Formal and informal socialization influences the learning of immigrants and second-language students. Adult educators should take into account the following patterns: cultural models that affect attitudes and behavior, discontinuities between native and current culture, and differences between voluntary and involuntary immigrants. (Contains 28…

Investigates mathematics in the societies of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific with special focus on the Philippines. Presents mathematical practices such as counting and measurement, time, geometry, and logic, in ancient and present day times. (KHR)

Examines ideology theory and the uses to which it has been put in composition. Aims to complicate the understanding of the relationship between writing and writing subjects and the already-written contexts into and out of which they emerge. Concludes that composition theory should begin accounting for the increasingly complex webs of textual…

Addresses whether English teaching has a literacy project of its own. Discusses a holistic, integrated view of literacy as comprising three interlocking dimensions: operational, cultural, and critical. Suggests English teaching should engage with philosophy, the humanities, and the arts. Proposes that educators need to develop a better…

Mezirow's theory of transformational learning--extraction of meaning from experience--fails to account for context. Locating perspective transformation in the individual and basing it on a decontextualized concept of rationality ignores the relationship between individuals and the sociocultural, political, and historical contexts in which they are…

Lists and reviews 12 documents available from the ERIC database on literacy learning in multiethnic and multicultural contexts. (MG)

A historical/cultural model should be used to understand Black Americans' academic performance. Blacks' psychological orientations to their racial identity and cultural values, as well as sociopolitical circumstances, are the context within which Blacks' educational success should be assessed. (SK)

Argues that the surviving funeral orations from the classical Greek period are instances of laudatory discourse designed to fulfill the institutional function of glorifying the Athenian state. Examines changes this discourse underwent as the state changed, and reveals incompleteness in current explanations of funeral orations as essentially…

Explores the relationship between mathematical concepts and the circumstances of learning as they relate to within-individual variation. Analyzes previous results on mathematical concepts in and out of school in terms of their similarities and differences. (RJC)

A French television program using puppets for political satire is discussed and its instructional applications are examined. (MSE)

Explores the use of analogies in architectural design, the importance of Gestalt theory and aesthetic cannons in understanding and being sensitive to architecture. Emphasizes the variation between public and professional appreciation of architecture. Notes that an understanding of architectural process enables students to improve the aesthetic…

Discusses the concept of multicultural education and argues that the curriculum must reflect the cultural diversity of the school's population and must treat as worthwhile the contributions of all groups to the American society. Presents examples of current policies and opinion on multicultural education. (JRH)

Presents a brief overview of historical and cross-cultural data that points to the universality of some main physics conceptions. Summarizes articles from the science education literature that emphasize the relevance and influence of a number of cultural factors, such as language, world view and traditional beliefs, reasoning patterns, and…

Considers empirical evidence and theoretical issues that point out the need to reconceptualize individual differences in psychology. Studies use of arithmetic in everyday life and in the classrooms to explore consequences of cultural practices, the nature of individual differences in "ability," and links between practices and identity.…

Addresses issues of power and diversity, and describes how the production team for Houston's play about Amerasian experience wrestled with the problem of "what is represented and who is authorized to represent it." Explains the reasons for the close attention to detail, and cites examples in which authenticity had to be sacrificed for…