In Minnesota, imperial forces would implement a controlling, if well-intentioned system designed to make teachers and students conform to standards not of their choosing. Based on outcome-based education precepts, the proposed reform ideas are retreads of tried and untrue conservative concepts with a history of failure. When minimum expectations…

Referral, placement, and retention decisions were analyzed using item response theory (IRT) to study whether classification decisions could be placed on the latent continuum of ability normally associated with test items and to study the existence of classification differential item functioning. Results with 352 kindergarten children demonstrate…

Examined the emotional content of conversations of 100 mother-child dyads about the children's school experiences. Mother-daughter dyads made more emotional references than mother-son dyads, especially when discussing interpersonal relationships or emotions experienced by the daughters. Ethnic and socioeconomic differences are also discussed. (SLD)

Investigated whether information and memory processing associated with emotional topics would create distinct processing behaviors in English-as-a-Second-Language students. Participants reviewed several topics, described their levels of emotional impact, and wrote about them. Emotional topics motivated students to emphasize the lower,…

European American, Japanese, and Chinese 11-month-olds participated in emotion-inducing laboratory procedures. Facial responses were scored with BabyFACS, an anatomically based coding system. Overall, Chinese infants were less expressive than European American and Japanese infants, suggesting that differences in expressivity between European…

Outlines the character of the teaching profession and its main forms of organization since the 1970s in South Africa. Discusses teachers' work under apartheid, the challenges to apartheid controls from 1989-1994, and restructuring of teachers' work in the post-apartheid period. Examines teachers' responses, focusing on policies that impacted…

Suggests that students continue to regard teacher responses as directives that leave them few options in revisions. Finds that students generally look to their teachers to show them the "correct" way to write and resist the notion of making independent judgments about their writing and the necessary revisions, primarily because they could not…

Explores what was learned during the "Schools Speaking to Stakeholders" project about building the quality school in order to contribute to the dialogue about reform in Quebec schools. Discusses the views from the literature and of practitioners who participated in the project and the framework used for measuring school quality. (CMK)

Suggests and illustrates three areas for investigation: effects of error on teachers' processing of student writing; relationship between error and teacher's construction of the writer's persona; and the relationship between the changing status of socially constructed norms of language use and response to error. Advocates greater focus on…

Examined differences in children's spontaneous use of emotion vocabulary during peer interactions and explored these differences in relation to children's likability as assessed by peers. Found that with increasing age, emotion vocabulary became more differentiated and complex, and children who used a larger number of emotion words were more liked…

Investigated the effect of causal structure revisions to school texts on the comprehension of more- and less- skilled undergraduates. Found that readers at both skill levels benefited from the revisions but only for the difficult text. (JPB)

Discusses the Gibbs Street Connection, a professional development program for music educators and a collaborative effort between the Eastman School of Music and the Rochester (New York) Philharmonic Orchestra. Highlights efforts to evaluate the Gibbs Street Connection and the benefits of the program. Offers tips for beginning such programs and…

A survey of 392 primary teaching students at a Scottish teacher education institution examined student stress related to student teaching experiences and to students' academic work in the college. Results indicate the importance of high expectations, uncertainty, and emotional aspects in creating stress. Practical ways to alleviate student teacher…

Discusses a unit on the discovery of the senses that integrates art and science. Students create pictures of a "smell" using the crayon-resist process. Explains that during the second day, students "smell" their peers' paintings to determine what aroma is being depicted. (CMK)

The stability of a 2-factor model proposed for the Gibb Experimental Test of Testwiseness was studied with 173 undergraduates. Confirmatory factor analysis results indicate that data fit the two-factor model and a simpler one-factor model. The Gibb test could be characterized as tapping a general testwiseness proficiency. (SLD)