Describes a five-year curriculum assessment and development program in a Pennsylvania school district. Uses the metaphor of a baseball game to describe the project's chronology and activities. Includes a year-by-year project synopsis and evaluative comments about group dynamics and related issues. (CFR)

A longitudinal ethnographic study of adolescent moral development in an Israeli kibbutz examined the process by which urban-born adolescents, "adopted" by the kibbutz, and their kibbutz-born peers are socialized into a cohesive group. Kibbutz educators support the development of democratic self-governing peer groups that foster community…

Asserts that the manner in which congregations understand their nature as groups is critical to how they make meaning and take action in relation to their faith. Presents sociological categories that can help congregations clarify their understanding of each other as group members. Outlines supporting efforts for religious educators. (MJP)

A residential YMCA camp in northern Wisconsin uses wilderness adventure education to teach collaborative leadership skills to high school students. Trust and relationship-building exercises are followed by simulations, culminating in a wilderness trip. Reflective exercises internalize the learning. Presents the camp's six fundamental beliefs about…

A California high school English teacher uses, with students, a culturally sensitive process of facilitating classroom decision making through consensus. He correlates communication and language skills with consensus building, the facilitation of which is a slow process implemented in small portions over the school year. Sidebar provides a…

Reports on a community service learning project in which 11 college students participated in conflict-resolution activities in a middle school. The students' reactions to the experience varied according to their different motivations for participating. Training and close supervision, partially accomplished through meetings and reading weekly…

Children in intentional communities interact with a wide variety of adults independently, observe many parent/child relationships, and experience their parents in roles other than parent. Informal learning experiences about subjects not usually available to children abound. Integration into a community promotes childrens' academic and social…

This article describes the establishment of a "women's issues" group with middle-school gifted girls. Ground rules for the group, selection of materials for discussion, issues discussed, and outcomes of the group are highlighted. Participants were found to like learning, like thinking about abstract issues, and have high academic goals. (CR)

Uses National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data to examine whether measures of male teenagers' skills (academic, reasoning, and self-esteem) predict their wages at ages 27 and 28. All three skill types help predict subsequent wages, but have differing importance in explaining white/minority wage gaps. (Contains 37 references.) (MLH)

Examines the effects and implications of embedding the element of competition in computer-assisted cooperative learning situations on student cognitive, affective, and social outcomes. Results of statistical analyses of Taiwanese fifth graders show that cooperation without inter-group competition engendered better attitudes and promoted more…

Some mentees or proteges are not successful because they are not emotionally or professionally ready for full-time teaching, they are philosophically incompatible with the school district, they do not engage with other staff, what they learned at the university is incompatible with district practices, they do not listen to their mentors, or they…

Analyzes video recordings of postgraduate seminars in the Arts Faculty at a South African university in order to define the nature of this practice in South African tertiary institutions. This article exposes these seminars as sites of competition for the floor with significant imbalances in participation by different groups, reflecting different…

A high school history teacher of gifted students examined difficulties in establishing cooperative groups when members changed frequently. Student interviews and surveys indicated that some students were happy to remain nonparticipants in any group. Participation was less a factor of group makeup than a factor of student opinion about grades.…

A study investigated how teachers and learners negotiated meaning in three teacher-led whole-class and nine peer-group prewriting discussions in a pre-university English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program, analyzing interaction features such as comprehension/confirmation checks, clarification/feedback requests, self/other corrections, and…

Describes an action research project that explored whether internally negotiated group control was possible among preadolescents in school settings. Presents John Dewey's thoughts on social control. Discusses study of students' perspectives and actions concerning authority issues and social control. Describes a social studies curriculum used to…