This article explores some of the complexities of the question as to whether or not American Sign Language (ASL) is a foreign language. It reviews the historical oppression of the deaf, the development of ASL and its defining value to proponents of deaf culture, mentions other language systems (including foreign sign systems) used by the…

This document asserts that dual language education is a program that has the potential to promote the multilingual and multicultural competencies necessary for the new global business job market while eradicating the significant achievement gap between language majority and language minority students. The appeal of dual language programs is that…

First published in 1974, this book was the first full-length study of federal Indian education policy. This revised edition brings the material up to date with the addition of analysis and interpretation of trends and policies that shaped Indian education in the 1980s and 1990s. Chapters are arranged chronologically and cover specific eras such as…

This issue has a special, multi-article section on student testing in Texas and contains three additional and unrelated articles. "The Texas Testing Case Documents: G.I. Forum, et al. v. Texas Education Agency, et al." section has five articles: "Overview" (Roger Clegg); a copy of the "First Amended Complaint";…

This article examines one of the essential functions of an urban school district: ensuring that schools have the power and resources to make good decisions. The article focuses on equitable student-based budgeting, a strategy for resource allocation. It explores the benefits and challenges of moving to student-based budgeting. The article begins…

Education decentralization efforts are examined in six primarily rural, sub-Saharan African countries--Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Stated reasons do not always reflect the real underlying rationales for decentralization. Education decentralization that is publicly advocated to improve service delivery and local…

This issues brief discusses the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Specifically, it reports on the results of focus groups that explored where people stand on standards-based education and whether they are likely to support or abandon struggling schools. The focus groups consisted of more than 60 participants who represented a broad cross-section…

This collection of 10 articles and stories highlights ongoing experiments in colleges and universities which address the relationship of higher education institutions and citizenship responsibility. Following a foreword by Deborah White, articles are: "The Civic Roots of Academic Social Science Scholarship in American" (R. Claire Snyder), which…

This paper discusses the proposal by the United Kingdom government to introduce a performance management policy as the basis for organizing management and remuneration of teachers. The performance management model is firmly embedded within the dominant managerialist ideology which sets the context for restructured levels of the teaching force and…

The news media are often the main source of public information about education. This paper analyzes press coverage of selected issues in contemporary Australian education. From December 28, 1998, to February 17, 1999, daily educational reporting was surveyed in "The Australian" (a paper roughly equivalent to "USA Today") and in…

This paper, which is directed toward adult educators, presents a new approach to understanding the concept of marginalization, as well as a series of educational proposals regarding working with marginalized people that are drawn from transformative learning theory. First, marginalization is defined as being out of religious, legal, and…

The Mass Communication and Society section of the Proceedings contains the following 17 papers: "Interactivity and the 'Cyber-Fan': Audience Involvement within the Electronic Fan Culture of the Internet" (Vic Costello); "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Public Affairs Media Use and Political Orientations" (Kim A.…

This paper examines interrelationships between curriculum and instruction in an urban teacher education program and state educational policies promoting school reform. It notes how national policy talk and organizational strategies promoting systemic reform in schools serving low-income students influence the work of teacher educators preparing…

This book examines the efforts of Valley Interfaith--a community-based organization in the south Texas borderlands--to improve the living conditions of low-income residents and immigrants and the public schools their children attend. Valley Interfaith is unusual in that it crosses the boundary separating the worlds of community organizing and…

This essay examines the ways in which political science, as a discipline, has been influenced by feminist scholarship in the field. It explains that gender politics theory and research have grown tremendously since the late 1960s, focusing not only on including women in research on political behavior and policy, but also reevaluating the theories,…