School sector and educational context seem to make a difference in civic socialization. There is limited knowledge, however, of the mechanisms through which socialization may occur in public and private schools, and the extent to which they have any lasting effect. Does the private school effect on civic socialization persist into young adulthood,…

This study chronicles the historical divisions of race and class between Detroit and its suburban neighbor as an explanation for current tensions in the communities and schools. This analysis poses implications for educational apartheid and stark disparities between urban and suburban boundaries and consequent discomfort among practitioners when…

In spite of the urgent need for research into the socio-political contexts of the teaching and learning of English as a second/foreign language, the predominant paradigm of inquiry into EFL in the Chinese context still focuses on the functional aspects of second language education. In order to provide a critical understanding of the larger context…

Human communication is a critical issue in personal life. It also should be the indispensable core element of general education curriculum in universities and colleges. Based on literature analysis and the author's clinical observation, the importance of human communication, functions of model, and often seen human communication models were…

To be successful in the workplace of the 21st century, individuals must not only have an extensive store of knowledge, but also must know how to keep that knowledge current, apply it to solve novel problems, and function as a member of a team. This modern view of the workplace has compelled many educators to rethink the ways in which students are…

This study aims to explore how leadership and contextual factors influence innovation in R&D teams in national laboratories, using the approach of multiple case studies. This paper provides some preliminary findings from two highly innovative teams residing in two national laboratories in the US. The preliminary results suggested several common…

"The Negative Impacts of Starting Middle School in Sixth Grade" examined whether placing sixth graders in middle schools rather than elementary schools affects their behavior and academic performance. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has reservations about the results because they may be affected by differences between the research…

This revealing volume examines the current role and status of women in higher education--and suggests a direction for the future. Judith Glazer-Raymo and other distinguished scholars and administrators assess the progress of women in academe using three lenses: the feminist agenda as a work in progress, growing internal and external challenges to…

As professionals and families work together to identify and celebrate the strengths and resources unique to each family, new and innovative ways to describe and discuss family characteristics are needed. The eco-map, borrowed from social science disciplines, is one method used to describe family strengths and resources. The eco-map was developed…

Over the past decade, technology has become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents. As a group, adolescents are heavy users of newer electronic communication forms such as instant messaging, e-mail, and text messaging, as well as communication-oriented Internet sites such as blogs, social networking, and sites for sharing photos and…

Social contexts in which confidants get to know each other affect the composition of their personal networks, inter alia the similarity among confidants. Results from analyses on a representative sample of the Dutch population between 18 and 65 years of age (SSND 2000), support the idea that differences in similarity among confidants can be…

This article proposes an instance-based theoretical framework to account for the influence of both contexts and definitions on learning new word meanings and reports 2 studies that examine hypotheses about learning from context. One is that variation in contexts is important for allowing core meaning features of a word to emerge. The second is…

Van Houtte (2005) called for clarification of the terms "school culture" and "school climate" and the role of each in school effectiveness research. This article presents a theoretical framework for school culture that asserts that it is a context-specific branch of organizational culture comprised of 4 dimensions and 3 levels. This…

The purpose of this study was to (1) compare mother-child interactions in three contexts: shared reading with a book in a traditional print format, with an electronic book in a CD-ROM format, and with an electronic book in a video clip format; (2) compare mother-child interactions with a three-year-old and a seven-year-old; and (3) compare…

Scholars in the field of special education put forth a series of papers that proposed quality indicators for specific research designs that must be present for a study to be considered of high quality, as well as standards for evaluating a body of research to determine whether a practice is evidence-based. The purpose of this article was to pilot…