Charter schooling continues to grow apace. The nation's four-thousand-plus charter schools now enroll more than a million students and are approaching (or have exceeded) traditional district enrollment in communities like Dayton, Ohio; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Washington, D.C. Many of the most successful charter school providers are embarking…

Faced with the facts of economic inequality, the wealthy are confronted with a particular set of moral, social, and political questions, not least of which is the question of how to preserve a sense of being a "good" human being. In the case of justifying privilege, the problem becomes how to position oneself as being uniquely able to enact a…

Arguments against the use of corporal punishment in schools are presented in the three publications collected here. "The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Learning: A Statistical Study," by Adah Maurer and James S. Wallerstein, examines the relationship between rates of corporal punishment use and noncompletion of high school in the 50 states.…

Offers five reasons to stop use of positive social reinforcement, or praise, with young children. Maintains that praise manipulates children by taking advantage of their need for adult approval and exploits that dependence for adult convenience, creates "praise junkies," steals the child's pride in his or her own accomplishment, reduces interest…

Drawing on forty years of distinguished service in delinquency prevention, John Calhoun, founder of the National Crime Prevention Council, lays out the essential ingredients for preventing violence. These include strategies for connecting with alienated youth, building community norms of caring, reducing access of weapons of violence, and claiming…

Discusses the distinction between species-typical (elicitation) and operant reinforcement interpretations of infant/adult social interaction; considers procedural and analytic components of Poulson's 1983 paper (v36 p471-89); and clarifies differences in Poulson's interpretation and the author's interpretation of the vocal conditioning studies of…

Focusing on the motivational effect of incentives on people in the workplace, two training consultants debate the effectiveness and usefulness of reward incentives. (LRA)

Aims to clarify the distinction between elicitation and reinforcement discussed in Bloom (1984); to make explicit theoretical and methodological assumptions about the experimental analysis of infant behavior as shown in components of Poulson (1983); and to clarify differences in interpretation of other infant vocal conditioning research.…

Lists advantages and disadvantages of the token economy system as a behavior control tactic. Discusses ethical issues relating to the use of behavior modification techniques in the classroom. (SK)

Discusses the benefits to be derived from full collaboration in the writing process. Suggests that students learn from sharing their abilities and difficulties and gain emotional and technical support from working with their peers. This is particularly helpful for those students who lack confidence in their writing. (RBW)

Examines the contributions of bilingual schools to minority language maintenance and stresses the inadvisability of relying on schools alone for this task. Uses the concepts of "primary and secondary reward systems" to argue that scholastic achievements cannot have any lasting impact without the sociopolitical and economic rewards of the primary…

Findings from a study comparing the effects of segregated versus mainstreamed preschool settings on handicapped and non-handicapped children strongly suggest that mainstreaming is the preferable alternative for all types of handicapped preschool children. Initially, handicapped children in both segregated and mainstreamed settings were found to be…

Sex typing among preschool children was investigated by means of a complete experimental design to test which factors maintain sex-typed behaviors, to test whether sex-typed behaviors are learned, and to reduce sex typing. The complete experimental design, it is maintained, allows investigators to focus on the consequences of sex typing rather…

Three factors are contributing to the redefinition of sex roles: (1) the equal education mandates of Title IX; (2) growing recognition of the need for female role models; and (3) the reconceptualization of androgyny and transcendence in scholarly research. Physical activity programs are one of the socialization agents that can aid in the process.…

This analysis of testing as a social institution covers contemporary testing, from tests of integrity, truthfulness, and drug tests (authenticity tests) through tests of achievement, intelligence, and vocational interest (qualifying tests). It is argued that tests both construct social persons and control and dominate them. (SLD)