A total of 23 American and Hmong-American preschool children from 2 day care center classrooms were observed during free play in an effort to determine the proportion of positive, negative, and neutral initiations made to peers as a function of sex and cultural background. A series of weighted, two-way analyses of variance were performed on…

A three-year study examined the efficacy of microcomputers in the teaching of writing in the regular school classroom and combined experimental and observational methods to develop a model of effective application of computers to the eighth-grade writing skills situation. Divided into control, mixed, and experimental classes, 281 students in six…

This study examined language and reading ability in English monolinguals, Spanish monolinguals, and two bilingual groups at the beginning of kindergarten and at the beginning of first grade. The study also compared the family background of the children on home literacy, parent education, and the parents' aspirations for their children. In…

This report describes programs and services available to language-minority limited-English-proficient (LM/LEP) students through Chapter 1 or special programs designed for these students. Data address three aspects of the relationship between Chapter 1 and LM/LEP students: (1) Chapter 1's possible provision of English language services in place of…

Critical thinking skills must be emphasized in schools if excellence in education is to be realized. The lesson plans in this learning module were designed with this issue in mind. The lessons focus on the concept of family as a universal institution. But family structures may vary due to specific cultural history, rapid technological advancement,…

This report analyzes the 1987-88 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of Connecticut's college-bound seniors and includes the students' characteristics and their college plans. The SAT, comprised of a verbal and a mathematical section, is part of the College Board's Admissions Testing Program which also includes the Test of Standard Written…

An initial study revealed that kindergarten children in a developmentally inappropriate classroom exhibited significantly more stress behaviors than children in a developmentally appropriate classroom. Marginal gender differences were noted. Purposes of the study were to determine whether findings from the initial study would replicate if a larger…

If personal networks of only children differ from those of children with siblings, then study of the different patterns of personal association is especially relevant to the understanding of social change in China, where the population of children without siblings is rapidly increasing. A study of these differential social networks used data…

First grade students (38) viewed a theater production on the theme of friendship in a study designed to determine the degree of the students' dramatic literacy. General objectives of the study were to: (1) compare children's learning from live theater with their learning from television; (2) describe what children knew about the play they saw and…

A two-stage procedure for the analysis of pretest-posttest data was developed and illustrated. Data were reanalyzed from a quasi-experimental evaluation that assessed the effects of an intervention program to teach elementary school children aged 10 to 12 years to watch violence on television more carefully/critically. The treatment group…

A preliminary examination of two approaches adopted in California to address the high school dropout problem is presented. Focus is on comparing aggregate impacts of State Bill (SB) 65 and of California Local Educational Reform Network (C-LERN) approaches to high school dropout reduction and prevention between 1985-86 and 1987-88. Four groups of…

A study examined the relationship between students' vocational and nonvocational experiences while in high school and their decision to drop out. The study was based on data from the sophomore cohort of the High School and Beyond database (a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of approximately 27,000 students who were sophomores in 1980…

A study examined the degree to which members of different ethnic groups--Whites/Anglos, Hispanic/Latinos, Asians, and Blacks--vary in (1) the reasons they adopt for communicating or not communicating with strangers, (2) the situations in which they choose to interact with strangers, and (3) the types of strangers with whom they feel comfortable…

The social context within which home schooling takes place is described, and the ideological frameworks and contexts within which parents (most of them fundamentalist Christians) make schooling decisions are examined. Research involved participant observation and interviews with 16 home schooling families (13 families self-labeled…

Detailed qualitative case studies of four early childhood special education programs, representing a variety of approaches to decision making as well as different community settings (urban, suburban, and rural), present information regarding their diagnostic assessment procedures. In general, programs reported that the main objective of diagnostic…