Of 4,100 adolescents, those who characterized their parents as authoritative scored highest on psychosocial competence and lowest on behavioral dysfunction. The reverse was true for neglected adolescents. Adolescents from authoritarian homes scored high on obedience but low on self-perception. Adolescents from indulgent homes evidenced…

The purpose of this study was to gather information from secondary school students, their teachers and parents concerning their perceptions of school and education. The study was a replication of similar studies carried out in North York in 1971-72 and 1976-77, and was intended to provide data regarding current perceptions of school as well as to…

The performance of 131 urban sixth-grade students on the Uses Test of creativity was studied in four environments to determine the effects of testing condition variables and to find optimal testing procedures. Testing condition variables included the giving of grades vs. no grades and individual vs. group administration of the task. The four test…

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of a 62-item parenting questionnaire completed by parents from the United States, Australia, China, and Russia. Factor analyses yielded three global parenting dimensions for each culture which were consistent with D. Baumrind's (1971) authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies. The…

The relationships that exist between written compositions of fourth-grade students and various teacher influences were investigated in this study. Relationships examined were those between the student's achievements in composition and (1) his teacher's writing ability, (2) his perception of other students' writing, his classroom, his assignments,…

Data analysis and coding of responses to a questionnaire survey of secondary school students, their teachers, and parents concerning perceptions of school and education provide the material for this report. Students and parents were randomly selected by two methods from eight secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. All staff members and…

The following statements summarize the author's analysis of changing attitudes to work and life styles in Western society: (1) a permissive society has fostered a change in authority roles; (2) general mistrust toward big busines is no longer limited to the public at large; (3) employees, supervisors, and managers all dislike and fear change; (4)…

To develop communication skills among non-participating students, teachers must recognize, diagnose, and treat individual problems of the reticent child. Teachers need to convey the concept of an "open" classroom where all ideas are welcome, to develop questioning and "active listening," to encourage eye contact, to make use of…

If schools are to reorganize to meet the educational needs of disadvantaged children, should they become freer or more directed? This paper analyzes twelve schools, all of which in varying degrees have proved successful, and chosen because they indicate the broad range of free and directed school programs now being developed for disadvantaged…

An introduction to children with emotional problems is followed by discussions of the non-directive play therapy situation and participants: the playroom and suggested materials, the child, the therapist, and the parent or parent-substitute as an indirect participant. The eight basic principles of non-directive therapy are considered along with…

Tired of being excluded from political activities because of lack of day care facilities, women's liberation members of the German Student Federation of Social Democrats (SDS) organized Storefront Day Care Centers early in 1968 in West Berlin. In "Storefront Day Care Centers," an authors' collective recounts the events that marked the growth of…

Although classroom "openness" has been much discussed in recent years, there has been little effort to investigate to what degree this openness occurs within a general sample of classrooms. The purpose of this study is to identify significant attributes of classroom activity and organization relevant to the concepts of "traditional" and "open" and…

The author discusses the need for a more disciplined society through more disciplined education. Discipline and moral values in education are the keys to responsible citizenship, which is disappearing in the United States today. Without abandoning compassion and special attention to minorities, a nationwide commitment to high standards and…

Examines the degrees of permissiveness and strictness in the socialization patterns of 220 Israeli adolescents at home, at school, and in youth movement participation. Discusses the divergent approaches developed by each of the three socialization agencies. (FMW)

Without well-defined criteria for success, all radical innovations are doomed to failure. To facilitate successful experimentation the following are necessary: an outside agency to conduct evaluation; criteria of success acceptable to innovators and critics; and, in control and comparison groups, assessment and accounting of the initial versus…