A study of over 200 personal narratives, in which college freshman writers related their experiences of achieving literacy, offered insights into cultural differences in attitudes toward literacy. The activity of becoming literate was fundamentally the same for males and females, but the myths they used to understand and explain their experiences…

This guide answers questions for high school graduates moving away from home for the first time. The question and answer format begins with reasons for moving and offers ways of finding information about a new town before leaving, meeting people, and fighting homesickness and indecision. Practical advice is presented on money management and…

Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP) is a self-development process designed to facilitate positive self-constructions and improved personal functioning. This study examined the effectiveness of DSAP interventions. Participants (N=30) were college graduates who had expressed a desire to improve their educational and career planning and…

Sixteen hundred and thirty white male adults living in the Upper Cumberland area of rural middle Tennessee were administered the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) to classify them by their degree of alcohol abuse into alcoholics, probable alcoholics, and non-alcoholics. These respondents had been referred by the courts to an educational…

This paper addresses some of the ethical and legal components of the issue of adolescence and the right to die. Developmental aspects on which psychologists may be uniquely qualified to comment are also addressed. The paper looks at ethical aspects of right to die decisions, the principle of autonomy, and the responsibility of caregivers. Legal…

In its life-time, the profession of language teaching has undergone many changes. Early attempts at language teaching almost entirely lacked a theory base. In the 20th century, however, two sets of language teaching methods emerged; the first set borrowed theories from psychology, linguistics, and sociolinguistics whereas the second set was based…

Proposed a sequence of four developmental levels for the individuation process, from a social-cognitive perspective, from late childhood to late adolescence, defining individuation as separation of self from family. Confirmed these age increases in individuation, using an individuation interview, Selman's self-awareness measure, and the Lunzer…

Studied the relation of self-efficacy and assertiveness to women's willingness to engage in traditional or nontraditional career activities. Strong self-efficacy expectations and assertiveness were related to willingness to engage in career-related activities of nontraditional but not traditional occupations where, regardless of self-efficacy and…

Traces the development and maintenance of a Scottish ideology of egalitarianism from the 1700s to the present. Provides a quantitative summary of social inequality in Scotland since 1945 and suggests ways the egalitarian myth may have been received into the world of post-war policy-making. (KH)

A survey of financial aid administrators in Illinois studied the possible relationships of institutional type, job title, and years of experience on administrators' personal security, socialization, self-esteem, autonomy, self-actualization, and feeling of being knowledgeable. (MSE)

This paper reports on a focus group discussion held in June, 1998, in Killington, Vermont, about a 3-year project in Vermont to encourage the self-determination of people with developmental disabilities. The project has involved training of four project teams, each composed of a person with a developmental disability, a family member, and a person…

The call to change seems to be a constant in education. In second language education, a constellation of changes have been proposed and, to some extent, implemented. This constellation of interconnected changes can perhaps best be termed a paradigm shift, with this paradigm fitting under the general umbrella of Communicative Language Teaching…

Reports on a study that used a national dataset to support or disconfirm research regarding parental involvement with, and control over, various aspects of high school seniors' lives. Findings support the contention that parental involvement and parental control are conditional on one another in predicting adolescents' locus of control. (RJM)

The Council on Quality and Leadership in Supports for People with Disabilities conducted interviews with 447 people with disabilities to identify priority outcomes they expect from service and supports. An analysis resulted in 24 variables loading onto 7 major factors: identity, autonomy, affiliation, attainment, rights, health, and safeguards.…

Observations and interviews in 16 classrooms concerning proximity of instructional assistants to students with disabilities found: (1) interference with general educator responsibility; (2) separation from classmates; (3) dependence on adults; (4) impact on peer interactions; (5) limitations on receiving competent instruction; (6) loss of personal…