Argues that children need to learn about civic issues in their education because certain virtues are required for a decently organized society. Also contends that the school has obligations to educate the young in civics and impart knowledge because it is in the students' best interests; this is not an encroachment on the privacy of the…

A study examined gender differences in values in relation to ongoing educational changes in Russia. Surveys of 53 male and 64 female university students in Yakutia (northeast Russia) indicated persistent traditional gender stereotypes, except that females appreciated education more than males. This could result in family conflicts, since women do…

Background: Research on children's loneliness has been conducted mostly in Western, especially North American, cultures. The purpose of the study was to examine relations between loneliness and social adaptation among children and adolescents in four different societies. Methods: A total of 2263 children from grade 3 to grade 6, aged 9 to 12…

In the area of language teaching, a large number of learner corpora investigations have tended to rely on empirical data to identify common types of errors which illustrate inauthentic usages in a target language. One consequence of this kind of investigations is that such studies rarely, if ever, consider the inextricable link between language…

Most languages of the world have not been the focus of a speech recognition development effort, and the choice of technical approaches best suited to a language can be substantially impacted by the cultural context surrounding it. As the technologist and the teacher of or expert in a non-mainstream language and its culture are typically not the…

How people experience, interpret, and enact time--personally, collectively, and transcendentally--is educationally significant. One's temporal hopes and fears, limitations and potentials, are the fundamental stuff out of which is forged "the constitution of human life in time." In this article, the author offers various perspectives on individual,…

The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) introduced a performance appraisal system (PAS) designed to improve performance indicators across the board in Public Service including academic/faculty staff at the University of Zimbabwe as part of a nation wide strategy. The Public service is a body responsible for all civil workers including academic staff,…

Our editor-at-large puts questions to a political scientist--the former higher-education advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq--who replies with skepticism about prospects for our efforts to restore a university system in Iraq and reconstitute that troubled society in our image. Building an informed democracy, John Agresto…

This paper presents a case study in which systems theory is used as a framework for analyzing the experience of international consultants in assisting the education ministry of a developing country in formulating a national education 5-year plan. The study highlights the broader dilemma faced by international consultants who are frequently…

Culture plays a vital role in second language learning. This paper presents an action research study that investigates the role of culture in a Chinese language program in a kindergarten classroom. Three topics have been explored: (a) culture as the core in the development of a thematic unit on Chinese festivals, (b) a culturally responsive…

A recent research and development project conducted at the University of the South Pacific (USP) examined how educational multimedia can be built according to the learning approaches of the region. Through interviews, questionnaires and usability tests with staff and students at USP, the research team drafted a set of recommendations for the…

This paper presents the main results of a comparative study carried out by a French-Japanese research team. Its focus is the daily life of under-ones in day care centres in two cultural contexts--France and Japan. Based on three kinds of data--official texts, videotaped observations and caregivers' discourses--the study highlights the links…

This study investigated the relationships between teachers' self-reported classroom goal structures, instructional self-perceptions, teaching efficacy, and perceptions of students' motivation in a developing East Asian nation. This study's participants were 404 teachers, across subject areas, in 14 high schools in an East Asian nation. Similar…

This study examined critical incidents in graduate students' multicultural counseling training. Trainees (N=59) were asked to describe a critical incident and their multicultural training environment by responding to a critical incident protocol and the multicultural environment Inventory-Revised (D. B. Pope-Davis, W. M. Liu, J. Nevitt, & R. L.…

This study investigated the relationship between psychological distress and attitudes toward seeking professional help and whether the relationship was moderated by gender and student status (traditional vs. non-traditional) among Chinese college students in Taiwan. 961 first-year university students completed standardised measures of depression,…