Surveyed urban classroom teachers to investigate their temporal orientation, attitudes toward school change and reform, and time investment behaviors. Data from self-report surveys indicated that there were major differences in teachers' temporal orientations and willingness to participate in school reform activities across age and across gender…

Using a sociocultural framework, this article describes the importance of mediated learning and the difference between theoretical and empirical learning for developing scientific literacy. Components of scientific literacy are identified and a conceptual model adapted from ethnomathematics is used to demonstrate effects of theoretical learning on…

Assessed sleep patterns, sleep disruptions, and sleepiness of second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders. Found that older children had more delayed sleep onset times and increased reported daytime sleepiness than younger; girls spent more time in sleep than boys and had increased percentage of motionless sleep; and 18 percent of children had fragmented…

Explores whether past experiences in mainstreamed classes exert a positive influence on present attitudes of typical secondary students and whether their attitudes differ according to their ages, the specific disabilities encountered, or activities involving disabled peers. Presents the findings and conclusions in detail. (CMK)

Exhibits are a way of self-guided presentation in which visitors use their own knowledge and understanding. Studies a self-guided group visiting an exhibition on dinosaurs which are displayed as robotic models. Finds that the animatronics have a well thought out storyline that increases family and school visitors' understanding of the exhibit…

Examined predictions of 48 four- and five-year-old (mostly European Australian) children concerning the sex of persons carrying out common activities or occupations on television. Responses reveal strong gender stereotyped expectations, which were strongest for masculine stereotyped activities. Stereotyped judgments also increased with age. (SLD)

Defines personal authority as the ability to balance individuation and intimacy in relationships with families and peers. The Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire--College Version was completed by Catholic seminarians in Canada. When results were compared with other studies of men, seminarians were found to have more personal…

Basque auxiliary verbs encode tense, agreement relations with ergative, absolutive, and dative arguments, which constitute an inflectional verbal amalgam whose acquisition is not problematic for Spanish-speaking children but is for Spanish-speaking adults. This asymmetry is due to different processes by which the inflectional amalgam is acquired.…

Examines a wide range of writing tasks of 11- and 15-year-old students from four regions of England to establish the relative importance of nonstandard dialect as a factor in deviation from standard English norms in writing. (Author/JL)

The contributions of peer acceptance, friendship, social status, and age relative to mixed-age classmates to children's' attitudes toward school and to achievement in ungraded primary school were studied with 323 ungraded elementary school students. Attitudes toward school were positively related to achievement scores. Predictive variables are…

Analyzes how social support helps explain variations in child and adolescent psychological distress at time of sexual-abuse discovery (N=154). Support from a parent was related to less psychological distress, whereas support from friends is related to increased adjustment difficulties. (Author/MKA)

The effects of family structure and family environment on the initiation of illicit drug use were studied with 3413 U.S. and foreign-born Hispanic, African American, and White adolescent boys. Findings indicate a great deal of instability in family structures. Differences among ethnic groups in relationships among family characteristics and drug…

Examined adolescents' moral values in a fable writing class in 6th grade, 10th grade, and first year of college. Core values identified in the written fables related significantly to grade level but not gender. As adolescents mature, their values shift. Writing fables is well suited for studying and teaching moral values in character-education…

Investigated 87 (British) deputy principals' perceptions of the headship and the likelihood of their applying for such posts. A considerable number (35) replied they were unlikely to apply within the next 5 years. The 11 male respondents showed a greater disposition to apply than the 76 female respondents. Younger and less experienced respondents…

Examined Hong Kong primary schoolchildren's self-concept in several domains over two years. Found that younger children had higher self-concept than older. Self-concept dropped drastically from grade one to three and leveled off thereafter. Girls had higher self-concepts than boys but had a greater drop. Self-concept level predicted depression,…