During their elementary school years, many students develop a dislike for school. Their alienation is due partly to the school environment and discouraging educator behaviors. Children sense they are overly assessed and classified, arbitrarily promoted, confined to large groups, and bound to a routine work schedule that values competition and…

Comments on the articles presented in this issue, discussing factors that influence the climate for learning. Ways that beliefs, past experiences, and cultural competence of adults may influence their ability to work collaboratively and support children's collaborative work are discussed, as are the effects of various adult interaction styles on…

Intelligence tests were administered twice to 426 members of 93 transracial adoptive families, once when the adopted children's ages averaged 7 years and again when they averaged 17 years. Correlations suggest that influences on intellectual development in this sample of black and interracial adoptees reared in white families are similar to those…

Discusses the effect of extreme trauma on the ability of students to learn and ways for teachers to effectively help survivors. The article suggests some practical strategies and insights, using principles of effective language acquisition to inform a range of teaching and learning styles. (22 references) (Author/CK)

Describes an eighth-grade communications arts classroom at Richard R. Green Middle School in the Bronx, New York, where respect has become a powerful motivator for students. Relates how students have responded positively to being treated as intelligent young adults who can learn, and how that has contributed to the students' success. (TJQ)

Reports on the qualitative findings extracted from a study of over 3,700 teenagers from urban, suburban, and small city settings, describing the array of difficulties teenagers face today. The themes that emerged from the students' comments offer a compelling portrait of life as a teenager in the 1990s and help shape an agenda for understanding…

Identifies the components of the current social trend, "McDonaldization", as efficiency, calculability, predictability, and the substitution of nonhuman technology for human technology (or control). Contends that market forces and mass production have imposed "McDonaldization," on the British educational system. Considers…

Examines a sample of 710 subjects ages 14-19 to assess psychological health of United Arab Emirates (UAE) families with adolescent members. Used the Family Functioning Questionnaire to assess adolescents' perceptions of family life and climate. Males scored higher on emotional fulfillment. Family functioning scores were higher in upper social…

Examined two groups of adult males who had been sexually abused as children by female maternal caregivers: those in treatment at a clinic specializing in sexual abuse survivor work, and those in treatment at a clinic specializing in sexual offender work. These groups show greater psychological disruption than adult males who as children had not…

Presents a variety of examples of work by practitioner researchers (students, coteachers, principals, and school leadership teams), touching on university-school collaborations, research across authority lines (for example, students and teachers), research as part of professional development, and research by experienced teachers who studied their…

Early childhood classrooms characterized by a predominance of second-language learners have emerged in unprecedented numbers. This article examines a model of peer collaboration to take into account how children's evolving social relationships served as an impetus for talk in English. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (Author)

Many private schools accepting public and private voucher funding use instructional materials that transmit profoundly conservative values. Content of texts produced by A Beka Books and Bob Jones University Press is virtually identical to materials produced and disseminated by the Christian Right and other conservative groups. (Contains 42…

Explored the effects of a number of affective and social variables on learners' engagement in oral argumentative tasks. The assumption underlying the investigation was that students' verbal behavior in oral task situations is partly determined by a number of nonlinguistic and non-cognitive factors whose examination may constitute a potentially…

Examines how the instructional conversation can be an effective method to raise the low academic achievement of various Native American students. Considers cultural differences in conversational styles, the relative emphasis on verbal or visual symbolic thinking in schools, student motivation, and the social organization of classrooms and schools.…

Reports successful outcomes for a Teaching English as a Foreign Language module based on simultaneous oral translation from Arabic into English. Learners worked individually in a traditional language laboratory. Results show that simultaneous interpretation significantly improves learner performance and is an excellent tool for diagnosing learner…