Schools and programs of social work continually strive to develop effective gatekeeping procedures to promote optimal functioning of students while maintaining quality control in professional education. Program administrators and classroom, field, and adjunct faculty are key to the process of developing and implementing student standards. This…

This paper describes the development, administration, and scoring of the Pictorial Measure of School Stress (PMSS). This instrument was designed to describe individual differences in children's feelings about everyday school situations and their coping strategies for dealing with these. The PMSS uses a semi-structured interview to present specific…

This study analyzes the variation in one measure of son preference that is of particular relevance in rural China: whether a woman considers it important to have a son, and the reasons why sons are important. To summarize our conclusions, we find that the expectation that a son will provide financial support in old age is strongly associated with…

Many small Christian colleges and universities are changing their cultures from focusing solely on teaching to embracing a teacher-scholar model. Motivating faculty at these small colleges to engage in scholarly activities is becoming one of the top priorities of administration. The culture at private colleges with enrollments of less than 5000 is…

This article feeds into the discussion of transitional issues begun in Volume 2 of "Arts and Humanities in Higher Education." It draws on research into A-level students' expectations of university English and how these compare to the experiences of first-year students, university lecturers and A-level teachers. The data presented are…

One of the motivations frequently cited by Sen and Nussbaum for moving away from a utility metric towards a capabilities framework is a concern about adaptive preferences or conditioned expectations. If utility is related to the satisfaction of aspirations or expectations, and if these are affected by the individual's previous experience of…

Studies on the effect of only-child status on girls' education indicate that the only-child policy has had an unintended consequence of engendering a child-centered culture with a strong belief and shared interest among the urban community in educating the only-child regardless of the child's sex. As the distribution of education by sex is…

This article reports on a study regarding the school-identification of 1819 first-year students in secondary vocational education. We measured the school-identification of these adolescents and used the perspective of self-regulation to define three blocks of potential determinants, including the students' personal goals (1) their appraisals of…

Researchers at the Policy Information Center of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) have analyzed information from the National Center for Education Statistics; data from state, city, and other sources; and results from recent surveys of high school students to present a summary of the current dropout situation. The 1995 ETS report, "Dreams…

Many college and university teachers across the United States remain hostile, at least privately, to student evaluation of faculty performance despite the general use of such evaluation in the academy for the past three decades. However, professionals can use student evaluations to their advantage if they "stage a pre-emptive strike"--in other…

A survey was undertaken in an effort to understand the basis on which some children choose mathematics and science courses and others opt out. Interviews were conducted in classrooms with 2,500 public school students in grades 5 through 11, and 1,000 telephone interviews were conducted with parents. The survey found that most students make…

This new annual publication, a companion volume to the fourth edition of "Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators," presents a series of concise analyses on themes relevant to educational policy, based upon selected international education indicators. The analyses are presented in the following four chapters: (1) "An Overview of Enrolment (sic) and…

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity and Equity, appointed by the Superintendent of the Saint Paul (Minnesota) Public Schools, reviewed the policies and practices of the city's public schools, focusing on the low achievement of students of color. The Commission presented its report in May 1994, and this report is the Superintendent's response.…

This book is reissued as part of the Innovators in Education Series, which brings back into print books that are both historically significant and that speak to today's educational concerns. Originally released in 1971, the book presents lessons that still apply to what doesn't work and what could work in the schools. The study of five inner-city…

The 1994-1995 study of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) Preschool Programs constitutes the fourth year of evaluation of the state-mandated preschool programs for at-risk 4-year-old children and 3- and 4-year-olds with disabilities. The report is divided into sections which discuss the methodology and the results (the bulk of the report) of…