This article reports on the Massachusetts experience, during the past two years, with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 on school records. It may help student advocates anticipate resistance to the law's implementation and plan appropriate action to assure that its benefits become a reality. (Author/GC)

An elementary school teacher from Worcester, Massachusetts, was reprimanded and received a two-day suspension and a series of involuntary transfers after being reluctant to turn a case study (done for a college class) of a disturbed student in to her principal. Rights of privacy of public employees are discussed and Supreme Court decision in…

Discusses two recent court cases highlighting the legal pitfalls facing mandatory drug testing programs for teachers and students. In both cases, the courts contended that blanket testing policies violated Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Testing of individual teachers and students (under reasonable suspicion) may…

Cites the importance of having a state law, knowing what it says, and having a library policy statement regarding the confidentiality of patron records. Discussion covers writing and implementing a policy, the role of automation, existing laws, library records defined, exceptions to confidentiality, and legal liability. Thirty-seven references are…

Elementary school children were interviewed about their perceptions of school in two domains. The action domain tapped perceptions of their actual and ideal prerogatives with respect to privacy, territoriality, and decision making. The value domain addressed children's evaluations of the school as a safe, just, responsive, important, and liked…

This Digest introduces ethical considerations related to acquiring and analyzing online data and provides resources to support sound practice. Because online conversation is relatively new and unfamiliar, and takes place at a distance, participants may not realize or may not remember that their conversations could be made public. A researcher…

This collection of eight seminar outlines focuses on current privacy-rights issues in the arena of education. Seminar outlines include: (1) "The Transparency of Public School Employees' Professional and Personal Lives in the 21st Century: A Canadian Perspective," by Sam Carmen and Val Riewe; (2) "Common Law Privacy in Educational Settings," by…

California state statutes and a series of court cases have required campus security and police departments to release information about incidents occurring on campus to the media and the general public. Despite the law and case decisions, recent studies reveal campus police and security officials are still reluctant to release information to the…

Although colleges and universities generally regard the First Amendment as sacred, they often find themselves at the center of controversies concerning the right to say, print, write, or research with freedom. The complex relationships between a college or university and its student media have often contributed to conflicts over First Amendment…

The Media Ethics section of the proceedings contains the following 7 selected papers: "The Ethics Agenda of the Mass Communication Professorate" (Jay Black, Bruce Garrison, Fred Fedler, and Doug White); "What Would the Editor Do? A Three-Year Study of Student-Journalists and the Naming of Rape Victims in the Press" (Kim E.…

Studied 32 secular urban communal households to discover conditions of their relative success. Success was measured by duration of commune and satisfaction of members. Elements of conventionality (economic prudence, voluntary time limitation, regular housework, perception of sufficient private time) enhanced satisfaction. (Author/RC)

Interviews and document analysis provide assessment of policy and practice relating to student information. Provincial legislation was inadequate, local policy was largely absent and sporadically applied, procedures necessary to protect privacy were seldom specified or followed, and data were of insufficiently high quality to justify their…

Investigates the developmental and ecological determinants of children's use of privacy markers and rules in the home. Children's chronological age is consistently related to increases in privacy, though physical maturity accounts for a large portion of the age trends. Both age and sex effects are modified by situational factors. (Author/MA)

While supporting the concept of affective education, the author warns that ill-trained or unscrupulous purveyors may use its techniques in ways that invade children's privacy and manipulate their emotions. She advises cautious implementation of affective education, with attention to staff development and careful screening of classroom materials.…

Ward residents view their dwelling as less secure and feel less able to control social encounters than do single room residents. Single room residents express greater desires for isolation and disclosure restriction. Data are consistent with an adaptation model of privacy-sociability preference. (Author)