Investigated urban and rural Tanzanian elementary students' experiences and action-control beliefs about school performance using the revised Control, Agency, and Means-End Interview. Student surveys indicated that the Tanzanian educational system and teaching format were reflected in low performance-belief relationships. High achievers were more…

Surveys of 242 Hispanic students attending New Mexico Highlands University and California State University, San Bernardino, examined students' political attitudes, political activism, and attitude toward bilingual education in relation to students' choice of ethnic label (Hispanic, Chicano, or Mexican American), level of acculturation, income, and…

This paper examines the issue of how under three year-olds learn the rules of appropriate behaviour in the light of sociocultural, attachment, social learning, ecological theory and sociology of childhood theories. Discipline involves teaching children how to behave acceptably in their family and society, while physical punishment is the use of…

In this study we investigated the lives and academic histories of eight students enrolled in an alternative-school program in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Through the triangulation of interviews, fieldnotes, local newspaper articles, artifacts such as student work and information provided in cumulative folders, and a battery of measures of…

The article presents a format for intermediate, university-level German instruction called "global simulation" (GS) as the curricular manifestation of several recent trends in the literature on instructed second-language acquisition, in particular interactionist and task-based approaches, sociocultural theory, and the acquisition of intercultural…

The extant literature suggests that the high rates of educational failure for aboriginal schoolchildren result from differences in the home and school interaction patterns. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the micro structures of classroom discursive interactions, and to examine those within and against the macro structures of…

Current approaches to oral assessment of English in English secondary schools tend to concentrate more on "confidence" and "participation" than on the quality of children's thinking. This undermines the rich possibilities in classroom talk for cognitive development. Behavioural assessment approaches deny the essentially…

The United States is rapidly becoming a fatherless society. Fatherlessness is the leading cause of declining child well-being, providing the impetus behind social problems such as crime, domestic violence, and adolescent pregnancy. Challenging the basic assumptions of opinion leaders in academia and in the media, this book debunks the prevailing…

If a new and effective rural policy is to be crafted, policymakers must realize that rural America has changed a great deal in recent years. To be sustainable, rural policy must be flexible enough to accommodate continuing changes in global structure; be sufficiently targeted to address the unique concerns found in diverse rural situations;…

This study utilized a sociocultural approach to writing instruction and examined its effects on the motivation of students with learning disabilities. The concept of the Zone of Proximal Development was used to measure changes in five third and fourth grade students' motivation toward literacy activities. Students wrote in journals daily and…

Serious confrontation of the problems facing education requires a reform of the organizing principles of learning: a shift from an instrumental purpose to the moral and political purpose of cultural renewal, from learning for economic purposes to learning for citizenship. This book focuses on the work of secondary schools in the contexts of…

An analysis of sociocultural aspects of a dinner conversation is presented, part of a larger study of the pragmatics of second language discourse. Salient features of the discourse are examined in terms of implicit frames of reference about social membership that are brought into play in interaction. Primary data come from the conversation between…

This paper describes an interdisciplinary 9-unit course at Pasadena (California) City College, entitled the "American Cultures Block Program." The block is divided into three distinct sections: (1) "United States History from 1865 to the Present"; (2) "Humanities Through the Arts"; and (3) "Introduction to…

A collection of 26 stories, told by Belle Herbert, an Alaskan elder, in the Gwich'in Athabaskan language, is presented with side-by-side translation in English. Introductory sections give background information about the author's life and the stories told here. Stories include: a moose hunt; life in the old days (skin tents and clothing); hunting;…

This paper examines the intersection where migration and adult learning converge, exploring how a transnational social context of living relates to adults' formal and informal learning experiences. In-depth life-history interviews were conducted with 29 adults participating in two social networks that link the central coast region of California…