In reading the last section of their primary text, "Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide" by Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007) in his Adult Learning and Development class, the author continued to feel as though he was being self-assured of his previous learning experiences once again. The final section of the text focused on…

Character is vital force for positive development and societal well-being. Character strengths play important roles in positive youth development, not only as broad-protective factors, preventing or mitigating psychopathology and problems, but also as enabling conditions that promote thriving and flourishing. Recent research findings show that…

Guided by an ecological framework, we explore how siblings' and parents' roles, relationships, and activities are intertwined in everyday life, providing unique and combined contributions to development. In a departure from past research that emphasized the separate contributions of siblings and parents to individual development, we find that…

This research involved an exploratory intervention to determine the effectiveness of using a deliberate psychological education (DPE) approach that incorporated issues of ethics, multicultural competence, oppression and diversity. The study attempted to discern if the DPE model used could make a difference in the promotion of ego development…

Although it has been given qualified approval by a number of philosophers of education, the so-called "therapeutic turn" in education has been the subject of criticism by several commentators on post-compulsory and adult learning over the last few years. A key feature of this alleged development in recent educational policy is said to be the…

The National Research Council's (NRC) statement and description of features of settings that have value for positive youth development have been of great importance in shifting discourse toward creating programs that capitalize on youth motivations toward competence and connections with others. This assets-based approach to promote development is…

This article explores how participation in a community of learning supported transformation on a personal and professional level in a Master's programme at a South African university. It draws on the concept of transformational learning in the professional preparation of educational psychologists, and how such learning plays out in the development…

This study explored the relationship between ethnic identity, emotional empathy, multicultural sensitivity and dimensions of burnout among schoolteachers working with students from diverse ethnic groups. Based on the self-stereotyping principles and tendencies for ingroup favoritism of social identity approaches, it was hypothesized that…

The transition from primary to secondary school can often be a difficult time for children, and managing the transition smoothly has posed a problem for teachers at both upper primary and lower secondary level. At a time when "childhood" recedes and "adulthood" beckons, the inequalities between individual children can widen,…

Background: In view of the growing globalization, volunteer service organizations, local universities, colleges, and student groups have begun extending their service programs from Taiwan to other countries. This study employs a self-organized, self-funded group of university students participating in international service-learning as its subject,…

Although the value of school-community partnerships is unquestioned, the reasons for success and failure are not sufficiently understood. This mixed-methods case study examines 60 years of partnering at one urban high school, using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to better understand the effect on student development as measured by…

In 2006, a secondary English and feminist studies teacher created a course and designed a study around a reading exchange for eighth-grade girls from two vastly different communities. Girls from a school in a northeastern state read young adult novels and wrote about their reading and related topics with girls from Washington, DC on a wikispace…

Recursive partitioning is an analytic technique that is useful for identifying complex combinations of conditions that predict particular outcomes as well as for delineating multiple subgroup differences in how such factors work together. As such, the methodology is well suited to multidisciplinary, life course inquiry in which the goal is to…

In this article the concept of authenticity is explored within an educational context, using examples from the lives and work of teachers to illustrate the many qualities, dimensions and complexities involved in striving to be true to oneself. In educational settings authenticity has been aligned with personal commitment, meaningful contexts,…

This article offers yet another look at the challenge of teaching, in this case through the eyes of writers like John Passmore, Michael Novak, and Emmanuel Levinas. It is an attempt to combine the fundamental qualities of good teaching as set forth by Passmore, with the notion of "caritas", literally meaning willing the good of the other, and the…