The middle school concept was devised to counteract the tendency of junior high school programs to mimic those of the high school at the expense of addressing the developmental needs of students who are in the process of physical maturation. This book on curriculum design focuses on the importance of the middle school and understanding…

This paper explores and highlights the importance of social, cultural, and behavioral contexts in the effectiveness of mentoring relationships. A first section looks at growing up in American and the varieties of personal and social development that are found. This section argues against viewing adolescents as similar across the boundaries of…

This paper attempts to answer questions about the role that non-related adults may play in the lives of adolescents, particularly who the non-related adults are that adolescents turn to; how helpful do adolescents find these adults; and how these patterns change by race, socioeconomic status, and gender. The paper draws from the research…

This document summarizes the research on full-day kindergarten. The question of whether full-day scheduling is good for children is addressed. The majority of the research justifies the following conclusions: (1) A developmentally appropriate program focuses on activities that are appropriate for the child's age and involve interaction with…

Two institutions initiated a long-term National Child Care Research Program in 1990. The program has two components: (1) examining the comprehensiveness of services offered by licensed center-based child care; and (2) documenting the development of children in licensed center-based child care. This publication reports the results of the first…

The outcomes of 43 project case studies and a country case study (Nepal) were examined to identify the impact of adult women's literacy. A look at women's situation in developing countries showed that women had multifarious roles, long working hours, and less access to education than males. The case studies revealed the following social effects of…

This study investigated the effects of friendship on seventh and eighth graders' self-esteem. The study assessed: (1) whether changes in adolescents' self-esteem during a school year were related to the quality of their friendships early in the year; and (2) whether friends' ratings of their self-esteem became more similar over the course of the…

This paper describes the activities and results of a year-long intergenerational electronic communication project. The fundamental purpose of the project was for two distinct generational groups in the same geographical community--second grade students and senior citizens--to get involved in a dialogue featuring discussion topics generated by the…

Building on the assumption that there is cognitive organization to social abilities, two studies analyzed stability and change of this organization in children. The first study focused on children who attended the first year and second year of nursery school, and the first year of elementary school. The second study focused on those children who…

The case studies described in this book provide examples of initiatives illustrating the role of adult education in development and its contribution to the process of change in developing countries. The book is organized in five sections. Case studies in Part 1, "Health Education," illustrate the links between primary health care and…

In the context of a regular academic program, the Child Development Project (CDP) helps teachers and parents promote characteristics such as helpfulness and responsibility in children in kindergarten through sixth grade. The CDP program contains five major elements: (1) cooperative activities; (2) helping activities; (3) the highlighting of…

This trainer's manual covers module I of the Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers (PITC), a four-module video training course for providers of family and center day care. The manual is intended to be used by module instructors and includes an overview of the PITC and instructions for using the manual and its accompanying videos. The module…

Drawing from a comparison of Danish and American kindergarten students, a review of theories of child activity, and action research, this report outlines several principles for pedagogical practice among 5- and 6-year-old children. The report first focuses on the crosscultural, ethnographic, and comparative study of Danish and American…

This paper presents a general rationale for investing in early childhood development (ECD) in Latin America that derives from scientific evidence about the importance of the early years in the formation of intelligence, personality, and social behavior. This rationale argues that the economic returns of ECD programs can be quite high (through…

These proceedings contain the following papers: "The International Seminar on Women's Empowerment" (Anonuevo, Bochynek); "The Theoretical and Practical Bases for Empowerment" (Stromquist); "Some Reflections on the Empowerment of Women" (Lazo); "Women's Literacy and Empowerment: The Nellore Experience"…