Basic emotional and intellectual factors in motivation can help to stimulate the learner to acquire the five major literacy skills: listening, speaking, thinking, reading, and writing. Contagion, or the spread effect in psychology, is reflected in the readily communicated attitude of the teacher toward students and teaching itself. Similarly,…

This paper presents a study which related teachers expectations of student achievement after two weeks of classroom contact to several possible sources: student classroom performance, prior school performance, parental involvement, and student status characteristics. Their temporal order and relative influence are examined via a path model and…

Texas, like the rest of the nation, is undergoing a shift toward an excess of females. Review of the changing balance of the sexes reveals that there were only 95.9 males per 100 females in 1970 with a projected drop to 93.8 by 1980. In 1950 Texas had an excess of 15,000 males, but by 1960 females outnumbered males by 90,000 and by 234,000 in…

The purpose of this presentation is to report on a study undertaken by the author to asses teachers' social perceptions of dialectal differences among junior high school males. Male and female teachers judged the academic ability and school behavior of three black and three white male student speakers representing upper-middle-class, middle-class,…

This book is about the kinds of individual differences in students that make differential impressions on teachers, the ways that such differential impressions lead teachers to form differential attitudes and expectations regarding different students, and the ways that these differential teacher attitudes and expectations begin to affect…

This study investigated the interaction between teacher background and student variables such as test scores, level of classroom activity and attention, race and socioeconomic class in determining teacher expectancies of reading abilities of first grade children. Participants were 48 female teachers from the South: 24 white and 24 black. The…

While the effects of teacher expectations on learner performance have continued to be of interest to both classroom teachers and researchers, the findings of much of the research have been equivocal. Teacher expectancy statements may affect performance in three rather distinct ways: the past association value of the expectancy statement, the value…

A seminar whose purpose is to raise the professional competencies of those concerned about Adult Basic Education (ABE) by providing an overview and understanding of the major principles and practices of ABE is presented. Specific objectives include: (1) to enable each class member to formulate and to defend a philosophy and rationale of ABE which…

Differences in interaction patterns between teachers and high/low achieving and high/low expectation students were examined in four grade 3 and six grade 6 classes, involving 237 students. Teachers interacted most frequently with high achieving/expectancy students, but spent more time waiting for and interacting with low achieving/expectancy…

Since the fall of 1999, the Research Institute on Secondary Education Reform for Youth with Disabilities (RISER) has studied inclusion and instructional reform in four U.S. secondary schools. This article analyzes general education teachers' views on (a) inclusion and its impact on their teaching and their students and (b) the extent to which…

In the positive theory of public bureaucracy, the prevailing view is that the structure of public agencies is designed from the top down by political superiors. Faced with bureaucrats who may disagree with them on policy and who are advantaged by private information, superiors choose rules and procedures to try to ensure that agencies do what they…

The prevailing expectation in education today is, "All children can learn." This expectation includes all children, including disadvantaged children and those who come from poverty. Our actions are guided by our expectations. If we believe that all children can learn, then children can learn. If we believe that children cannot learn, then our self…

This book provides a research background for adults helping three to five year olds learn mathematics, including social and emotional processes as well as key mathematical ideas and common difficulties. It includes implications for practice and proposes presented with a playful and sensitive approach. It is illustrated with examples from the…

Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluates state academic standards. The average state grade is a "C-minus"--the same as six years earlier, even…

High-performing boards operating at a distinguishable level of excellence, all exhibit a culture of cohesiveness. And a compelling codicil is that these boards did not deliberately set out to become cohesive and perhaps do not even know they are cohesive. This article examines the value of cohesion to university governing boards, explicitly…