Uses content analysis to examine the coverage of Africa by "Pravda" before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finds an absence of ideological news and a sharp decline in the number and volume of stories published in the 1992 sample compared with the 1990 sample. (RS)

Examines existence and placement of main ideas in non-fiction best-sellers. Concludes that writers of popular non-fiction use main ideas and place these ideas in prominent positions. Offers support for teaching main idea in reading classes. (RS)

Discusses some of the available frameworks for the pedagogical analysis of school science textbooks. Discusses three approaches to the analysis of science textbooks: the sociocognitive, the sociolinguistic, and the socioepistemic. Considers the relative merits of the third approach using some examples from Greek science textbooks. Contains 18…

Examines how chemistry/science textbooks from different countries and written at different levels of education deal with physical and chemical change. Results indicate that the ideas concerning the teaching and learning of physical and chemical change evident in textbooks are not complete and textbooks seldom justify the content they cover in…

Examines Shirley Brice Heath's letters and other materials at the time she was researching "Ways with Words." Finds that "Ways with Words" can most fruitfully be read as a story of the persistence of prejudice, suggesting the failure of the arguments in favor of desegregation to broker lasting reforms toward equity. (SC)

The construct of peer pressure was examined as part of a qualitative study of the determinants of mental health for 41 high-risk adolescents. While the concept of peer pressure enables adults to explain youths' troubling behaviors, content analysis of the participants' accounts of their lives reveals peer pressure to be a myth. (Author/MKA)

Reviews the recent professional literature on family literacy programs, with a focus on the use and role of children's literature, specifically multiethnic texts, within those programs. Describes children's literature in family literacy and discusses the role of multiethnic literature in family literature. Presents three examples of family…

Presents a framework for analyzing and evaluating digital reference services based on systems analysis. Focuses on existence of a public archive, content, selectivity, safeguards for privacy, access, browsability and searchability, and relationship to frequently asked questions and other site content. (Author/LRW)

Finds 37 common theoretical ideas discussed in at least three of five popular collegiate interpersonal communication textbooks. Divides the common theories into four broad conceptual categories: (1) issues surrounding symbolic self; (2) issues of perception; (3) verbal skills, behaviors, and competencies; and (4) relational perspectives that view…

Presents a method for extracting maximal frequent sequences in a set of documents. A maximal frequent sequence is a sequence of words that is frequent in the document collection and is not contained in any other longer frequent sequence. Frequent maximal sequences can be used as content descriptors for documents. (MES)

Describes a study of 150 university library Web sites in four English speaking countries. Results showed that the visual display of information was similar in all countries, but there were differences in content, including the availability of encyclopedias, request forms, pathfinders, and remote access. (Author/LRW)

Traces the roots of the popular culture "commodity confessional" by examining the first five years of the magazine "True Story." Finds the stories fulfilled three functions for the women readers: (1) providing therapeutic messages; (2) providing didactic instruction on proper behavior and modern ways; and (3) serving as interrogative texts which…

Articles in the "Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling" between 1979 and 1998 were analyzed according to authors' demographic characteristics and article content to provide a historical review of the addictions and offender counseling field. Study results, historical trends, and future implications are presented. (Author)

Computer mediated communication (CMC) refers to communication between individuals and among groups via networked computers. Such forms of communication can be "asynchronous" or "synchronous" and serve a wide variety of useful functions ranging from administration to building understanding and knowledge. As such there are many reasons for interest…

This multimethod study explored the promising link between organized sports involvement during the high school years and sexual behavior/health among 176 adolescent women. Using more sensitive and appropriate measures than those in existing studies and directed, in part, by cultural resource theory, this study helped to fill a gap in the…