High school students were asked to identify the factors that influenced their school subject choice. Both sexes named the same influences. Detailed analyses of subject choices in physics and technical craft are presented and support from parents, teachers, and friends are cited as the strongest predictors of choice. (CW)

Interviews, from a symbolic interactionist perspective, reveal that parental activism, which involves seeking information and control and challenging authority, is viewed as a response to the failure of society to meet the needs of disabled children and their families. Parental activism may result in a careerlike pattern. (Author/BJV)

Among results of a cross-cultural study of elementary age trainable mentally retarded children in Japan (N=103) and their families, and a similar sample in the United States (N=88) were that the relationship between affective and emotional aspects of parental behavior and children's emotional adjustment appeared to be culture-specific. (Author/JW)

Studies how family members' domestic lifestyles affect whether children achieve above, at, or below grade level in public schools. Family units in the same neighborhood can have widely disparate organizational structures, which produce qualitatively different talents, dispositions, and abilities in youngsters. (BJV)

Assessed the effects of age, sex, social class, and quality of family interaction on the future orientation of adolescents. Found the contents of future aims and fears closely related to developmental tasks. The extension of subjects' future orientation decreased, whereas their knowledge about the future increased, with age. Subjects from higher…

Reviews recent research on the nature of teachers' and students' talk in the classroom, specifically addressing the teachers' expectations of student talk and behavior. (SRT)

Argues that Canadian Indians should establish their own universities and exert complete control over them. Compares higher education in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, using Saudi Arabia as an example of a country that managed to reap the benefits of Western educational expertise without sacrificing its own culture and values. (JHZ)

Part of the crisis in higher education is due to the age and tenure distribution of the faculty and their escalating future salary costs. Universities must find ways to gain financial and academic flexibility. Career alternatives that can provide inducements for faculty to leave the university are described. (Author/MLW)

Reflects on the declining quality of higher education today, the increasing inability of higher education to meet student needs, and the ways in which demographic influences will affect higher education in the next 16 years. Offers seven suggestions for leaders of higher education in dealing with these concerns. (IW)

Reports followup study of 106 former residents of Teulon Residence facility that housed Canada Native students attending a public high school in Manitoba. Examines students' attitudes about the facility, rates of student graduation, participation in postsecondary education, employment patterns, and where they were living at the time of the survey.…

All evidence shows that fast population growth slows development in the developing countries. It is the combination of social development and family planning that is so powerful in reducing fertility. Governments must act now. (RM)

The author advances the argument that evaluation is unique not in purpose, but in environment. The evaluator operates within ethical, organizational, and political contexts in order to achieve utilization of a context-responsive evaluation. (LMO)

This section of the journal presents state-of-the-art surveys of training in different countries in China, Africa, the Arab States, Eastern Europe, West Europe, Nordic Region, Caribbean, North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. (CT)

Cites figures pointing to the limited progress of minorities in higher education. Discusses reasons related to economic and social policy shifts, entering students' characteristics, institutional barriers, and changes in national climate and federal policy. (AYC)

This issue dealing with language discusses language and social structure, social progress and sociolinguistics, oral and literate traditions, Portuguese Creole dialects in West Africa, a framework for describing how languages spread, socio-cultural conflict and bilingual education, linguistic variation in one-language societies, the language…