Black on black crime reflects the behavior of people of poverty and powerlessness. It grows from a pathology of racism; a society which denies access and opportunity. Educational institutions can be essential instruments of change. Strategies to help enhance the lives and potential of black youth include: (1) provision for opportunity for success;…

The major objective of the Independent Adoption Society's two year Community Recruitment Project was to provide permanent family care for non-Caucasian children and for children with mental handicaps. The project sought to identify and develop community resources to work together to assist the children and to encourage people who would consider…

This third annual report of The Temporary State Commission on Child Welfare deals with the origin, development and rationale of the provisions of the Child Welfare Reform Act of 1979 (chapters 610 and 611). The Child Welfare Reform Act addresses itself primarily to three discrete program areas which operationally are intended to alter radically…

The Instrument for a Comprehensive and Relevant Education (ICARE) evaluation system seeks to identify teacher effectiveness in health occupations education. This report details the extent to which the use of the ICARE system has been effective in changing the educational practices of health educators who participated in ICARE workshops. The two…

A key assumption of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) is that change is a process, rather than an event. The Procedures for Adopting Educational Innovations Project is working to identify and verify diagnostic dimensions of CBAM, and to develop tools to measure the developmental status of users and non-users; these concepts will help change…

This paper discusses ways managers can motivate their employees to work and at the same time to increase their performance. Two theories of motivation--Vroom's theory and Atkinson's theory--focus on the use of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards respectively. A managerial strategy that combines the best of both intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to…

Dairy farmers (N=387) in two Pennsylvania counties were studied concerning their adoption of practices used on nearby demonstration farms. A total of 37 variables (including 11 "dummy variables") were used to measure personal characteristics, economic structures of farms, communication sources, and formal and informal participation. Factor…

This study investigates decision-making among women with unplanned and unwanted conceptions. Subjects were females younger than 18 years old, who were unmarried at the time that they became pregnant (N=432). Data were obtained by means of questionnaires given to subjects prior to abortion or delivery. Questions concerned involvements of mother,…

The P. K. Yonge Laboratory School has adapted Havelock's linkage model which explains the knowledge, dissemination and utilization process of dissemination, and implementation of innovations. This study sought to describe the assumptions and strategies of the Laboratory School's Linkage Model and to evaluate the results of the model by focusing on…

This research deals with the legal, social and cultural contexts in which informal adoption of black children by adults takes place in rural south Alabama. A total of 306 parent surrogates were identified, interviewed and compared on the basis of 10 socioeconomic characteristics. Information was also collected on the number of children informally…

A study undertaken among commercial strawberry growers in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada, sought to define the network of personal contacts as used by the farmers in obtaining information relevant to growing practices. Growers were divided into four adopter categories: laggards, late majority, early majority, and innovator-early…

A study conducted at eleven midwestern universities investigated the appropriateness of direct action as a means of changing university policies. Interviewed subjects (six) voiced their opinions about student use of direct action tactics to initiate change in three broad areas: (1) academic issues, (2) personal and social conduct issues and, (3)…

American Education has suffered from its inability to communicate and gain wide adoption of educational improvements. Since the National Institute of Education (NIE) will be judged in terms of the degree to which educational practice is improved, it must assume responsibility for the implementation of new findings. Thus, NIE must conduct a…

The nature and timing of decisions regarding the diffusion of new instructional materials and practices are critical to the ultimate utility achieved by a curriculum project. This publication is a collection of five conference papers which deal with various aspects of diffusion of innovative materials and ideas. Everett M. Rogers discusses two…

In this working paper of the National Seminar on the Diffusion of New Instructional Materials and Practices individual conference participants answer this question: What are the characteristics of educational products that make them more or less likely to be diffused? Responses focus on considerations related to size of the product, cost,…