Children are exploring elements of literacy and numeracy. Such explorations begin in the earliest days of life and are a natural outgrowth of children's curiosity and interest in how the world works. Based on experiences, children build a reservoir of knowledge about language, reading, and mathematics that they take with them to kindergarten,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze a new research topic, national human resource development (NHRD) for neglected but critical components of economics foundation and accumulated international development research and practices. Design/methodology/approach: Through a targeted literature review on NHRD writing, major development…

This article discusses professionalism in early childhood education through the analytical tool of a research-based multi-level perspective that sees this as a cultural, communal, organisational, and individual phenomenon. Starting from an understanding of professionalism derived from a model of professional expertise, the article discusses the…

Everyone in the United States lives in multiple worlds including work, home, community, school, and social and religious groups. Individuals also have a number of identities and behavioral repertoires that shift among contexts. However, some children and families experience more discontinuities between school and home than others. These gaps are…

Research Findings: The present study was designed to examine the factorial validity of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale-Short Form (STRS-SF; R. C. Pianta, 2001) and its invariance across gender in the Greek educational context. The STRS-SF comprises 15 items that measure 2 dimensions of teacher-child relationships: Closeness and Conflict.…

In the process of delegitimating the master narratives that have sustained Western civilization in the past, Postmodernism provoked a "crisis in narrative" which Francois Lyotard describes as narrativity that presents a sense of loss but not of what is lost. Recent histories of rhetoric have promulgated the view that rhetorical maps…

This 35-item bibliography lists journal articles and books published between 1928 and 1984 on the subject of communication in Latin America. Most of the selections are in English, but a few are in Spanish. The bibliography includes a special section on Chicano communication. (RS)

Although questions concerning the effects of literacy on society, culture, and the mind remain problematic for anthropology and psychology, considerations of the role played by orality, literacy, or other media in creating different communicative potentials between writer and reader, should not seem out of place in the discipline of rhetoric. Hugh…

This paper traces the development of the functionalist position chronologically through its major permutations, from the defining contributions of Emile Durkheim, Bronislaw Malinowski, and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown in its anthropological phase through its development in American sociology by Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton to its explicit…

A review of literature examines how literacy, self, and culture are related. Diverse representations of "self" are explored, as are their interrelationship with language, culture, and history. Realizing the linguistic and philosophical complexities inherent in defining the self, especially its relationship to the written word, attempts are made…

The concluding chapter of Tom Quirk's new book, "Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn," raises the question: "Is 'Huckleberry Finn' politically correct?" Quirk's book identifies acutely some of the fundamental issues regarding how racial attitudes and ideological agendas shape the way this great novel is read and taught.…

Cultural approaches to composition, such as those forwarded by John Trimbur, John Schilb, and James Berlin have come under strong criticism for attempting to indoctrinate students into instructors' political beliefs. One attack on writing as cultural criticism has been voiced by Maxine Hairston, who has questioned its ethicality. At issue in…

Reforms in teaching French place priority on the concept of communication, both oral and written, on poetry, and on the conception of grammar as a means for acquiring a practical knowledge of language mechanisms. Other reforms, not specifically linguistic, emphasize the individualizing and humanizing to teaching techniques. (JH)