This book consists of articles and papers written over a 10-year period that examine issues, concepts, perspectives, and possibilities for educating citizens in a pluralistic democratic society. Part I (Chapters 1through 3), which includes an introductory essay written for this volume, describes the challenges and possibilities of educating…

This paper reports learning environment research conducted in Australian Catholic high schools. A two-stage methodology involving quantitative and qualitative data-collection methods was employed. In the first stage, a sample of 1,719 students and 160 teachers responded to a specially developed classroom-environment questionnaire. Results…

This is the final report of Phase 2 of a study on teacher training and professional development in the nation members of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Phase 2 examined policy and practices of teacher induction in 11 participating APEC members. This report provides responses to a survey and three case studies. The survey asked Education…

Replete with lessons for educators, this book reports in a personal way on a middle school classroom study undertaken by a teacher researcher that was to last 1 year but ended up lasting 6 years. The book contains the social and cultural forces that influence adolescents' literacy development--for instance, taking a hard look at the race and…

In the situated learning approach, knowledge and skills are learned in contexts that reflect how knowledge is obtained and applied in everyday situations. As an instructional strategy, situated cognition is a means for relating subject matter to learners' needs and concerns. Four major premises guide the development of classroom activities for…

The problem-solving approach to teaching and learning has proved especially useful in vocational education as a way to relate classroom learning to real-life situations or problems. The problem-solving method of teaching places the responsibility for learning on students. Educators and special reform groups in other subject areas refer to a…

Intended for use in undergraduate or postbaccalaureate teacher preparation programs, during staff development activities, and in introductory graduate teacher education courses, this book introduces K-12 teachers to the topic of helping students use reading and writing as tools for learning. This third edition retains features of earlier…

Education in South Africa underwent major changes with the passage of the South African Schools Act of 1996. The details of this act and some of its consequences are outlined in this report. The paper opens with the particulars of the act and delves into the act's wording, asking "What is basic education?" and "What is meant by…

This digest summarizes the problem of over-representation of minority students in special education and offers suggestions to reduce this disproportionate representation. It notes concerns of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that minority students are being misclassified and receiving…

The most persistent question in the field of school facility planning relates to that of the relationship between the built environment and the performance and behavior of users, particularly students. Ways in which the built environment affects two student variables--student achievement and student behavior--are explored. The first variable is…

This program for the 1995 Association for Learning Technology Conference summarizes the presentations of the discussions, demonstrations, workshops, and poster sessions. Abstracts of the following papers presented at the conference are included: "New Structures for Learning" (Patrick Allen & Kate Sankey); "Multiple System…

Ethnographic studies of multicultural education in classrooms and schools are reviewed, emphasizing studies that have made self-conscious attempts to be culturally inclusive by modifying classroom organization, discourse patterns, or the curriculum. Studies of desegregation and ethnographies of urban schools are not included. The first part of the…

This document contains the following full and short papers on computer-assisted language learning (CALL) from ICCE/ICCAI 2000 (International Conference on Computers in Education/International Conference on Computer-Assisted Instruction): (1) "A Computer-Assisted English Abstract Words Learning Environment on the Web" (Wenli Tsou and…

The Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968 by a group of Massachusetts parents who felt that a child is a person, worthy of full respect as a human being. It was intended that a nurturing environment be created in which the children themselves chose what they wished to do and scheduled their time. Democracy was a cornerstone of the school's…

Rising demand for schooling on the part of many Pakistani parents has immediate implications for the cost of children. To fulfill their educational aspirations, parents must invest more than they have in the past in each child both directly, in terms of various costs associated with school attendance and indirectly, in terms of missed…