Offering a variety of perspectives, the articles in this book are intended for those who teach reading and writing; those who make policy influencing what is taught, how, and to whom; and those individuals who would influence the influential. The 18 articles are grouped into four sections: "Literacy, Politics, and Policies"; "Forms of Literacy";…

Drawing from both research and practice, the articles in this collection address a number of issues related to the reading and writing connection. The 24 articles are grouped into five sections: "Reading, Writing, and Thinking"; "The Parts and the Whole"; "Reading for Writing"; "Contexts for Literacy"; and…

Because Japanese society has traditionally emphasized the group rather than the individual, less research has been done to understand how Japanese culture conceptualizes the individual and how that individual develops within the society. This paper focuses on the individual in Japanese society. Following an introduction (Section I), Section II…

The child brings to the classroom a socially conditioned way of behaving, both verbal and nonverbal, which reflects both the maturational process and sociocultural conditioning, and a socially conditioned view of what the norms of the dominant society are and what that society expects of him or her. The school attempts to transmit the cultural…

The monograph, presenting a history of cultural exchanges between the United States and China from 1942-49, focuses upon the effect of Department of State cultural programs on international cooperation and understanding. Based upon primary source material in the form of reports and daily correspondence between Washington and the American Embassy…

Investigations into item bias provide an empirical basis for the identification and elimination of test items which appear to measure different traits across populations or cultural groups. The Psychometric rationales for six approaches to the identification of biased test items are reviewed: (1) Transformed item difficulties: within-group…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the ways in which language teachers may train themselves to teach culture and to deal with some of the problems encountered in presenting culture to students. The language teacher must first attempt to find a viable description of "culture" by reading various books and journals. In order to find…

Information was collected from 28 Chicano, 42 Chicana, 36 non-Chicano, and 52 non-Chicana students to identify reasons for Chicana attrition from the University of Southern Colorado. Information was also collected from 14 Chicanas who had already dropped out of college. Most of the data were collected at registration for spring semester, 1980. The…

Similarities in cognitive, attitudinal, and environmental factor structures of 60 Canadian Indian and 91 White students in grades 4, 6, and 8 were analyzed and compared to determine if learning difficulties of Indian students stemmed from those factors. White and Indian cognitive factor structures were most similar, and attitudinal factor…

A goal for minority education is "cultural eclecticism," which combines features of assimilationist and cultural pluralist perspectives into an open-ended educational approach that respects cultural diversity. To achieve this, a project-centered approach to curriculum design, blending the academic functions of the school…

Five minority alternative drug abuse prevention programs (three Indian and two Hispanic) in New Mexico were evaluated to determine which elements were successful or unsuccessful in addressing the needs of Indian and Hispanic youth regarding the relationship of substance use and abuse, cultural differences, and self-concept. The programs were…

A cultural assimilator was developed to teach white junior officers about black culture in the army. Scenarios involving misunderstandings between blacks and whites in the army were presented, and respondents were asked to identify "correct" reasons for the misunderstandings. In the first of three field tests respondents showed evidence…

Communities around the world is the theme of unit 10 of a bilingual social science strand for grade three. Inquiry strategies in both cognitive and affective domains serve as instruments to reach objectives of learning and assessment activities in kits 37-40. Each kit focuses on one of the spiraling questions of who the individual is, what his…

The social science strand of unit six for second graders expands the conceptual field of the child from the school as a community to the neighborhood as a community. Both instructional and assessment activities are featured in the four kits of this teacher's guide. Focus, objectives, and materials for each activity are given in English and…

Communities in the nation is the theme of this social science strand for Spanish-speaking third graders. Content sources in kits 29-32 are stories, games, interviews, visual aids, and the students' own experiences. Focus, objective, and materials for each learning and assessment activity are given in English and Spanish; detailed teacher…