This article describes the power of goal-setting in order to help children become self-motivated and responsible for their actions. It also provides a road-map for a successful process by describing the following strategies: changing negative thoughts into positives, creating affirmations, designing action plans and utilizing visualization. This…

Many countries mandate affirmative action in university admissions for traditionally disadvantaged groups. Little is known about either the efficacy or costs of these programs. This paper examines affirmative action in engineering colleges in India for "lower-caste" groups. We find that it successfully targets the financially…

Sportsmanship is a component that is increasingly missing in youth sports. Negative experiences resulting from poor sportsmanship may lead children to limit their participation in sports or drop out all together. Parks, recreation, and tourism professionals may look to systems modeling to help develop programs and policies in the hope of…

This paper takes as its starting point an examination of the current status of some of the concerns that were raised in the mid-1980s about methodological problems faced by educational researchers using the behavioural approach in schools. These concerns included the measurement of agreement between observers, the interpretation of raw data…

In general, if a variable can be expressed as a function of its own maximum value, that function may be called a discount function. Delay discounting and probability discounting are commonly studied in psychology, but memory, matching, and economic utility also may be viewed as discounting processes. When they are so viewed, the discount function…

Conflict and inequality are growing overseas, and anti-American sentiment is growing with them. A recent survey of 350 returning study abroad students, conducted by the Glimpse Foundation, found that 37 percent felt discriminated against because of their identity as Americans, and 13 percent actually felt threatened because of their nationality.…

During the last two decades an increasing number of international faculty specializing in different disciplines have been hired by U.S. institutions of higher education. Most of these instructors have been college educated in their native countries but have come to the United States for graduate studies and then earned doctoral degrees from U.S.…

Describes the Monmouth County Park System's "Live Snakes Program" for schools and comments on popular misconceptions about snakes. (SJL)

A description is given of a course designed to provide school nurses with an expanded knowledge about cancer and to improve negative attitudes. (JD)

During the coming years the number of older adults will increase dramatically, which will require a corresponding increase in the number of social workers who have accurate knowledge of this population. This article reports the impact focus groups with older adults and with service providers who work with older adults and their families have on…

Blatant forms of prejudice towards disabled people appear to be disappearing in the UK. However, subtle forms of prejudice remain and may be highly damaging to the achievement of the vision of disabled people being "respected and included as equal members of society". In order to assist placing subtle forms of prejudice within a…

Unfortunately, as far as the research on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals in India is concerned, the situation is almost the same as it was in the 1980s. Why have Indian psychologists and psychiatrists avoided researching LGB youth? And, more importantly, why does this silence continue? The first and the foremost reasons are the stigma…

In this article, the author comments on A.S. Zapesotskii's article "The Bologna Process Is a Game of Chance. At Stake Is the Future of Russia." The author discusses answers on a number of questions that naturally arise: (1) What survey or poll leads the author to conclude that the rectors have a negative attitude?; (2) Is education…

At Northern High School in Detroit, efforts to provide vocational programs have been complicated by the negative image of vocational education that is commonly held. But the stigma is diminishing and enrollments are increasing, due in part to improvements in career guidance. (SK)

While the importance of "expressive writing," or informal, self-directed writing, has been well established, teachers underutilize it, particularly in technical writing courses. We introduce the term expressive/exploratory technical writing (XTW), which is the use of informal, self-directed writing to problem-solve in technical fields. We describe…