Discusses the growing ethnic and cultural diversity of the student population and the challenges this presents in teaching English Braille. The need to first address the student's competence in spoken English before teaching Braille is stressed. Using grade one Braille for teaching ethnically diverse students is recommended. (CR)

Explains how both experiential art processes and art appreciation can lead monocultural students in general education teacher training courses to a sense of their own cultural richness and that of others. By combining image making with art appreciation, education students are able to discover meaning in their own visual languages. (SLD)

Describes a conference presentation on "Multicultural Ways of Thinking: Removing the Blinders," in which a teaching strategy called "anonymous sharing" was modeled. The strategy allows participants to share ideas in a nonthreatening way by reading comments made anonymously by others. Experiences of conference participants are used to make…

Explores contemporary fiction by Native American authors, a body of work filled with imagery of both traditional tribal and mainstream American cultures. Native American fiction demonstrates the capacity of this literature to reflect the dynamics of American Indian cultural survival in the face of the objectification forced on the culture by the…

Explores the writing experiences of a group of Black bilingual women in a language studies course in Britain. The study focuses on how the practices surrounding dominant conventions in academic writing in higher education constrain what these women can say what they say, thus regulating their writing. (JL)

This study of 98 practicing K-12 teachers investigated perceptions of the nature and quality of multicultural training received in preservice programs. Results indicated that training was limited in all cultural domains, that younger teachers perceived less faculty bias than older teachers; and that teachers observed more faculty bias toward…

High school students from several Pacific region countries (including Canada and the Pacific United States) were asked to comment on racial and ethnic tensions in their schools. Student responses to the open-ended prompts give insights into the effects of racial tensions on their lives. Student suggestions on resolving difficulties are discussed.…

Argues that the epic of America as frontier and vast land of freedom has been replaced by an epic that emphasizes racial and ethnic diversity in America, whether in an optimistic or pessimistic mood. The old epic was connected with an available frontier, but the new epic is city-centered in the stories of minorities. (SLD)

Reviews 15 recently published books that deal with the joys and struggles of Latino people. These fiction and nonfiction books deal with a variety of topics and are sure to hold the interest of young readers. (SLD)

Critically overviews unities and distinctions between genre analysis and register analysis as practices and between genre and register as constructs. Outlines issues for application of analytical practice to pedagogy and provides an evaluative survey of the state of the art of theoretical and applied resources in genre and register analysis. (86…

L. Mann, H. Mitsui, G. Beswick, and R. Harmoni (1994) studied perceptions of interpersonal rules by Japanese and Australian children. This reanalysis of their data uses principal components analysis to show common and culture-specific patterns of interpersonal rules. Social status and social distance were major dimensions of a large cultural…

Explores the new racism of the intelligence quotient as represented by "The Bell Curve" by R. Herrnstein and C. Murray (1994). Educators must confront the factors that divide Americans to contribute to a multicultural society in which diversity unites rather than divides. (SLD)

Used qualitative data to compare child-rearing practices of second-generation Punjabi mothers living in England and those of Punjabis in India using a qualitative analysis. Found that compared to Indian Punjabis, British Punjabis had smaller families, less preference for sons, were less likely to massage and bathe infants traditionally or to…

Australian Aboriginal adults (n=74) and children (n=103) were interviewed regarding their perspectives on giftedness. Aboriginal culture was found to view giftedness as a consequence of individual ability, commitment, and environmental factors. Research is reported on the specific talents valued by the Aboriginal culture. Suggestions are given for…

Studies cognitive pragmatics in order to bridge the gap between the universality and culture-specificity of politeness by means of the idea of the "frame" or "specific knowledge" combined with the theory of relevance by Sperber and Wilson. The article concludes that a general theory of politeness as a particular subsystem in a…