States that a way to promote the development of African-American youth into adults is to develop positive rites of passages that are based on African heritage. Describes the origin, meaning, and significance of Africentric rites of passage, and argues that these will provide youth with a strong connection to their past and guide them confidently…

Explores the applied research in which object-related play skills of preschool children with developmental concerns are enhanced through intervention strategies. Guidelines for teaching toy play skills are offered as are strategies to promote generalization and maintenance of those skills. (DB)

Traces the recent history of the teaching of Australian Aboriginal language in Walgett (New South Wales), and discusses the possible future of this important issue. Until recently, native Australian languages were frowned upon and were not used publicly. Through funding received for several programs beginning in 1996, there has been a dramatic…

Examines structural consequences of intensive language contact on simultaneous first language (L1) and second language (L2) child language development in an L2-dominant environment. Based on the assumption that structural processes in language contact are operating at and determined by abstract lexical structure, various structural configurations…

Examines Catalan's remarkable revival in Catalonia (Spain) in the past 20 years. Discusses the 1978 referendum designating "autonomous communities," their languages having co-official status with Spanish; increases in Catalan usage in many sectors and among the young; Catalan usage in education; and challenges related to bilingual…

Traces the history of usage of two indigenous languages of Scotland: Gaelic, used largely in the Highlands, and Scots, which developed in parallel with English and is often unrecognized as a separate language because of mutual comprehensibility. Examines changing attitudes toward these languages in educational policy and practices, and current…

States that Friedrich Nietzsche identifies three ways the past is used. Using examples from ethnic, cultural, and political projects, considers the three abuses of education for culture: (1) the need for monumental history; (2) antiquarian uses of education for culture; and (3) critical uses of education for culture. (CMK)

Three school districts are working successfully with a private contractor to reduce the operating costs of lunch programs, while increasing participation and maintaining nutrition standards. The facilities department of the fourth school is producing higher quality work and greater accountability under the direction of a private contractor. (MLF)

Functional analysis of destructive behavior of a four-year-old boy with autism and oppositional defiant disorder was able to delineate the specific form of verbal attention that was responsible for behavioral maintenance. Treatment based on the analysis reduced the behavior to near-zero levels. (DB)

This study compared active student response (ASR) error correction and no-response (NR) error correction while teaching science terms to five elementary students. When a student erred, the teacher modeled the definition and the student either repeated it (ASR) or not (NR). ASR error correction was superior on each of seven dependent variables.…

Argues that cultural minorities enjoy a basic right to recognition and rejects the idea that migrants implicitly renounce their cultural claims when they leave their countries of origin, enter the receiving society, or return. They can generally claim rights that recognize a multicultural transformation of receiving societies. (SLD)

Discusses the experiences of Chinese immigrants when first generation children quickly replace the primary language with English rather than becoming bilingual, noting what is lost when languages are lost and how languages are lost, and presenting suggestions for educators to make the process of learning the school language and adapting to…

Surveys of 510 Chinese-Canadian adolescents attending 3 Chinese language schools in Calgary (Alberta) found that older immigrant children maintained or developed the native language better than younger ones, and limited teaching hours and insufficient reinforcement for using Chinese outside school hindered development of literacy in Chinese.…

An annual survey of physical plant directors at 2-year colleges and 4-year institutions with no significant graduate programs revealed that spending on maintenance and operations (M & O) as a percentage of total budget dropped to 10 percent from 10.5 percent a year ago. Other survey findings are presented in several data tables. (EV)

Reports on a study involving a group of 10 U.S-raised adults who have managed to attain relatively high levels of heritage language (HL) literacy (in Spanish, Cantonese, and Japanese), defying the typical patterns of intergenerational language shift. In-depth retrospective interviews were used to explore the types of access to HL print and the HL…