24 highly restructured schools' responses to balancing the competing aims of providing students with common experiences and addressing differences among individual students. Data show that the elimination of tracking is a goal idealized more than it is attained. Conditions supporting quality instruction for diverse…

Focused on subjective meanings of maturity in younger (6th grade) and older (9th grade) adolescents. Qualitative analysis revealed five images of maturity portrayed by adolescents: balanced maturity; privileges; responsibility; power and status; and physical development. There were some gender and age differences in frequencies of these images.…