Epistemological beliefs of 146 male and 252 female university students were examined as a function of their educational level and field of study. Epistemological beliefs can be represented in terms of five factors. Students' beliefs about learning are a product of the activity, the culture, and the context. (SLD)

Summarizes 11 themes of Deloria's "Indian Education in America," including Native versus Western worldview; history of Indian education; Indian versus professional identity; community as key to survival; destructive aspects of American education; necessity of tribal context for education and knowledge; and reconciliation of science and…

Although "climate" has become a part of teachers' everyday language, it is a devious metaphor. An interactive model of school culture (with both covert and overt dimensions) is a more useful concept that could help teachers develop a deeper understanding of school context while reducing their manipulation by researchers. (30 references) (MLH)

This rejoinder to several commentaries on a paper (EC 231 901) on the theory-practice relationship in the care and education of mentally retarded individuals discusses the degree to which setting is the service versus a part of the service, differences between researchers and practitioners, and the role of science and scientists. (JDD)

Explores relationship between text and context in pragmatism that is related to differences between pragmatism and scientific realism, as identified by Ernest R. House (1992) and repeated by Jim Garrison, and considers association between pragmatism and aesthetics. Comments concerning pragmatism and educational reform are made by suggesting how…

Whether specific motivational traits (social concern, goal directedness, self-reliance, external and intrinsic qualities, and task involvement) are related to gender, race, and religion was studied for 74 New Jersey educators. Gender differences in motivation are not found, but racial differences for some variables are discussed. (SLD)

Michael Polanyi's 1958 book "Personal Knowledge" explains how models and world views form the core of human life. The paradigmatic context in which today's schools function derives from an outmoded 19th-century agrarian economy. The new millennium context turns around the explosion of information technologies and the globalization of…

Data from 4 experiments in which 136 college students read a situation description and took the perspective of an uninformed addressee to determine whether a speaker was sarcastic suggest that readers use perspective-irrelevant information. The finding poses a problem for theories of language that assume the use of only relevant information. (SLD)

Discusses the factors affecting the course of conflict as the orientation to the conflict of the parties involved, their personalities, the issues, and the conflict's sociocultural patterns. The article concludes with a discussion of the skills involved in constructive solutions and offers suggestions for research. (GLR)

This study assessed whether ability to use phoneme-grapheme correspondence in spelling is affected by positions of the phoneme and stress on the syllable in 3 experiments involving 24 kindergartners and 56 first graders. Results suggest that the context in which a phoneme occurs influences children's spelling ability. (SLD)

Argues that a teacher's practice reflects changing experiences, knowledge, values, and identities, and as such can be productively thought of as a site for learning as well as a site for expounding upon what is known. Suggests a vision for what constitutes effective practice different from that commonly held in science. Contains 33 references.…

Explains the evolution of the parallel stories methodology of contextualizing teacher knowledge, including substantive, theoretical, and conceptual understandings that arise from the inquiry and the implications the approach holds for teacher education programs. The paper also presents excerpts from a current publication to illustrate the…

This study examined effects of contextualized math instruction on problem-solving performance of 17 middle school remedial students and 49 average-achieving prealgebra students. Results showed that both remedial and average students receiving contextualized-problem instruction outperformed comparison groups receiving word-problem instruction.…

Examines unknown word inference strategies in Japanese high school students' English-as-a-Foreign-Language reading.(Author/VWL)

Reviews literature on the various dimensions of culture to assess the implications for student learning and the development of culturally responsive assessments. Uses data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to examine the cultural context in which students live as a basis for understanding context effects on academic…