Although it is now widely recognized that the middle years are a time of development and transition rather than of stasis followed by decline, existing literature tends to portray middle-aged women as generally unattractive, uninteresting, unintelligent and as dependent "labels" rather than persons in the process of growth. To gain a greater…

Relationships between the function and content of maternal interventions to control their toddlers' behavior and behavior problems and compliance in the child's fifth year were studied. Naturalistic observation of 51 dyads consisting of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their children who were 1.5 to 3.5 years old at the time of first…

A careful analysis by Zelnik and Kanter of the Department of Population Dynamics at Johns Hopkins disclosed that abortions, unwed teenage pregnancies, venereal diseases, and sexual promiscuity have all increased dramatically in spite of a massive public and private program of contraceptive indoctrination and dissemination. This increase is…

This study tested whether a significant difference exists between academic performance scores of eighth grade students from one-parent homes and those from two-parent homes in the areas of reading, mathematics, science, social studies, and English. School records pertaining to academic achievement, and free-lunch applications were used to collect…

This paper reports the findings of an investigation of the effects of school organization and ability grouping on students' academic achievements in Great Britain. Data for the study came from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) conducted by the National Children's Bureau (NCB) of London. The NCDS surveyed virtually every child born in…

Refining and better understanding the roles parents, teachers, administrators, and researchers play in helping children learn to process written language is the focus of this book. Part 1 considers the role of the parents and includes the following articles: "Learning to Read: It Starts in the Home" (David B. Doake): "Let's Read…

It is widely believed that television viewing has a negative impact on school achievement. This belief is supported by negative statistical associations sometimes found between school achievement and amount of television viewing; that is, heavy TV viewers tend to show poorer achievement than light viewers. One possible explanation of this…

The involvement of parents, even those from low income settings and with minimal schooling, is a key factor in a child's academic achievement. A teacher's decision to classify a student perceived to have classroom difficulties as "at-risk" initiates a formal process of referral, testing, labeling, and placement resulting in different educational…

The Career Aspiration Profile was used to study barriers to the entrance of both men and women into nontraditional careers. Responses were solicited to items dealing with career choice; focus was on those factors perceived as barriers to entrance into nontraditional careers. Respondents were 1350 high school seniors and students from two- and…

The squeaky wheel method of policy implementation takes place when policy mandates are not implemented by need, but by the kind and amount of external influence mobilized on behalf of policy recipients. Case studies of three rural students with severe disabilities demonstrated that the services each child received were dependent on the strength of…

Current educational research efforts are examining rural/urban differences in achievement, appropriateness of rural/urban achievement measures, effects of parents and community on the attainment of rural students, and how well rural students succeed in higher education. To accurately assess the small, rural school's impact on students, rural-urban…

This study investigated the relationship between attitudes toward mathematics, career interests, and parent variables measured at grade eight and attitudes toward mathematics and career interests as measured at grade twelve. The longitudinal nature of the study will help to determine changes in mathematics attitudes and career interests from the…

Sixty-two socioculturally homogeneous, low-income black mother/child pairs were tested and observed when the infants were 2, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months of age to determine the relationship between variability in parenting attitudes, skills, and behaviors and consequent variability in children's intellectual development. As expected, the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 23 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the effects of bibliotherapy on children's perception of the physically disabled, (2) factors related to spelling readiness, (3) parental role in children…

This paper argues that researchers should not investigate child development simply through studies of the child alone or mother-infant interactions, but rather through studies of the family as a system. Data is reported which seem to support this view. A review of recent literature indicates that an adequate account of child development requires…