A six-hour advanced level unit on French unions focuses on their role in French society, their origins, size, and comparison with those of other European countries, and also on more general topics of demography and the French school system. (MSE)

Begins a discussion of the social mechanisms of linguistic change by describing the distinctions noted by T. Bynon (1977) between two different approaches to the study of linguistic change. Presents a model designed to explain why linguistic change seems commonly to take place in some social conditions but not in others. (SED)

Moves beyond the dual perspective model and beyond medical and ecological systems models to suggest a sociocultural approach and presents a three-stage model for practice with minority clients. Suggests that practice with minorities focus on the degree and kind of dislocation--social, cultural, or sociocultural--suffered by individual clients.…

Discusses the Eurocentric nature of the United States social reality, and investigates psychological and mental health implications for the African-American community. Outlines the basic themes, emphases and criteria of Euro-American cosmology and describes how it can come to dominate the Afro-American's self-consciousness. Suggests ways to…

Investigated the impact of traditional cultural beliefs, called historic-sociocultural premises (HSCPs), on peoples' interpersonal and emotional lives. Results indicated that people in Mexican societies hold similar sociocultural premises and that HSCPs are related to how people cope with stress, personality traits, and vocational choice. (LLL)

Analyzes the existing Japanese population data, focusing on changes in the timing of events in a family life cycle of Japanese women. Analysis revealed that the overall pattern of the family career of Japanese women today closely resembles that of their American and Canadian counterparts. (LLL)

Knowledge about cocaine's effect on the human mind and body is limited and not clearly documented. This article discusses various biological and psychological effects of the drug based on clinical and laboratory studies of man. (Author/DF)

"Adhesive adaptation" occurs when aspects of a new culture and social relations with members of the host society are added on to immigrants' traditional culture and social networks, without replacing or modifying any significant part of the old. Interviews with 615 Korean immigrants empirically confirmed this adaptation model. (Author/KH)

A model for health education is proposed that focuses on the sociocultural, educational, psycho-behavioral, legal, and scientific foundations of that discipline. (GW)

Data were collected primarily through participant observation, open-ended interviews and discussions with selected informants. A description is given of the village, occupants, and traditional patterns of mate selection and marriage rituals. The second section deals with changing patterns, those of young village women with postsecondary education…

Analyzes some of the roles which popular singers play in France. These roles are found to be poetic, political, and cultural, and are found to be tied to a socioeconomic context. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Area/cultural studies have not enjoyed their rightful place in foreign language teaching because of their lack of orientation. They should not only be seen as revealing "sets" of data; they should be analyzed for patterns in terms of the target area rather than the native culture. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This article presents and discusses some exercises designed to help the second language learner develop both receptive and productive sociolinguistic competence. (Author)

This paper is a response to Michael Apple's paper, "What Postmodernists Forget: Cultural Capital and Official Knowledge." The paper advocates Michael's identification of the current dangers and processes of the growth of new right ideologies in the development of subjectivity, society, and education. The differences in success in the education…

This issue of the "NCEDL Spotlights" describes the content of a new book, "The Transition to Kindergarten," based on a national transitions synthesis conference sponsored by the National Center for Early Development and Learning. The document delineates the chapter topics and describes four trends expected to have significant effect on the…