Analyzes government's role in promoting computer use in the United Kingdom educational system from 1980 to 1990. Evaluates the Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP) in initiating policy. Concludes MEP's contribution was ultimately positive. Considers problems of top-down innovation, teacher attitudes and training, and hardware and software…

Urges teachers to use the cultural landscape as a primary resource. Outlines the steps for students to use in making a visual analysis of the cityscape. Lists strategies for reading the cityscape as a primary document including observation, speculation, analysis, and evaluation. (NL)

Reviews social studies curricula developed for classroom use since the 1890s. Examines six categories of differing recommendations. Reveals disparate conceptualizations of what constitutes useful knowledge to attain citizenship objectives. Defines classroom practice as the bottom line, citing findings from recent National Science Foundation…

Outlines a lesson plan in which students role play a 1920s farm family deciding whether to buy an automobile or a tractor. Other students act as automobile and tractor sales groups. Explains how the lesson illuminates relationships between technological advance and social history. Includes handouts identifying benefits of purchasing cars or…

Discusses a survey involving over 800 Soviet secondary school students. Reports that 55.9 percent were satisfied with labor instruction, production practice, and productive labor. Reviews other findings. Considers needs to improve career guidance and cooperative education programs. Advocates early adolescent participation in school-labor…

Reflects on reasons why the New Social Studies movement failed. Analyzes five developments to account for its failure. Discusses the author's establishment of Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Teaching Center. Explains how lessons from earlier attempts at educational reform have been applied at CMU. Reviews the New Social Studies movement's…

Considers how computers may affect lifelong learning especially in developing nations. Suggests computers may qualitatively change education and liberate existing systems from centralization and curriculum- and examination-driven environments. Expresses concern that modernization may widen the information gap between developed and developing…

Comments on the World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training. Argues that past failures in establishing effective vocational and technical education were a result of not applying conventional neoclassical economic theory. Asserts that the World Bank's policy paper corrects this approach. (CFR)

Subtlety and complacency mask ongoing gender bias in today's classrooms. Updates are presented concerning career segregation; single-sex classrooms; safety and health problems; dropout rates; gifted programs; male/female stereotypes; classroom interactions; SAT scores; math, science and technology gender gaps; political reversals; and female…

Profiles the current geography curriculum in Australian schools and discusses the policy decisions that resulted in its implementation. Australian geography education features a prominent social education component that emphasizes development, the environment, and other social issues. Includes several tables listing national curriculum goals and…

Over the past 30 years, Florida's 500 middle schools have become more sizeable, racially segregated, and security conscious. Other features include interdisciplinary team organization, warring curricula, block schedules, integrated technology, inclusion, ability grouping, corporate practices, and female and minority principals committed to…

Focusing on national policy and practice, this paper suggests key recommendations for consideration in the context of standards-based reform, including: produce teachers who are multiculturally literate; re-assess ability grouping and tracking practices; reduce K-3 class size and elementary and secondary school size; expand and improve federal…

If dynamics of gender and race in the science classroom are understood and used effectively, group work may enhance learning for all students, especially women and students of color; if ignored or misunderstood, group work may detract from or inhibit learning. Group size/selection, roles/leadership, assignments/grading, student resistance, and…

Examines growing acceptance of the concept of adolescence among Italian immigrants in New Haven, Connecticut before and after World War I. Notes changes in young people's ideas about their obligations to parents as high schools become popular institutional space for adolescence, and modifications of parents' views of education. (DLH)

Examined the situations in which a random sample of African-American middle school students are violent, the students' interpretations of these situations, the goals of their violent behavior, and how they justify the use of threats or force against others. Created recommendations for violence prevention implied by these research findings. (TJQ)