Most students in most schools today study subject matter. They and their teachers conceive of the educational task as committing to memory large numbers of facts, formulas, and figures. A far more sophisticated perspective emphasizes teaching disciplines and disciplinary thinking. The goal of this approach is to instill in students the disposition…

Students assessed as having different personality types were queried concerning their perspectives on peace. Two hundred seventy-five students (ages 14-18) from Poland, West Germany, and the United States defined peace and indicated the degree of influence they felt they have on the future. Differences in definitions of peace, optimism, and degree…

Considerable evidence has been found to support the hypothesis that actors' and observers' attributions diverge. It is also becoming clear that this divergence is not the result of a single process, but is the result of factors which co-occur and differentiate actors from observers. Observers' beliefs about their similarity to actors were…

This paper presents a strategy for the criticism of curricula-in-use, that is, for the criticism of program blueprints and materials as they meet the educational lives of the people for whom they were designed. One aim of the curriculum critic should be to enable the reader to view the curriculum from the perspective of the students. Empathic…

The purpose of this study is to identify dimensions of children's representational awareness as revealed by their verbalizations while drawing in a group situation. Subjects were 76 middle-class children in five preschool classes. Drawing sessions were audiotaped and observed by a non-participating adult who took notes and later transcribed the…

The paper demonstrates the potential of sociodramatic and role-taking activities for promoting socially competent behavior in the retarded. Possible applicability of a variety of interventin techniques to different settings or countries is considered. The domains of role-taking and sociodramatic activities are seen to comprise an important and…

Five role-taking tasks were arranged in a task hierarchy on the basis of their content and structural aspects. These tasks were then presented to 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds and the data analyzed by scalogram and cluster analysis. The results supported the hypothesis and revealed a fundamental structural difference among tasks. (JMB)

Examines the possibility that the detection of developmental differences in spatial egocentrism may depend in part on the use of percentage of total responses vs the percentage of errors as the operational definition of egocentrism. (BD)

Reports results of a study of the development of perspective-taking skills of 180 English children aged six through ten. Children first are able to represent the object nearest the observer, then before-behind relationships, and subsequently left-right relationships between objects. Questions Piagetian conclusions that perspective-taking ability…

Observing that a lack of focus in rehabilitation research has resulted in a conglomeration of diverse problems, methodologies, interpretations, and applications, the author suggests striving for unification of effort throughout the field by overcoming three impediments in three areas (political, logistical, and heuristics) and by building…

The subjects were 25 preschool children ranging in age from 3.2 to 5.3 years. Five perceptual role taking tasks were adapted from Flavell and his colleagues. The Beller rating scales were used to rate dependency. (MS)

The relationship between perspective taking ability and quality of social behavior was investigated with 16 autistic children ranging in age from 6 to 14 years. Results indicated perspective taking ability correlated significantly with two measures of social skills whereas receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence did not. (Author/DB)

Examines an ethnographic study conducted on members of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). The findings indicated major issues facing AESA are: (1) its organizational identity; (2) developing and maintaining its power base; (3) carrying out the organization's mission; and (4) exercising AESA's political mandate. Concludes with…

Discusses the grandparent-grandchild relationship and its implications for counseling activities. Reviews the historical and contemporary role expectations of grandparents and grandchildren, the reciprocal significance of this relationship, and ways to use the relationship in counseling services and programming in various settings. (Author)