School or district size was found to interact with socioeconomic status to influence student achievement in West Virginia; small schools facilitated the achievement of impoverished students, whereas large schools facilitated the achievement of affluent students. Addresses implications for educational policy and future research into effects of…

Braxton County, West Virginia, is a subculture in which the norms and values of local residents are oppositional to state and national objectives for public education. Describes the role of the locally born county superintendent as a cultural change agent, and his strategies for overcoming poor community support and limited financial resources to…

Maintains that a significant positive relationship exists between perceived teacher support, interest, and encouragement and adolescents' self-concept in Africa. Utilized the Self-Description Inventory (SDI) to reveal that specific dimensions of adolescents' self-concepts were positively affected by specific teacher behaviors. (MJP)

Identifies three major educational problems facing Eastern Europe. These are the development of a new philosophy of education, new methodologies of education, and new methods of training teachers. Examines the first tentative steps in these efforts and discusses educational financial problems. (MJP)

An action research project was conducted in an Educational Psychology class within a program training tradespeople to become secondary teachers of technology studies in Australia. Findings demonstrated the importance of group culture in helping these individuals move from manual to mental labor. Participants (n=62) increased their self-disclosure,…

Examines children's production and participation in play and games in an Italian preschool and a Swedish after-school program. Considers play as part of a process of interpretive reproduction in children's lives, and demonstrates how children at play use a range of communicative skills, collectively participate in and extend their peer cultures,…

A general equilibrium schooling model shows that greater school efficiency is complementary with more equal opportunity, increased overall learning, more integration, stable teacher salaries, and fewer course preparations per teacher. Transferring students to area schools with curricula suited to their abilities would secure these ends. (Contains…

A 3-year ethnographic study of middle-school students in a two-way bilingual program found that Mexican-background students learned to value English over Spanish at school. The hidden curriculum, instructional practices, and assessment policy devalued the students' native linguistic cultural capital compelling them to use English in the classroom…

Explored influence on adolescent delinquency of curriculum track as an organizer of delinquent friendship groups or as a moderator of friendship relations. Structural equation analyses supported curriculum track as moderator of friendship relations. After accounting for academic achievement, lower-track students were not more likely to associate…

This article looks at the history of special education in Mexico, discusses the emergence of special education programs, and examines a school for special education in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The school provides vocational training for students with a variety of disabilities and has a partnership with the local maquiladora industry. (Contains 5…

Examines the ways that adult narrators address the child reader in fictions written for children in moral education. Analyzes these relationships and considers their pedagogical implications. Specifically considers the personification of children's behavior by animals in these stories and connects this to a shift in the contemporary concept of…

Discusses the importance of considering the role of students' social environments in determining how students will participate in mathematics classroom activities and what kinds of connections can be made to life outside the classroom. Argues that these issues may be particularly important for students in urban environments who are not sheltered…

Conducted observations in urban and suburban schools, arguing that critical theorists should more closely examine differential structural constraints on pedagogical choice. Urban teachers made pedagogic choices that reinforced social hierarchies (partly to help students manage urban environmental risks). Changing the role of power in urban public…

This article describes critical events that have shaped gifted education, including: closing of one-room schoolhouses, the industrial revolution, the space race, the civil right movement, legislation for special education, growth in technology and information services, educational research, and advocacy. Missed opportunities and future…

This article describes critical events that have shaped gifted education, including: Renzulli's definition of giftedness, Sputnik, the Marland Report of 1971, and the development of the National Association for Gifted Children, the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, and the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children. (CR)