Patterns of cognitive, affective, and social growth of elementary school children are described and the school and home variables which influence such growth are identified in this longitudinal study. This final report presents the final instruments and the interpretive data associated with them. The study permits the tracing of developmental…

As EFL programs become more prevalent throughout the world, the cultural implications of English teaching are more often debated. These cultural considerations are extremely relevant in Islamic cultures, where English education can be viewed as contributing to the influence of Western Christian or secular pedagogy. This potential clash of…

This paper aims to synthesize the central issues surrounding Intercultural Education, and presents the fundamental guiding principles for an intercultural approach to education as viewed by UNESCO. It is divided into three parts. Part I outlines the key issues surrounding Intercultural Education, as well as its objectives and basic operating…

In this article, the author states that gifted student population is itself diverse, with variability in intensity, maturity, risk-taking, creativity and degree of giftedness, among other traits. Appropriate services are equivalent to a life preserver; the opportunity to spend time with others who are sufficiently similar in ability, interests and…

A multi-stage mixed analysis was used to examine stories from 423, primarily Hispanic, undergraduate students in the United States regarding their best and poorest K-12 teachers, along with responses to 10 Likert format survey items. In the quantitative analysis phase, participants expressed strong agreement with items derived from the literature…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine students' perception of end-of-semester Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET), and to explore the extent to which SET are biased by non-instructional factors. Design/methodology/approach: A survey questionnaire about the end-of-semester SET was designed and administered to 819 students selected from…

Step by Step (Early Childhood Program) is an education reform program to engender democratic principles and practices in young children and their families. The authors interviewed 15 teacher participants in the yearlong Step by Step training to learn how the training changed their teaching practices and how their new practices affect the children…

This study investigated the cross-cultural differences in American and Finnish elementary teachers' evaluations of their classroom teaching behaviors. The self-evaluation instrument developed for the study was administered to 167 American elementary teachers from Indiana and Texas and to 172 Finnish teachers (also elementary) from two different…

The changing demographics in the United States have contributed to the increase of the preexisting multicultural nature of the American society. To actively participate in their meaningful civic function, individuals need to be more sensitive to the contextual demands of the communicative event as they relate to language, culture, ethnicity, and…

This study, conducted at the University of Memphis (Tennessee), compared the effects of a self-paced method of instruction on the attitudes and perceptions of students enrolled in an undergraduate statistics course with those of a comparable group of students taking statistics in a traditional lecture setting. The non-traditional course used a…

This digest provides a critique of the various educational strategies that have been used with Latino students and suggests alternatives that may be more successful. Many educators acknowledge that the reasons for the historic academic underachievement of Latino students could be inappropriate cognitive, cultural, and linguistic teaching methods.…

The first-grade multicultural curriculum in this guide is designed to enable teachers to create learning environments that will enable all children to develop nondiscriminatory behavior, form positive self-concepts, respect diversity of cultures, conserve the environment, foster a life-long desire for learning, and begin developing the necessary…

The proceedings presented consist of summaries and reports of the presentations given during a summer institute on teaching linguistically and culturally diverse learners. Summaries of the following papers are provided: "Education 2000 and Beyond: The Challenge of Our Culturally Diverse Students" (Eugene Garcia); "Second Language…

The Barnum Effect was generated to teach students about the ethics of deception in research and the feelings of subjects who are deceived. The Barnum Effect occurs when individuals are duped into believing invalid results of psychological tests. People are most accepting when given favorable feedback about themselves. They interpret evaluations as…

This paper presents the results of a comparison of the effects of gender on fourth-grade students' learning in hands-on science. This study is part of a 3-year classroom based project of hands-on science in 6 urban and 2 suburban classrooms (n=171). Half of the teachers used a supported-inquiry approach, and half used activity-based science to…