Recognizing the importance of good leadership to the achievement of educational excellence, the second edition of this handbook synthesizes a large body of school leadership literature and explores the subject from three perspectives: the person, the structure, and the skills. Part I examines characteristics of today's educational leaders;…

The Comprehensive School Improvement Program (CSIP), which was mandated by New York State to address issues of school reform, was a disappointment both in the way the State conceived the program and in the way it was implemented. CSIP was designed to encourage cooperative planning among teachers, principals, parents, and other school staff to…

Noting that some elementary school children may have difficulty learning to read using basal readers, this paper describes the successful implementation of the Big Books for Beginning Readers reading program in a California elementary school. The first section of the paper discusses the problems students were having with reading, including a lack…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on the past, present, and future of human resource development (HRD). "Revisiting the New Deal: A Longitudinal Case Study" (Judy Pate, Graeme Martin, Jim McGoldrick) draws upon data from a longitudinal case study of the links between job security and HRD to examine the new…

Our understanding of workplace learning is shaped by four dominant discourses that may be labeled the discourses of design, demand, development and desire. Within these different discourses, understanding of workplace learning is shaped and bounded by particular assumptions about the "self in context," which includes the organizational…

Theories influencing the development of trends in career and technical education (CTE) in Europe, the United States, and the Republic of China (Taiwan)were examined. The analysis established that, when determining the goals of CTE and areas of focus of efforts to improve CTE curricula and delivery, European countries focus on theories related to…

The experiences of the 12-woman Boston Women's Health Book Collective was examined in a case study that focused on the collective's activities from its formation in 1969 through its publication of the book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" in 1973 and its opening of a women's clinic in downtown Boston that is still in operation today. The case…

The Equipped for the Future (EFF) initiative asked adult learners to describe the knowledge and skills needed to fulfill their roles as parents, citizens, and workers and identified these four purposes: to provide access to information; to give voice to their ideas and opinions, to take action to solve problems, and to provide a bridge to the…

This 11-chapter book is intended to explore the ways in which professional and vocational education and training (VET) can contribute toward building the emerging "knowledge society," particularly the ways in which the research and development community can take proactive steps to shape the emerging knowledge society. Part 1, on…

This proceedings contains 29 presentations: "Meaning of Participating in Technology Training" (Cynthia S. Blodgett-McDeavitt); "Applying Actor Network Theory to Curricular Change in Medical Schools" (Karen V. Busch); "Politics of Humanism" (Mary Katherine Cooper); "Reasons for the Nonparticipation of Adults in…

This annual serial issue contains six papers dealing with business education and training. "A Direction for Focusing Business Curricula" (Sharon Lund O'Neil) discusses the standards against which business curricula of the future must be measured. The importance of business communication in general education programs is emphasized in…

This document reports the findings of a 3-year study of company strategies and the training impact of labor organization in Germany. Among the topics discussed in the theoretical overview presented in section 1 are the following: the growing importance of learning in a working environment; Germany's continuing training "system" and…

Developing and maintaining effective partnerships with employers has always been an important part of career and technical education (CTE). Recently, however, the need for and nature of these relationships have changed. Effective partnerships are no longer focused on specific activities and programs or employers merely donating resources or money;…

The terms "learning communities" and "communities of practice" are being used with increasing frequency to describe the phenomenon of groups (communities) of individuals learning together. Theories focusing on the social nature of cognition and meaning, as opposed to those focusing on individual learning, are stressed. In works…

The quarterly theme-based publication "Focus on Basics" was launched in January 1997 as part of a multipronged effort by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy to connect research and practice in the field of adult basic education (ABE). The effectiveness of "Focus on Basics" as a means of professional…