Mentoring programs attempt to foster a relationship that is too often missing from the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. However, in view of both the power and the limitations of mentoring programs, it is important to understand how mentoring occurs naturally. Assuming an ecological perspective, we examine mentoring in four contexts:…

The Veterans Health Administration (VA) provides a case study for linking performance measurement, information technology, and aligned research efforts to facilitate quality improvement in a large, complex health system. Dialogue between clinical researchers and VA leaders occurs through structured activities (e.g., the Quality Enhancement…

There are some 1,400 schools of education in the United States--schools that prepare the teachers who teach most of America's elementary and secondary students. By virtue of their numbers, and the fact that some 70 percent of their three million public school teachers have attended these institutions as undergraduates, education schools seem a…

Although much research in the 1960s and 1970s was devoted to cross-cultural issues such as expatriate employment, researchers moved away from doing cross-cultural research in order to direct their efforts toward the hot topics of the time. However, the past few decades have seen an exponential increase in the globalization of our economy, and this…

This paper characterizes the views on mathematical learning of five high school students based on the students' reflections on their mathematical experiences in a longitudinal study that focused on the development of mathematical ideas and reasoning in particular research conditions. The students' views are presented according to five themes about…

Some programs for helping at-risk youth achieve excellent results, while others do not. One reason for program success can be proper management. Mentoring is a promising strategy for helping at-risk youth. Planners who want to create effective mentoring programs should look at the implementation experiences of other youth programs. Evaluations…

This paper summarizes findings of a 3-year study assessing outcomes for 35 children (preschool to high school aged) with mild to severe disabilities in inclusive educational settings. Additionally, the study looked at "connected" pairs of children--each pair including a child with and a child without a disability. It identified three main areas of…

Based on input from practitioners at 42 two-year colleges in the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education region, this document outlines the research agenda of the Western Center for Community College Development (WCCCD) for the next century. Introductory sections describe the role of focused research, the WCCCD, methodology used in…

Discussion of one form of pragmatic competence, projecting a sense of stylistic voice into texts, explores how writing in a non-native language affects the ability to express stylistic voice and enter into social dialogue with readers. Using the published reflections of authors writing professionally in a non-native language, the analysis shows…

The total quality movement began as a result of the desire of W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician, to permit the economic system to maintain its edge in a growing global market. The 14 points Deming listed as essential to "total quality management" have recently been adapted to the field of education. The success of the total…

In an effort to identify, categorize, and prioritize the research needs facing Tech Prep Teacher Education over the next 10 years, a study was conducted of a selected sample of nationally recognized experts in Tech Prep. A three-round Delphi survey approach was used to generate responses and achieve consensus among the experts. The first…

The third in a series of workshops on child care for low-income families (July 24, 1995) conceptualized directions for future research. The effect of child care on children's development was discussed in terms of: (1) child care as an intervention in the lives of low-income children; (2) the importance of capturing the dynamics of children's child…

Ontario Rural Literacy is a special interest group of educators concerned with the particular needs of literacy programs in rural areas of Ontario. The group promotes awareness of literacy issues among the general public as well as providing support to member programs. The 12 members of the provincial steering committee represent all regions of…

This report is the culmination of a process that began in 1994, at a planning meeting to determine whether there was a sufficient knowledge base to inform the development of a research agenda on the education of language minority children. A committee was established to review what is known about the linguistic, cognitive, and social processes…

The second symposium met to continue the process of building the network of scholars and the climate of cooperation and communication necessary for the further development of distance education that was begun with the first symposium, which was held in 1988. The program consisted of prepared papers and informal small-group discussions of four…