Refutes criticisms by L. G. Carr and D. J. Ziegler of the author's predictions concerning mandatory busing in Norfolk, Virginia. Charges that Carr and Ziegler ignored or miscalculated statistical evidence. Concludes that canceling forced busing would have brought White students back to secondary schools, as it did to elementary schools. (SG)

Evaluating Chinese publications about rural education and needed reforms presents several problems: political limits on educational debate; paucity of statistical data and reference citations; and complex ideological statements. Examination of nine journal and newspaper articles reveals that they cautiously endorse rural education reforms within…

The promise of behavioral community research remains vibrant today, but behavior analysts are reminded that there are differences among advocacy, application, and research; there are many forms of research; knowledge alone is often insufficient to foster long-term change; and the complex environments of most community work involve multiple and…

This paper expresses concerns about implementing the behavior analysis values for community intervention expressed by Stephen Fawcett in EC 602 711. Concerns include inclusion of participants in selecting research goals, methods, and outcome measures; research impact on public policy; tension between research requirements and research settings;…

Survey of 95 medical school libraries found that 91.5 percent of copies of retracted articles were not tagged as being invalid, that 79 percent of the libraries had tagged none of the retracted studies; and only 16 percent had policies for managing articles that report invalid science. A common attitude against perceived library censorship was…

Describes the experiences of Cabrillo College (California) in constructing a personal computer-based student tracking system. Addresses data collection and such obstacles as access to the mainframe, limited/erroneous/inconsistent data, lack of information on within-semester persistence, and understated graduation rates. Reviews benefits. (DMM)

Based on a Phoenix (Arizona) school district's experience, this article shows central office administrators how to empower individual schools without abdicating control. Administrators should first identify all influential parties, seek successful pioneers in other districts, examine research findings, allow time for change, and delegate someone…

The futility of the debate between heredity and environment as determinants of intelligence is argued, with convictions inspired by C. Burt's work (apart from the question of fraud in his work). It is contended that the influence of this misconceived ideological disagreement is apparent in today's educational systems. (SLD)

Using structural equation technique to replicate results of Hasenfeld and Rafferty's causal model predicting public attitudes toward welfare state programs with the social ideologies of work ethic and social rights. By incorporating estimates of measurement error, results failed to support the authors' original conclusions. Operationalizing key…

Responds to Barry Hutchinson's views of Active Tutoring Work. Says Hutchinson's assumption that teachers are not policy makers is in error. Discusses problems in the teacher-researcher, action research model. Challenges the notion that Hutchinson's research impedes communication between teachers and researchers. (NL)

This article on the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (a consortium of universities, state departments of education, parent groups, and school districts) addresses problems in research on gifted education, the Center's rationale and mission, its component parts, its research on typically underrepresented populations, and its…

Examines the degree to which the effects of apartheid on specific aspects of childhood can be better understood through a historical perspective on Black South African childhood. Historical viewpoints may shed new light on the image of Black children and on the current status of developmental psychology as it is practiced and researched in South…

Learning styles represent a type of aptitude-treatment interaction suggesting that a person's distinctive characteristics (aptitudes) can be matched to a specific treatment (instructional method) yielding a more effective outcome than could otherwise have been achieved. Special education research does not support categorizing youngsters or using…

This study examined 40 articles published in the "American Journal on Mental Retardation" or the "Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps" (JASH) from 1976-78 and 1986-88. Both journals published low numbers of articles with ecological validity in the late 1970s, but JASH subsequently increased…

Several researchers' assumptions regarding social skills of individuals with learning disabilities are refuted as representing an "either/or" empirical view. A postmodern view is presented, contending that exceptionalities are differentiated by looking at the quality of behaviors and possible antecedents rather than comparing them quantitatively,…