Recent discoveries about brain function explain how best practices in adult learning may lead to adult learners' developmental growth.

Using personal narrative, this article examines how masks function to subordinate African American and Latina women in the academy. The article uses Critical Race Theory and more specifically critical race gendered epistemologies, including Black feminist thought and Chicana feminist epistemology, to understand how females of color resist in the…

This publication presents manuscripts and research reports by graduate students. Accompanying papers from their mentors establish a context for the student papers. In this volume the works are organized by the sponsoring university. Student papers presented are: (1) "How Will Moy, Chantale, Susan and Lola Make It through Art School?" (Miriam…

This report presents student-written statements about the college experience, and is intended to help student affairs practitioners and others in program development and evaluation adjust and refine programs to respond to changing student needs. During the 1996-97 academic year, 35 students at the University of Alabama were asked to write about…

This study explored the spiritual development of college women, to gain an understanding of what religion, spirituality, and faith mean to them. Interviews with three college women explored issues critical in their religious lives, revealing the emergence of their faith and religious identities. The three were entering their fourth year at a…

This paper focuses on changes necessary for apprenticeship to meet society's current needs in terms of: providing an educational environment, meeting the needs of the European economies, and matching the aspirations of young people. Section 1 provides a narrative account of an apprentice working as a coach finisher in the Great Western Railway…

Recent research has investigated the impact of neighborhood violence on children's mental health and moral development. Based on the view that the way in which children construe their experiences of violence mediates the impact of unsafe neighborhoods and that children's narrative is important for children's construction of self and incorporation…

Through in-depth interviews, the motivation and experience of 40 Elderhostel participants, aged 60 to 80, were studied and personal stories were collected. This information was analyzed within the framework of relevant psychosocial and gerontological theory and research. The findings identified some general characteristics of the population,…

The investigators in this preliminary study (currently underway at the University of Towson, Maryland) used the experiences of preservice elementary teachers as revealed by their journals and interviews to obtain insights that will enable them to develop a more satisfactory and professional induction to teaching for beginning teachers. A content…

In preparation for a major research study on change in schools, a 3-month pilot study of principals in 10 schools was conducted in central Texas. The main purpose of the study was to investigate different ways to document the actions taken by the principals to facilitate implementation of innovations in their schools. In this paper, the procedures…

Using a descriptive personal narrative that marks ethnographic research, this book looks at literacy education in the Amish culture and considers the implications that this perspective reveals for mainstream education. Divided into 12 chapters, the book chronicles the life of an Amish family, the Fishers, focusing specifically on the attitudes…

The third of three studies involving a comparative analysis of transactional and narrative writing of selected samples of students in two Ontario districts, this study addressed questions arising from the earlier studies and examined the writing skills of students in grades 5, 8, and 12. Writing samples were examined for conformity to the norms of…

Oral interviews with female teachers are used as the basis for an analysis of the personal, cultural, and social lives of women who taught in a small midwestern city during the 1930s. Portions of interviews with teachers are presented, and ethnographic theory and techniques used in the interviews are discussed. Analyses of the interviews focus on…

Looks into the functions of children's writing to determine what children can meaningfully write about. Discusses research on the functions of writing and then suggests assignments where children write letters to different audiences, such as to themselves and to their future children. These assignments help children learn about themselves. (SKC)

Describes a study that analyzes narratives of sixth- and ninth-grade students for differences between male and female in T-unit length, clause length, and number of clauses per T-unit. No significant differences were found in the words per T-unit, the words per clause, or the use of verb extensions. (SED)