Historically, participation in school affairs gave rural people a working knowledge of how democracy functioned. In the late 19th century, power shifted from the voice of the many to the voice of a few, as "expert" opinion increasingly influenced state legislators, governors, and national political leaders. The push to consolidate…

The relationships among scores on traditional college entrance tests and scores on an essay placement test for women and men and four ethnic groups were examined. The tests correlated highly with essay performance. However, women tended to be underestimated and men and ethnic minorities overestimated by these measures. (Author/PN)

Despite their conflicting purposes and the historic dominance of their college transfer mission, community colleges have made progress in fusing education and work. The conflict between the functions of occupational and liberal education is described. (Author/AF)

Examines the shortcomings of the two major schools, behavioral and humanistic, that presently dominate the educational establishment's thinking about developing course objectives. Proposes a new pedagogical approach which allows educators to develop course objectives that illuminate the relationship between classroom methodology and content, and…

Presents an overview of issues and concerns related to rural education and schools in 12 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Major problems include lack of access to specialized resources and supporting institutions and rural diseconomics. Relevant issues are organization, teacher training, and…

Discusses: (1) David Hawkins' theory that humans are equal, free, and rational; (2) the kinds of curricular, methodological, and administrative changes required by schools in order to bring about equality, freedom, and rationality; and (3) application of the findings to the Four M (multilingual, multicultural, multimodal, and multidimensional)…

Responds to Cipro, Mathur, and Kassam's critical essays (in this issue) on his previous study of literacy and national development. The author offers clarification or further thoughts on several statements with which he disagrees, such as the theory of stages for literacy, work-oriented literacy, and the quality of life and liberation. (MF)

The role of marketing in higher education is discussed in light of declining student enrollment and the problems of retrenchment. It is suggested that, rather than an unconditional acceptance of the marketing approach to institutional survival, there may soon come a time when some colleges should close their doors. (SF)

Suggests that innovations, not presently imagined, will influence the evolution of chemical technology in the 1980s. External influences, such as government regulations and inflation, are discussed in relation to the industry and the public. (SA)

Reports the results of a cross-sectional study of 67 short autobiographical essays by U.S. students of Russian at 4 levels. Linguistic measures differentiating the groups included fluency and syntactic fluency, but not accuracy. The article recommends further research into second- and foreign- language learning writing that accounts for different…

Discusses why Japanese students frequently passivize certain intransitive English verbs. It is suggested that students might make this error because they associate adversity with the passive construction and use passives whenever adversity is implied. Discussion of other expressions implying adversity and implications for both applied and…

Lesson study helps teachers use collaborative peer insight and feedback about student responses to instruction to develop high quality lessons. Combining lesson study with collaborative action research, Ohio middle school teachers developed exemplar lessons in the four-column writing method and found that the method significantly improved…

Describes a novel approach to comprehensive questions in world history examinations. Recommends using current events as illustrative reference points for complex subjects such as nationalism, liberalism, and international trade. Students receive information packets on the events for several weeks and must relate the subjects to these events. (MJP)

Despite research to the contrary, most college teachers assume students have more basic knowledge then they do, and they assign essays accordingly. One instructor discusses the poor results of students' knowledge testing, noting his institution's low admission requirements and questioning today's lax standards in the face of the information age.…

Systematic intentional inquiry by teachers makes accessible some of teachers' expertise and provides universities and schools with unique perspectives on teaching and learning. A four-part working typology of teacher research is proposed, with examples of the four types: journals, essays, oral inquiry processes, and classroom studies. (IAH)