This report stems from a collaborative research inquiry into the nature and consequences of art in American life. Although it culminates in a research agenda for the National Endowment for the Arts, the document also proposes a way for the nation's cultural researchers, arts practitioners, policy-makers, and the general public to view, analyze,…

The 44th President of the United States will have the greatest opportunity--and face the greatest necessity--since the 1950s to lead the nation to sustainable prosperity. In the knowledge economy of the 21st century, America's intellectual edge, creative ingenuity, and adaptive workforce are and will remain the most important components of…

The common approach to scaling, according to Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is to jump in and say, "Let's go out and find more money, recruit more participants, hire more people. Let's just keep doing the same thing, bigger and bigger." That, he observes, "tends to…

In June 1996, the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America, whose mission is to help people with disabilities achieve their life goals with technology, met in Salt Lake City (Utah). This article provides an overview of the conference, describing product exhibits, courses, meetings, and particularly research…

A consideration of the arts and cultural life is indispensable to any study of the quality of life in U.S. metropolitan areas. However, literature reviews reveal that the arts are often omitted in quality of life studies, and, if included, the assessment may not be derived from sound empirical analysis. This document describes and evaluates…

The aims of the International Education Association's Preprimary Project are to examine developmentally relevant characteristics of the socialization environments of 4-year-olds in participating countries, and to ascertain the relationships between those characteristics and selected developmental outcomes. Phase I of the project consists primarily…

The farmers' training and functional literacy program is based on the idea that there is a distinct correlation between physical and human ingredients in agriculture, between agricultural inputs and the upgrading of human resources. The program provides an integrated approach to a comprehensive rural development program and growth in agriculture.…

Focusing on the period from June, 1984 through November, 1984, this report summarizes the activities of the Gulf Coast Future Issues Council (GCFIC), a non-profit corporation organized as a coordination center of community research, forecasting, trend analysis, and educational activities. After introductory material that highlights the role of the…

Detailed accounts of activities of 19 committees of the Social Science Research Council form the major portion of this annual report. In addition, the Council president's report summarizes the activities, trends, and goals of the Council in areas such as research planning, the improvement of research methodology, and the training of competent…

This report describes the make-up and mission of the Commission on Workforce Quality established by the U.S. Secretary of Labor on July 11, 1988. According to the report, the commission is to conduct a year-long study on the present quality and future needs of the U.S. work force, with a report due on Labor Day, 1989. This short introductory…