An immersed reading of Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man" reveals a living language informed inevitably by extrinsic circumstance. As an imperfect product of Ellison's own Enlightenment kind of thought--his idea that concepts and texts divorce themselves from social agendas--such a reading reveals a truth of another sort quite…

A study was undertaken (1) to examine the theoretical relationship between communicating and understanding, (2) to test this relationship in the Korean National Assembly's communicative context, and (3) to evaluate how well the assembly's activities were communicated to the public. Twenty respondents from each of three groups surveyed--reporters,…

Seven German-American cross-cultural social situations are presented in English, each followed by a multiple-choice question concerning the etiquette or cultural implications of the actions. An answer key provides comments to stimulate class discussion. These everyday situations occur in Germany or the United States, and include eating at a…

Advertising by multinational corporations in Southeast Asia is generating a growing resistance to its perceived role in creating a "consumer culture" damaging to indigenous values systems. Critics of advertising in Southeast Asia argue that when multinational advertisers or their multinational advertising agencies move into this foreign…

A study examined Carol Gilligan's theory of moral reasoning, seeking evidence to either support or deny the claim that individuals primarily use one of two different sets of sex-related constructs to arrive at decisions when faced with moral dilemmas. Subjects, 20 young lawyers and psychologists (equally divided as to men and women), were…

A study examined the status of research on effects of pictorial advertising and areas within the field which need additional work. The method of investigation was based on a model of memory, incorporating emotional, semantic, and episodic processing of information--focusing primarily on constructing a preliminary taxonomy of visual stimuli, a…

College students' troubles with reading are largely explained by commodity consciousness (materialism or the search for the fast fix) and contextual confusion (approaching a book as though it were television). The challenge for teachers of reading is to make it a human endeavor. For many students reading is an operation done to extract data from…

Employing a body of texts for the reading and study of literature in the English classroom leads to much argumentation, with much disagreement about what is fair game for the writing student. To help determine which texts to select it is necessary to define cultural literacy in a different way from that of E. D. Hirsch. Hirsch would prescribe…

This paper suggests that the teaching of world history from a U.S. and European history viewpoint does not help students understand and develop insights about the contemporary world. The context within which current events occur is more important than simply teaching about specific facts. The process of learning must be considered along with…

Focusing mainly on mother/infant interactions in non-Western cultures, this review of literature in the area of comparative child development covers theoretical perspectives, empirical research, and issues and trends. Infancy is defined as the period from birth to 3 years of age to provide the broadest possible coverage. Theoretical perspectives…

A series of articles focus on enduring Constitutional issues and methods for teaching about these in the classroom. Article 1 explores the nature of the judiciary as it has developed under the Constitution. Article 2, by discussing the uses of the Constitution in plays of the Federal Theater Project of the 1930's, examines the Constitution as a…

This paper examines the similarities and differences among five countries (West Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, and Singapore) concerning teachers' perceptions of administrators and of administrative tasks or policies as sources of both enthusiasm and discouragement in their work. The study also summarizes the explanations offered…

There are three kinds of interdependent factors to be considered in the communication process: (1) characteristics, habits, psychophysical determinants, and expectations of the sender; (2) the same factors with regard to the receiver; and (3) situational factors, or the context, which may be different from the viewpoint of either the sender or the…

A 2-year study examined the leisure reading of 60 and other language arts instruction in elementary school classrooms in west Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, led to the conclusion that many school practices were based upon assumptions of the out-of-school lives of students that were of questionable accuracy. Consequently, the researchers were asked to…

A significant need exists for new and expanded training programs for people who must interact with different cultures. When people experience a new cultural environment, they are likely to experience conflict between their own cultural predispositions and the values, beliefs, and opinions of the host culture. A training program, the Cultural…