Background: Fostering the innate need to lead, teach and care for others is fundamental to creating a just and moral society. The nurturing begins early in life and becomes especially vital during the adolescent years, when peer pressure and the need to belong are heightened. Unfortunately, many youths believe leadership is associated with being…

The growing use of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) in primary school teaching forms part of a number of initiatives within the schools of the United Kingdom to develop the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching and learning. The IWB presents both challenges and opportunities to teachers, particularly in terms of staff…

This article describes the design features of a mentoring program that evolved from a university/school system partnership. Findings from participant interviews suggest key issues to be considered in designing and implementing a school systemwide mentoring program such as recruitment of mentor teachers, incentives for mentor teachers, release time…

This paper explores the perceptions of primary and secondary school teachers who are currently in their induction phase (i.e. their first three years after graduation). It reports the views of approximately 300 teachers about their professional development. The methodological approach adopted was a questionnaire survey followed by in-depth…

This paper uses in-depth interview data to explore aspects of the lives of non-native speaking English educators working in the state education system in Sri Lanka. In so doing the research focus is on the educators themselves and the paper will discuss such issues as: careers as English teachers--motives for entering teaching, career progression,…

Thirty-two families were given six market-leading, educational CD-ROMs each, and usage of them was logged over 11 weeks. These children and their parents were also interviewed on three occasions. Although parents and children were enthusiastic upon receipt of the software and envisaged that it would be a useful learning tool, children's use of…

In the UK Centres of Excellence were funded by the DfES to model high quality, multi-agency, early years services for young children and their families. They were precursors to Children's Centres to be established across the UK. Early Excellence Centres were evaluated at national and local levels. This article will draw on data from local…

This study focuses on 26 African American athletes and explores their perceptions of athletic career transition. Participants consisted of student athletes from a United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division IIA institution in the Southeastern region. Participants completed the Life After Sports Scale (LASS), a 58-item…

Purpose: We estimated the effect of a voucher benefit on the demand for personal assistance by Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older who had functional disabilities. Design and Methods: We performed a secondary data analysis on 645 Medicare beneficiaries from the Medicare Primary and Consumer-Directed Care Demonstration (a randomized…

This study is the first of its kind to focus upon primary head teachers and teachers' attitudes to attendance issues in two distinct but similar-size authorities in England. As part of the fieldwork 192 head teachers were interviewed and a similar number of primary teachers from the same schools. All Heads of special schools within the authorities…

Prescriptive writings on performance evaluation have argued that splitting the administrative (summative) and developmental (formative) roles will lead to evaluatees being less defensive and more open to discussing performance problems and taking suggestions, and that without the responsibility for making an administrative evaluation, evaluators…

The development of children's cosmologies was investigated over a 13-year period, using multi-modal, in-depth interviews with 686 children (217 boys, 227 girls from New Zealand and 129 boys, 113 girls from China), aged 2-18. Children were interviewed while they "observed" the apparent motion of the Sun and Moon, and other features of the…

A 1-credit career orientation course at Texas A&M University was evaluated based on 5 years of entry and exit surveys and student performance. Students strongly preferred peers to introduce outside speakers and gain experience in communication, compared with having a faculty member lead the class. Outside assignments--involving resume…

The curriculum of the Life Orientation (LO) learning area forms an excellent basis for equipping learners to respond positively to social demands, assume responsibilities, and optimise their life chances. I report on a qualitative study that focused on the extent to which schools and LO teachers succeeded in achieving the outcomes of the…

The majority of learners in southern Africa receive their education through the medium of a second language, English. Although teachers of English play a crucial role in helping learners to acquire language skills in the medium of instruction, we argue that subject content teachers' lack of attention to the teaching of the four language skills may…