The system of education in the United States mirrors, creates, and legitimates inequalities of the larger society that supports it. Legally required schooling ranks, sorts, and prepares children for the "real world," and contributes to social maintenance rather than to social change by stressing the "correctness" of some…

The Puerto Rican legends presented here have been adapted for use in a bilingual education setting. They are presented in the framework of a Puerto Rican child's first visit to the island with his family. The four legends are: (1) "Carabali"; (2) "Guanina"; (3) "El Penon de las Palomas"; and (4) "La Garita del Diablo." The book is illistrated with…

The importance of parental attention in the facilitation of prereading skill development is examined in this paper. The first section presents a historical perspective on attitudes toward early childhood education, touching on the views of educators of past centuries and on recent trends in early childhood education in the United States. The…

Two experiments were conducted to test the contention that the extent to which an individual maintains eye contact is differentially interpreted by different cultural groups. In the first experiment, 30 black and 30 white male subjects individually engaged in 15-minute conversations with a black male research confederate. In half of the…

One in a series of books intended to help children improve their critical analytical skills, the document examines the concept of time in light of theories of philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Dewey. The document is presented in three chapters. Chapter one offers a critical analysis of time from the perspective that time is an unknown and…

Legislation in the State of California has mandated bilingual programs. They must be included by administrators developing mainstream curricula for California schools. Not all program administrators have complied with this legislation. Legal requirements for bilingual programs have raised philosophical, legal and teacher morale problems for…

Presented are nine brief case studies of some educational reforms and innovations in some African countries. The studies have in common the concern for problems related to mass education in support of development, particularly in the initial phase of lifelong or basic education. The studies include: Middle-Level Practical Education in Senegal…

In this paper, one of the pioneers of Chinese language instruction in the United States reviews the development of bilingual education under public funds, summarizes criticism against it, and proposes approaches and methodologies to improve it. Emphasis is placed on the need to insure the future of bilingual education by paying attention to and…

Rules of traffic safety constitute the theme of this booklet, intended as reading material for Spanish speaking elementary school children. The document was developed by students in the Bilingual Teacher Aide Program at Mesa Community College. Both the Spanish language and content have been controlled to provide linguistically and culturally…

This study describes the processes involved in developing an observational system for analyzing teacher classroom behavior. Three-hundred-sixty sixth grade students reported their perceptions of their teachers by responding to a questionnaire and to the same questions during interviews. The students' perceptual reports were analyzed to determine…

It is required by Michigan Public Act 294 that local school districts having an enrollment of 20 or more students of limited English-speaking ability establish and operate bilingual instruction programs, and that the State Board of Education approve a testing mechanism suitable for evaluating the proficiency in English language skills of students…

Designed to explore new reading readiness predictors that are not found extensively in the more commonly used commercial group tests and to develop new indices to measure the level of reading readiness of beginning first graders, a study was undertaken involving 115 children. The factor of sex in reading readiness was also investigated. An…

The essays composed by 84 remedial and 77 nonremedial college freshmen were analyzed for some features proposed by Mina Shaughnessy as being characteristic of basic writers. The students were enrolled in either a beginning remedial class (098), a class at the next level of remediation (099), or a regular English class (101). The essays were…

This paper attempts to identify key, recurring discourse activities and to develop hypotheses about ethnic or subgroup differences in discourse style that could lead to adverse educational outcomes. Data are drawn from ethnographic observation of 50 sharing time ("show and tell") sessions held in a first grade classroom. Different…

This is an evaluation of a program designed to improve the reading skills of Title I eligible children in grades 4-6 through the integration of a total art program with a total reading program. A total of 1,176 New York City school children were served by the program, which was conducted by the Board of Education in association with five city…