This study is a comprehensive exploration of six mechanisms of control, both hierarchical and nonhierarchical, which constrain the work of elementary school principals but provide them a balance of control and autonomy. The database consists of extensive indepth interviews with 113 elementary school principals in 59 school districts from 3…

This collection of abstracts is part of a series providing continuing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 23 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the rhetoric of scientific controversy; (2) Erving Goffman's interactional theory of communication conduct; (3) a phenomenology of feminism; (4) a…

Voluntary organizations providing inservice activities for principals are the newest in the administrative development field. This paper explores those organizations' prospects, particularly the voluntary, administrator-directed "principals' center," and borrows its analytical framework from theories of group formation. The Principals' Center in…

A study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program to help teachers instruct students in finding the relationship between questions designed to test their comprehension of a text and the location of possible information for answering those questions. Specifically, the study examined whether training would enhance student…

This summary provides an overview of three reports comprising a study of resource allocation policies through various organizational structures at both the education system and school levels. An introduction briefly reviews related research and outlines the overall structure of the study, citing some issues of special concern: the balance between…

Mexican Americans differ from Anglo Americans in their types of health problems, relation to the American health care system, and responses to health care. Mexican Americans tend to underutilize available health resources because of fear of discrimination, perception of health workers as government representatives, and language and cultural…

An intensive case study in learning a second foreign language, which is part of an applied linguistics course for teachers/teacher trainees offered at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) is described. Attention is directed to: case study rationale and objectives; student orientation and preparation; and areas of focus and the…

Implementing new instructional strategies and programs is a challenging task, and the need for teacher renewal and updating is apparent when the advances in literacy research in recent years and the increasing gap between this knowledge and the training of most teachers are considered. Among the obstacles to teacher change are short-term inservice…

Designed to assist science educators in improving preservice/inservice teacher education, this yearbook contains resources and ideas addressing the application of recent research into a format suitable for practitioners. The eight chapters comprising the document deal with: the history and philosophy of science; the psychosocial environment of the…

Written in French, this volume offers foreign scholars a comprehensive view of ideas and events that influenced Rumanian schools and pedagogy in 1983 and 1984. The first part of the work consists of selected quotations from the writings of the distinguished Rumanian educator Onisifor Ghibu (1883-1972). Part 2, entitled "Rumanian Trends in…

The following 26 papers, with abstracts and references, are included in these proceedings: "Panel: Continuing Professional Education in Cooperative Extension" (Robert L. Bruce, G. L. Carter, Jr., Ronald Jimmerson, Joan S. Thomson); "New Farm Families: Implications for Extension Educators" (Jane W. McGonigal, Robert L. Bruce);…

The Charleston County School District (CCSD) has recently begun development of criterion-referenced tests (CRT) in different subject areas and for different grade levels. This paper outlines the process that CCSD followed in the development of math and language arts tests for grades one through eight and area exams for required high school…

Directed primarily toward small school administrators and school boards, this publication describes a consortium of five rural school districts in central Missouri and how they used a traveling teacher to facilitate incorporation of microcomputer capabilities into the school systems' operation and curriculum. The paper describes the use of the…

This report contends that current university-based research and development activities investigating successful secondary schools provide an exceptional mechanism for coordinating all three aspects of assessing successful schools: legal compliance, student performance, and quality of school life. A typology of schools is proposed to account for…

The handbook, intended for school social workers and related services personnel in Iowa who work with behavior disordered students, consists of 21 papers organized into four sections. The first section provides an orientation to behavior disorders in two papers: "Behavioral Disorders in Iowa--An Overview" (Carl R. Smith and Jeff Grimes);…