Assumptions about nature and personhood and the relationship between the two are implicated in the aim of doing philosophy with elementary school students and transforming classrooms into communities of inquiry. Assumptions are also made about dialogue; truth; knowledge; and the ability of children to form communities that will engender care for…

Characteristics were profiled for 40 southeast Alaskan Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian tribal members in positions of responsibility in business, government, or a profession. Respondents had found school easy, did well, liked school, and participated in school-related activities. Positive influence and encouragement of family members, especially…

A value orientations approach is used in this report to construct an overview of Haitian culture and its relation to education. The paper consists of five major sections. The first introduces cultural value orientations as a conceptual scheme. Culture is defined as the learned patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that make life meaningful…

Questionnaires were completed by parents and fifth- and sixth-grade children (1,180 healthy, 151 chronically ill, 54 hyperactive, and 54 with severe vision or hearing impairments). The instruments were designed to measure three types of value: utility value (how important success at a task is for achieving future goals); attainment value (the…

Efforts to reform teacher education should include careful reconsideration of what teachers learn about curriculum design and instructional methodology. The selection and organization of school knowledge have significant social, political, and ethical implications that are ignored by traditional, rationalistic assumptions about educational…

Backed by the federal government, the excellence movement in education has advocated higher college admissions requirements and reliance on nationally administered standardized tests. Although intended to benefit the public welfare, these recommendations actually discourage learners considered less worthy. When discussing the movement's mental…

Designed to help secondary students recognize that a country's music both reflects and reinforces cultural values, this unit involves students in comparing the music of the United States, China, and Japan. The unit could be used as part of an Asian history or Western history course. The approximate time required for the unit is 12 class periods.…

Recent research into the religious life of college students, though limited, has suggested ways of understanding the religious aspects of personality that exist apart from institutional involvement. To describe the role of religion in the life of college students 254 freshmen were surveyed to determine whether four categories of religious…

The text of a lecture in the University of Arizona Wilson Lecture Series on values in higher education is presented, with responses by Richard H. Gallagher, Jeanne McRae McCarthy, and Raymond H. Thompson. The theme of the talk is that man is by evolution and by necessity a thinking animal, who now finds himself in a technologically dependent…

A study examined the effect of attitude toward capital punishment on the evaluation of evidence and the determination of guilt. Subjects were 224 undergraduate students who read a description of a murder. They then received two, four, or six items of evidence relevant to the defendant's guilt. Subjects were asked to determine a verdict and…

The course syllabus is provided for Whatcom Community College's 10-week interdisciplinary course, "The Evolution of Contemporary Values." Materials presented for the first week of instruction include the course outline; the course objective (i.e., to examine the nature and origins of a number of value systems in the contemporary United States via…

The Amish society has retained the essence of rural life and can tell us how this preservation is possible. Originally associated with the Swiss Anabaptists, Amish are often confused with Mennonites because of the early association with Menno Simons. Because the Amish do not make the "prideful" claim of salvation, they are…

Parents and teachers can help children learn qualities (such as empathy, caring, kindness, and generosity) that contribute to a more peaceful environment. Children can be helped to learn the values and techniques of resolving conflicts without injuring others. We should be concerned about teaching peacemaking in order to prevent crime, drug…

With a view towards finding out whether teachers' practices were consistent with core American values, a field study investigated the interactions of four day care teachers and the children in their charge. Six months of participant observation led to the conceptualization of four features of teachers' schooling action accounting for their…

Focusing on the experience of one of seven working groups at a theater-for-development workshop in Zimbabwe, this report details the process followed by many groups, and reveals some of the major learnings, dilemmas, contradictions, strengths, and limiting factors found in a practical village-based theater-for-development process. A brief…