Examines the conflict which can arise when differing cultural practices of families and child care facilities clash. Presents a case study that exemplifies the potential conflict. Provides advice for child care practitioners on how to combine two differing perspectives and how to move from arguments and misunderstandings to common concerns. (SD)

Examines six constraints on teachers' ability to promote higher-order thinking in the classroom (schedule, student attitudes, teacher attitudes, resources, atmosphere, and assessment). Explores possibilities for overcoming such constraints, including block scheduling, integration of the curriculum and thematic teacher, portfolio assessment,…

This article discusses in-service training of Swedish professionals in family-centered intervention for families with children with disabilities. The training, which has been implemented on an interdisciplinary team basis in the context of ordinary habilitation services, is described as one of several options for fostering improvement within an…

Low achievement of state mathematics standards caused a rural Illinois school district to realize that repeated coverage of lower-level material blocked student progress. Subsequently, elementary teachers learned new ways to teach math, and secondary teachers replaced practical math with algebra courses. Students achieved new levels of math…

Improving schooling and teacher education will be successful to the extent that educators make the public and budget-controlling authorities aware of the relationship between investment in education and productive citizenship. Until educators become more proactive and willing to serve as "American Reconstructioneers of Culture," our…

Identifies five stages of technology integration in education: (1) obtaining software, hardware, and peripherals; (2) coordinating classroom activities with new technologies; (3) learning how to use the technology; (4) achieving success; and (5) planning for the future. Suggests teachers need more time to reflect on and practice new technologies,…

Shortly after coming to power, Tony Blair's New Labour government expressed its strong commitment to tackling the problem of school expulsion. The Treasury's 1998 Spending Review included the bold target to achieve "a reduction by one third in... exclusions (from 12,500 to 8,400 permanent exclusions a year) by 2002". This article gives…

In this article, the author discusses two major conclusions about initial preparation programs in the United States. On the upside, a good deal of energy and hard work is being poured into attempts to revitalize preparation programs. On the downside, people are not seeing much in the way of real improvement; that is, most of the change is on the…

As mentoring programs have proliferated, considerable variation in approaches to programmatic mentoring has emerged. Concomitant confusion exists about the context, structure, and goals that constitute mentoring as a distinct intervention. This article presents a brief summary of what is currently known about different approaches to mentoring and…

Human resource development (HRD) as a scholarly endeavor and as a practice is often criticized in the adult education (AE) literature and by AE scholars as manipulative and oppressive and, through training and other interventions, controlling workers for strictly economic ends (Baptiste, 2001; Cunningham, 2004; Schied, 2001; Welton, 1995).…

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization created by the Microsoft founder and his wife in 2000, has already invested nearly a billion dollars in an effort to redesign the American high school. It supports some 1,500 existing schools; 450 of them are either restructured or brand new. But the foundation's focus was not…

In this article, the author describes an experiment. One that came alive, grew in complexity, sprouted wings, caught updrafts and spiraled to reach a national audience with compelling personal stories of people living with HIV. The epicentre for this programme was a re-habilitation centre for intravenous drug users and female sex workers, many of…

There has been a growing resurgence of interest in creativity in primary schools which has acted as a counterpoint to some of the more reductivist elements of the introduction of the National Curriculum and associated methods of testing. This article reports on a study of one primary school that has had some significant success in enhancing the…

Agricultural development programs often produce unexpected results. This can be attributed to the fact that the target-farmers already have their own knowledge and competencies which, in turn, determine their practices. In order to be adopted, an innovation has first to be discussed, and then appropriated by a local group of farmers in their…

The impacts of technology upon traditional library resources are sometimes unexpected. The library at California's University of the Pacific discovered that usage of print materials was dwindling, even though the addition of a 50-station "Information Commons" had bolstered overall library use. At first it was anticipated that the…