An investigation was made to determine whether family environmental factors influence the educational performance of New Zealand children to an extent similar to that found in other countries. School records of all 1970 third-form entrants at two schools in the greater Wellington area were examined, and a questionnaire was administered to all…

The basic tenet of this paper is that the difference between black and white children on IQ measures is not due to genetics but describes the cultural distance between the two groups. The cultural distance approach is described as an amalgam of the environmental and social psychology points of view. It holds that any subculture operating according…

Considerations for identifying the stages of cultural learning of individual students of English as a second language (ESL) are discussed. It is suggested that culture shock, or the shock of the new, is a common experience for those learning a second language in a second culture, and that anger, unhappiness, frustration, and even illness may…

A Masters Program in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) project that was designed to integrate multicultural awareness in the classroom is described. In this project, university foreign students taught elementary and secondary students about foreign cultures and other world perspectives. The Oregon State System of Higher Education agreed to enroll a…

This book of readings was developed to increase the reader's awareness of the cultural and social issues which face children and their counselors. It draws attention to environmental factors which impinge on both teaching and counseling techniques, and encourages counselors to re-examine their roles and interventions for the 1990s. The readings…

A survey of 124 San Francisco State University (SFSU) faculty was conducted in Fall 1989 to assess their attitudes, observations, and experiences concerning human relations at SFSU. This report provides frequency distributions for each of the 37 items on the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on: treatment of various racial/ethnic…

Analyses of standardized test scores reveal that nonurban schools are not meeting the educational needs of Black and Hispanic students. While individual nonurban schools may be superior to urban schools in preparing the majority of their students to perform well on state standardized tests, the standardized test scores of nonurban minority group…

A number of counter-assumptions can be posited to challenge the usual basic assumptions of the professional literacy establishment. These counter-assumptions include the following: (1) literacy is not just a technical skill neutral across all cultures; (2) culture refers to basic questions about truth and knowledge and varies from one society to…

A teacher at the Von Humboldt Child Parent Center, a unit of the Chicago, Illinois, public schools located in the largely Hispanic Humboldt Park area, implemented a practicum designed to improve disadvantaged Black and Hispanic preschool children's language and auditory skills in a nonbilingual learning environment. To carry out the project, 10…

A product of a statewide (California) survey of 104 school districts and 9 county educational agencies, the report focuses on promising practices for use with handicapped children of limited English proficiency (LEP). In Phase One, seven categories of promising practices or program attributes were identified:(1) first and second language…

Although often considered to be homogeneous, the Hispanic community contains many culturally diverse groups. In the United States today, those of Mexican heritage--by far the largest subgroup within the Hispanic community--can be further classified as Mexicano (undocumented resident), Mexican American, or Chicano. This classification system…

Designing instruction for trainees from abroad is very different from creating similar programs for trainees from the United States. Prescriptions based on these differences should be used with a chosen instructional design model when adapting training designs for other cultures. Instructional design principles apply to instruction for learners…

A research study of American Indian high school students and dropouts in the Milwaukee Public Schools explored cultural factors which affect Indian students' decisions to remain in or drop out of urban, middle-class American schools. Enculturation, i.e. acquisition of Indian culture, and its effect on acculturation, i.e. adopting traits of another…

Increasing numbers of industrial/organizational psychologists are becoming involved with the preparation of training seminars for Chinese managers. When developing training programs for Chinese audiences, educational planners need to consider the following factors: differences in the way organizations are structured in the United States and in…

Almost 400 college seniors (202 Anglos, 158 Chicanos, 39 Blacks) attending a large Southwestern public university completed a survey instrument to elicit what educational goals they perceived as important, whether the university had helped them realize those goals, and whether there were ethnic differences in perceived importance and realization…