This paper builds on my previous research, explaining the differential achievement of boys and girls in secondary education by the fact that boys' culture is less study orientated than girls' culture. The central question of the present paper is whether the presence of girls at school affects the boys' study culture and, by consequence, boys'…

One hundred and ninety-six Israeli middle-school students participated in a study that explored the effects of moral orientation (moral versus conventional) and of three situational variables on attitudes toward two types of cheating in school exams--copying from others ('active') and letting others copy ('passive'). Several vignettes that were…

Most studies about students' conceptions and conceptual change are based exclusively on the analysis language, which is treated as a tool to make private contents of the mind public to researchers. Following recent studies that focused on (a) language and discursive practice and (b) the pragmatics of communication that draws on talk, gestures, and…

This concluding chapter reviews some of the methodological issues that analysts need to consider when evaluating the success of character-development programs.

Recent research in semantics and pragmatics has revived the debate about whether there are two cognitively distinct categories of conversational implicatures: generalised and particularised. Generalised conversational implicatures are so-called because they seem to arise more or less independently of contextual support. Particularised implicatures…

Narrative inquiry methodology was used to investigate self-perceived identities among 10 lesbian college students. Analysis of data from in-depth, open-ended interviews revealed the role of meaning-making capacity in determining the extent to which contextual influences shaped self-perceptions of sexual orientation identity and its relationship…

This study investigated the types of informal learning activities that adults with low literacy skills engage in outside of formal literacy programs and how these activities relate to their literacy practices. Key informants for the study included 10 adults identified at International Adult Literacy Survey levels 1 and 2. Using ethnographic…

This article reports and discusses the findings of an initial inquiry into secondary school students' comprehension strategy use during small-group, peer-led discussions of literary text. One classroom of ninth-grade English students in the midwestern United States participated in the inquiry. Data consisted of the verbatim transcripts of four…

In this response, Brown finds solid points of agreement with Eva Alerby and Cecilia Perm, starting with their premise that music learning is most effective when taught within a context. While some students prefer learning in a linear, rule-oriented setting, more often than not a musical concept will be comprehended best if it is first experienced…

Situated thought and action are facilitated according to specific children, negotiated among classroom community members, and placed in a specific place and time. Through action research, the author worked for about a year with a group of 15 elementary school children between the ages of 7 and 10, during a Cub Scout program in Lefkosia, Cyprus.…

The authors analyzed mathematics achievement data from a longitudinally matched student cohort from a large southwestern U.S. school district to investigate school context and practice effects on the academic performance and growth of middle school students. Investigation of the degree to which aspects of the school environment related to…

Festival performance is no trivial endeavor. At one midwestern state festival alone, 10,938 events received a rating over a 3-year period (2001-2003). Such an extensive level of participation justifies sustained study. To learn more about variables that may underlie success at solo and small ensemble evaluative festivals, Bergee and Platt (2003)…

According to current psychological models of deduction, people can draw inferences on the basis of information that they receive from different sources at different times. In 3 reading-comprehension experiments, the authors demonstrated that premises that appear far apart in a text (distant) are not accessed and are therefore not used as a basis…

This paper examines the relationship between orthographic depth and reliance upon context for oral reading in English and Hebrew. Research on context effects in English has indicated that the decoding ability of adequate readers is only minimally affected by context. The effect of context may be greater in Hebrew because of its deeper orthography…

Situational analysis is a framework for professional practice and research in educational psychology. The process is guided by a set of practice principles requiring that psychologists' work is evidence-based, ecological, collaborative and constructive. The framework is designed to provide direction for psychologists who wish to tailor their…