This commentary discusses whether the American Association on Mental Retardation should change its name. It reviews some of the assumptions, assertions, and dynamics that occur in the current language wars and presents principles for the selection and use of language. The need to use clearly understood terms is stressed. (Contains one reference.)…

Maintains that accounts of education policy in post-1945 Great Britain may be distorted by the race and ethnic discourses embedded in both the analytical frameworks that historians employ and the primary source materials with which they work. Criticizes a number of key works from the 1960s to the present. (MJP)

Contends that Great Britain's 1989 Children Act has not facilitated a proper understanding of childhood disadvantages or policies to address disadvantage. Discusses prevention in the context of government initiatives such as Sure Start. Advocates analysis of neighborhood disadvantages and neighborhood-based policies, maintaining that the geography…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of American music, lyrics, vocabulary definitions, and song explanations during online music study on listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and lifestyle literacy in Taiwanese ESL learners. One-hundred-eight ESL learners from 2 large comprehensive universities in Taiwan…

As the study of student connection to school has expanded, so too has the lexicon of terms, concepts, and measurement tools. In summarizing the literature to guide current practice and future research, the various terms and definitions need clarification. The intent is not to settle on a single term, though agreed on language may benefit future…

We report two studies that examine age differences in pupils' and parents' definitions of the term "bullying," and possible reasons for these including the role of specific experiences. Study 1 compared definitions of "bullying" given by participants in four age groups; 4 to 6 years, 8 years, 14 years and adult. Participants were shown/read 17…

Background: ICD-10 and DSM-IV include similar criterial symptom lists for conduct disorder (CD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), but while DSM-IV treats each list separately, ICD-10 considers them jointly. One consequence is that ICD-10 identifies a group of children with ODD subtype who do not receive a diagnosis under DSM-IV. Methods: We…

The following paper is intended as an exercise in "friendly criticism" of one of Harvey Siegel's and Mike Smith's ("Knowing, Believing and Understanding", this volume). I'm in substantial sympathy with the general thrust of their paper and my remarks merely provide some criticism of their discussion's conceptual coherence and clarity and a…

In 2003, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), recognizing the need for a standard definition of distance education, issued a monograph that posed a definition of distance education as "institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated and where interactive telecommunications systems are used…

Even though HRD-related programs and activities carry risks that should be monitored and assessed, there is little literature on how auditing applies to the HRD function; the existing literature on the topic defines HRD auditing in widely different ways. The nature of risk for organizational process is discussed, followed by a review of the…

This paper examines part of a set of students who were followed during their first-term, first-year studies in formal definition-based real analysis at a British university. It explores the approaches to problems about convergence of sequences and series made by students who have a tendency to include visual imagery in their reasoning. We explore…

Schools have a responsibility to prepare good citizens. This entails teaching moral education along with transmitting academic knowledge and skills. Moral education should be an explicit aim for every educator. Yet, ethical discourse is largely absent in K-12 classrooms and moral education has a small role in teacher education programs in the…

Although there has been a growing interest in research on bullying in the last decade the majority of studies have used definitions of bullying and victimisation derived from researchers' perceptions of the problem. The aim of the present study was to examine pupils' definitions of bullying in school. The participants were 166 pupils in the top…

This article explores the fundamental issues related to education as a human right, particularly in the context of rapid globalization. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations' 1959 Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights all declare education to…

Developments in technology inevitably influence social, cultural, and communicative practices. Dominant language-based practices are giving way to a "new communications landscape" (Kress, 1997, 2003b) which is inherently multimodal. The forms and functions of text are in the process of a radical change which dislodges conventional notions of what…