Describes the importance of providing religious education to children with disabilities and the role which catechists must play in such education. Provides suggestions for catechist training, including disability simulation activities, multiple approaches to teaching a lesson plan, analysis of teaching/learning styles, and group interaction and…

Describes the "relevant" curriculum, that students feel is related to their lives, in a high school history class. Traces how "relevant" lessons work on students, how students in turn "work" relevance, and whose relevance is consequential. Argues that the school successfully imposes "relevance," but alienates students in the process. (DSK)

Maintains that educators should broaden their conception of competence and their thinking about desired educational outcomes. Argues that schools must become places where all students, not just the higher academic performers, can cultivate their skills, feel competent, and experience success. Suggests strategies for implementing a broader…

Discusses the conflict between middle school students' academic and social goals. Notes the importance of students' peer relationships and suggests ways to adapt school policy so that academic goals do not conflict with social interests. (JPB)

Students who respond to the ludicrous environments of schooling with behaviors and demeanor that do not fit school criteria frequently are given a medical label and drug treatment. The fact that Ritalin is given to 2.8% of all American children reflects a "treatment philosophy" in which professionals define problems and prescribe…

Describes one principal's caring and empowering practices in interacting with students through specific interviews and observations. Her approach is analyzed in terms of the components of empowerment through caring rather than control. The data of this study are also related to existing literature on caring. (MMU)

Illustrates how art provides a medium through which a group of young, pregnant, middle school women connected their reading and writing to their lives. Finds that they were reluctant to engage in the self-revealing writing activities typical of a whole language classroom; however, the opportunity to draw in response to literature enabled students…

A study that compared the attitudes of 114 gifted middle school students and 673 typical middle school students found that gifted students viewed their class activities essentially the same as the other students. Each group reported their class activities were only slightly more than "sometimes" interesting, challenging, and enjoyable. (Contains…

Researchers say transition programs need to last longer than just the first few days of a new school year. Most transition programs consider only one thing helping students adjust to their new school. Schools need to go through a transition process of their own, paying serious attention to the research on transition, adjusting to the students, and…

This study refined and applied an integrated model of undergraduate persistence (accounting for both behavioral and perceptual components) to examine first-year retention at a private, highly selective research university. Results suggest that including behaviorally based measures of involvement improves the model's explanatory power concerning…

Presents excerpts from a satellite town meeting where participants discussed issues common to the nation's schools. Topics include federal legislation for school construction, the planning of one school for future technology, ways school design influences learning, and community involvement in school redesign. (GR)

Multicultural, feminist and postmodern theorists generally concur that knowledge is socially constructed and that education becomes more effective and democratic when curriculum and instruction are modified to reflect this fact. Much of the knowledge students encounter within schools, however, is presented as though it were discovered, objective…

Research continues to reinforce the desirability of non-punitive environments for children. This article describes a school for severely emotionally impaired children that was transformed from a coercive climate to empowering children to develop their own controls. The author stresses that removing systems based on punishment and control can be…

Numerous scholars have observed that the comprehensive high school has never succeeded in socially unifying the entire student body. This article attempts to explain why this has been the case by tracing the origins and development of the extracurriculum at Ithaca High School from 1890 to 1917. It demonstrates that students struggled with…

This article examines communication and system issues in dealing with misconduct in adolescents. The initial focus is an analysis of the goals of misconduct, including attention, power, revenge, and display of inadequacy. The second focus encourages the school system to consider its own part in the problems of misconduct, by examining circular…