Three studies of schools during their first year of voluntary desegregation focused on classroom dynamics and inter-ethnic socialization occurring inside and outside the classroom. The initial study, an exploratory field investigation of four classrooms, involved 600 hours of observation and collaboration with teachers and principals through…

In a 6-month study of a small private school (Fielding) in central Virginia, seven participants in a curriculum practicum tested a research strategy for investigating the knowledge, skills, and attitudes fostered by a school's environment. Given the subjectivity of environmental influences, the team rejected scrupulous data collection to…

This book is intended to be used as a reference for schools that seek to create drug free educational environments and to discourage all forms of substance abuse by students and personnel. The publication examines pertinent legal principles, including search and seizure, drug testing (for students, athletes, and employees), due process and…

An inventory was made of reliable characteristics of effective schools within and across contexts, including a comparison of results of effective-schools research from different nations. A five-factor model of school effectiveness is discussed, which gives the following characteristics: (1) academic goal consensus; (2) safe and orderly climate;…

Although effective schools research has indicated the need for an added emphasis on increasing student achievement within a satisfying learning climate, the issue of how best to implement this research has been perplexing for both researchers and practitioners. Different approaches are being tried in two rural Saskatchewan school divisions. In…

Based on interviews with students and staff and several months of observing life and work in the school, this report examines Colorado's Mountain Open High School, where the program is based on the notion that secondary education should be the rite of passage from adolescence to mature adulthood. Chapter One introduces the people and facilities of…

This report contends that current university-based research and development activities investigating successful secondary schools provide an exceptional mechanism for coordinating all three aspects of assessing successful schools: legal compliance, student performance, and quality of school life. A typology of schools is proposed to account for…

This document is the third of three related volumes. They present the rationale, background, and framework for a comprehensive monitoring system being developed for the National Science Foundation. The system is being designed to gather information about the effects of national, state, and local policy actions designed to change the teaching and…

This report presents data on elementary students' reading achievement collected in phase five of a study carried out in Cleveland, Ohio, public schools and also includes supplementary findings from phases two and three. The study compared reading achievement of minority and white students; identified different characteristics of schools with high…

Research literature on student perceptions of classroom environment is reviewed in this paper. The intent is to indicate the types of issues that have been addressed and to illustrate recent developments in the field of student perception. Seven categories of student perception are examined: (1) teachers and teacher behavior; (2) peers and peer…

This report discusses the structural conditions under which organizational development (OD), as employed in the school systems of the United States and Canada, is more or less applicable to schools. The first section (chapters 1-6) reviews papers and books, concerning either OD in general or the ways in which the ideas of OD have been used in the…

Concerns of this report are adolescence and juvenile justice, the role of families in nurturing children, educational services, health services, and the provision of a continuum of services. The section on adolescence and juvenile justice focuses on six issue areas: youth development, prevention and support services, teen sexuality, substance…

This paper examines existing federal and state standards for the group care of infants and toddlers and offers suggestions for realistic and constructive child care policy for children and families in the 1980's. Particularly emphasized are the effects of day care environments on the psychological development of infants and toddlers and the…

Intended for use by professionals and trained para-professionals in the training of family day care providers, in-home caregivers, and, to some extent, foster parents, this handbook contains information and materials necessary to establish a training plan and offers nine training units plus a supplemental unit about toys. Discussed first are…

This document reports the highlights from a study of effective and ineffective principal behaviors associated with effective schools and briefly summarizes the methodology of the study. The term effectiveness is defined as high academic achievement, low rates of vandalism and absenteeism, a sense of community, and a stable staff. The researchers…