The prospective associations between negative life events (NLEs) and adolescent alcohol use was examined using the Youth Asset Study. Participants (n = 1040 adolescents, mean age = 15.8 years) completed annual interviews which included a life events scale and alcohol use in the last 30 days. Family structure and parent education were assessed as…

Phenomenological research is defined and discussed in terms of its purpose and procedures. Phenomenology deals with subjective consciousness. Phenomenological research probes into the human experience to illuminate the complexity of individual perception. It is aimed at interpretive understanding. The general design for research consists of three…

Explores the nature, illustrations, guidelines, and importance of autobiographical sociology as a research approach. States sociologists may probe past personal experiences to identify and analyze sociologically relevant material. Notes such sociology may be related to author-ethnography, and experiential analysis. Observes the advantage of…

Day care has a significant effect on children's conceptions of social rules that is not related to egocentrism or a lack of stimulus familiarity. Moral transgressions were regarded as equally serious by veterans and newly enrolled, while the distinction between morality and convention was unclear for the newly enrolled. (RH))

Parents' reactions to brief separations from their infant children were investigated in this study. Participants included a total of 16 female and 16 male 10-month-old infants, together with their mothers and fathers. From the pool of 64 parents, one parent in each family was randomly chosen to serve as subject. The selection of subjects was made…

Presents a response to Lorraine Code's critique of Carol Gilligan's abortion study. Urges that abortion be read as a socially constructed experience based on more than women's moral decisions. Discusses language and experience to present abortion as an area of contested meaning in historical and ideological constructions of social life. (DK)

Preschool, third-grade and sixth-grade children, and adults were shown vignettes depicting eight types of experiences and asked for their own (for children) or the children's (for adults) expected emotional reactions. Overall, adults showed an absence of developmental considerations in their implicit theories of children's emotional…

True "liberal learning" often occurs far from our campuses and direct influence. The Ladakhi, a non-western culture located between Tibet, China, and Pakistan, passed on "liberal learning" as part of its communal experience. The Ladakhis were wealthy, self-sufficient, lived in roomy houses, had zero "gross national…

The purpose of this study was to investigate teaching within the framework of the philosophical social action theory developed by Professor Tuomela in order to argue for the claim that teaching is a social concept. The outcome is likely to have important implications for the development of theories about factual and conceptual phenomena within…

A critical analysis of the current knowlege concerning the development of the concept of death in childhood is the purpose of this paper. Theoretical models and methodological limitations of the literature are addressed. Many factors have been implicated as contributing to the development of the concept of death. (Author/BN)

In speech therapy lessons, discourse between the clinician and the child is impacted by the social presuppositions of both participants. This paper argues that some macroanalysis of the clinician's social experiences must be incorporated into the microanalysis of therapy to sort out the multiple meanings of therapy events. (Author/JDD)

Primary aim: to test Edelstein, Keller, and Wahlen's model of sequential operations in perspective taking on 93 children in the third grade and 69 children in kindergarten, who were tested again when in the first grade. Secondary aim: to examine the relationship between social experience and perspective taking. (Author/BN)

Describes an instructional method where undergraduate child development students and a class of grade school students prepare and exchange written questions and answers. The questions focused on their educational experiences. Discusses advantages of this method over other interactive techniques. This exercise can be adapted for other courses. (MJP)

The dynamics of hosting foreign exchange students were studied by means of a longitudinal documentation of the experiences and feelings of 15 U.S. families before, during, and after the 10 months when they hosted an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student. Data were gathered by means of semistructured, open-ended, audio-taped interviews…