The report details developments in three areas of United States foreign language instruction, each reflecting major changes in the way foreign language educators think about their role and the way in which they structure the learning process for students. The first section describes the adoption of a voluntary national standard for testing…

Traditional psychological theories are designed, in large part, to explain the behavior of white males, viewing female behavior as deviant or deficient, or ignoring it altogether. While special undergraduate topics courses, such as those on the psychology of women, address this problem in part, many institutions cannot afford to offer them. In…

The lives of people in developing countries need to be compared with and connected to the lives of people in prosperous countries. This is a central issue in what is known in Europe as the North-South problem. This publication argues that it is a problem that deserves a more central place in the political education of young people in Europe. Ideas…

This paper describes six strategies for California teachers to consider in teaching the state's history-social science curriculum to educationally disadvantaged students. The six strategies are: (1) enriching history through literature; (2) connecting history with other learnings; (3) connecting history to personal experience; (4) adapting to…

Although today's schools are rapidly acquiring computers and increasingly relying on them for instructional purposes, training of teachers to use computers in the classroom has not kept up with this trend. If teachers are to be held accountable for integrating computers into their instructional repertoire, they deserve systematic exposure to…

A study analyzed the experience of eight schools that had begun working to integrate their academic and vocational education programs several years before passage of the 1990 Perkins Act amendments. The following common themes were identified as collectively defining integration as a distinct reform effort: (1) richer, better sequenced curricula…

This final report describes the Mastery Project, which developed, implemented, and field tested a comprehensive model to promote the mastery orientation and functional independence of students, ages 11-20, with physical and multiple disabilities. The model includes systematic procedures to: (1) facilitate assessment of students' functional…

This books attempts to resolve the debate between the community college critics and defenders on three key issues: the impact of the community college on students, business, and universities; why and how community colleges developed; and why the community college changed its original academic program to become so strongly vocational. Section I…

Four student and two faculty focus groups met to discuss interdisciplinary education at the Minnesota Center for Arts Education. The focus groups perceptions about interdisciplinary education resulted in several primary conclusions: (1) interdisciplinary education is not extensive in public education systems; (2) most students feel a primary…

The Texas Skills Development Program (TSDP) is a key long-term strategy of the Smart Jobs initiative that will assist Texas business, industry, and labor in conveying job skill requirements to the public education and training system. Employers feel that job applicants do not have the basic reading, writing, and computation skills they need. TSDP…

The need to teach student teachers to be reflective in solving problems and planning teaching events has led to an interest in developing appropriate data collection procedures for interns learning to perform self-evaluations. A study of 15 undergraduate student teachers was conducted to determine the extent to which they could perform unaided…

A project was conducted to establish criteria for entry- and exit-level competencies in computer technology along with concomitant entry-level job positions and to recommend a modified, updated computer technology curriculum. Information was gathered through employer interviews, discussions with educators, and examinations of exemplary programs…

This document presents a work plan for developing distance education programs delivered by telecommunications and other media to citizens of the state of Washington. It is intended to provide direction for future postsecondary education programs delivered in whole or in part by telecommunications and for a study on how to accomplish this. The plan…

During the past 2 decades, population changes have resulted in a multiethnic society in the United States with cultural diversity beyond the imaginings of the country's founders, whose initial view of the concept of Americanism, and consequently multiculturalism, included racism and slavery. Multiculturalism cannot disunite America, because the…

A project was undertaken to develop a model for gender-fair education (GFE) in compulsory English, French, humanities, and philosophy courses in Quebec's Colleges d'Enseignement General et Professionel (CEGEPs), and to test the model's effectiveness in the classroom. First, core teachers at the CEGEP were surveyed to determine how they viewed and…