This study reflects on an intensive fiction-writing training course conducted at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) in Palestine. The trainees were divided into two language-specific groups. The immediate outcome of this training course was 87 short stories. The study assessed the participants' satisfaction levels regarding the quality and…

Many educators look to naturalism as a tool to create a new learning environment because they believe that it can produce an innovative and revolutionary method in the educational world. In this paper, I examine an Eastern, Ibn Tufail, and Western, Jean Jacque Rousseau, romantic naturalist philosophy. I find a remarkable similarity between their…

The Disney/Pixar film, "Monsters University" (2013) was a tremendous financial success. As a film written entirely about college students and their quest for social and economic attainment, but marketed primarily to children and adolescents, its messages about the purpose of college and the college experience deserve close examination…

During the eighteenth century, amateurs as well as philosophers ventured critical commentary on the arts. Talk concerning taste or beauty or the sublime was so much a part of general discourse that even novelists of that era incorporated such subjects in their work. So it would not be surprising to find that perspectives on aesthetics are…

Based on the occurrence of modernization and globalization in Chinese society over the last few decades, the content of 145 stories, published in the most popular Chinese children's story magazine from the 1980s to the present, were examined for the representation of cultural values. The presence of Chinese, Western and social-moral values in…

Interesting texts, defined as texts about which students possess background knowledge relevant to their lives, have an impact on both motivation to read and comprehension. The purpose of this study was to determine if there were texts that represented Appalachia. Content analysis was used in this study to examine fifty-two children's realistic…

The Swedish educational system states that work in schools should depict and mediate equality. One way of achieving this is through fiction, which according to the syllabus provides students with knowledge about the living conditions of women and men during different epochs and places. The present paper examines gender in a Swedish school,…

The following fictional account of a seminar on complexity science and its relevance for education makes use of several real events. The first is an actual seminar that took place during the spring of 2005, in the Department of Secondary Education at the University of Alberta. The second is the collective creation of the Complexity and Education…

This talk delivered at the "Focus '86...The Curriculum and You" Conference by an author of books for young adults, focuses on the problem of teenage suicide. The characters and situations of three books are described with emphasis on the need for human values within the community. (CLB)

Examines religious values in children's fiction since 1790 as a means of placing the present and contemporary anxieties in the perspective of a tradition of anxiety and failure. (SRT)

Examines autobiographical fiction written for children in which the stories of ordinary lives are recorded and passed on to children, who, in turn, are affected by and affect the values and assumptions of their culture. (HOD)

Argues that the three beliefs that govern the formation of characters in American fiction generally identify the greatest dangers to moral and spiritual health and how they can be avoided. Discusses the belief in the danger of a dissolution of relations with nature, the problem of conflicting values, and the failure of experiences to be…

Documents the views of 512 adults, aged 18 to 50 years, on the island of Barbados concerning "The Cosby Show." It examines perceptions of this show as a "black" program, as one about the "modern family," and the extent to which the values, attitudes, and behaviors the show promotes are relevant or appropriate for a…

It is proposed that college second-language students can increase understanding of the nature of fiction and film in a carefully planned upper-level course combining genres. One Spanish teacher's experience illustrates that this improves students' appreciation of Hispanic values, specific literary and cinematographic techniques, and use of…