The Kaffa ceremony is a unique, culturally appropriate, group counseling intervention for female East African refugees. A counseling group is described in which the Kaffa ceremony was instrumental in helping to bridge the gap between Western counseling and East African culture, providing a context for the group members to resolve long-held trauma.…

This book presents a review and synthesis of the early care and education system in the United States -- a system that now faces increasing enrollment, an underpaid workforce, and limited budgets. A substantial number of trained early care and education professionals are projected to leave the field over the next 10 years due to noncompetitive…

I use examples from my ethnographic work on early childhood education and care settings in Japan and France to demonstrate that quality standards are cultural constructs and to question the universality of such core U.S. standards of quality in ECEC as low student-teacher ratios and multicultural curricula. My argument is that quality standards…

As is typically the case when this author sets fingers to keyboard and writes about evaluation, his intent is to offer his work and perspective as "one" African American evaluator. The impetus for the thoughts and ideas he expresses in this article were prompted by his preparation to attend and present a paper at the inaugural annual…

This volume in NCSET's Essential Tools series summarizes current research about transition issues and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) youth with disabilities. It offers information on how transition personnel can effectively support these youth by building on their strengths and enhancing natural supports available within their…

This article discusses the Vietnamese refugee women's identity development. As the U.S. population diversifies, it behooves all professional counselors to increase their knowledge and understanding of multicultural populations. One population that has received little attention has been Vietnamese refugee women. The authors discuss Women's Identity…

Program evaluation has long been used to reveal program characteristics, merits, and challenges. While providing information about program effectiveness, evaluations can also ensure understanding of program outcomes, efficiency, and quality. Furthermore, evaluations can analyze and examine a program's political and social environment as well as…

Recognized as one of the top state-of-the-art treatments for autism in the United States, the innovative Pivotal Response Treatment uses natural learning opportunities to target and modify key behaviors in children with autism, leading to widespread positive effects on communication, behavior, and social skills. The product of 20 years of…

Racial and cultural diversity issues have been a source of some interest amongst outdoor and environmental educators. Early research was framed in terms of the "under-participation" of people of colour, which led to the development of ethnocentric and methodologically problematical "marginality" and "ethnicity"…

Problems facing distance open learning in the developing Asian countries were examined, and possible solutions were proposed. The prominent features of distance and open learning in 10 developed nations were identified. Existing distance education (DE) systems in developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were reviewed and found to…

This volume presents the 53rd Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (NRC). The papers in this Yearbook reflect NRC's practice of pursuing not only traditionally important topics in literacy but also many issues that may not be deemed worthy of funding and government attention. Rather than a narrowing of the field, the submitted manuscripts,…