At Stephen F. Austin State University (Texas), focus group research was conducted to determine research needs and to inform the development of a new educational research center. Four graduate research assistants and a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership formed a study group to review the literature on focus groups and…

Using data from 60 oral testimonies, student handbooks, and yearbooks, this paper describes the Americanization of Japanese Americans in Hawaii through public school education between 1930 and 1941, delineating the roles that participation in student government, sports, clubs, assemblies, and home recreation played in the socialization process.…

The investigators in this qualitative study at Towson State University, Maryland, continue to examine various materials gathered from the experience of four preservice elementary teachers. Student records and journal entries, and structured interviews of students, cooperating teachers and college supervisors revealed recurring patterns in the…

This report on the educational concerns of Asian and Pacific Islanders is part of a four-part study of minority education in the United States by the National Education Association (NEA). Data were gathered from 14 site visits to a wide variety of schools and programs and from the testimony of over 50 representatives of community organizations,…

Free-written descriptions of self and others were obtained from 190 adolescent boys and girls. Descriptions became longer, more "psychological," and more organized over adolescence. Modes of constructing persons were positively correlated across different stimulus persons. Self-descriptions tended to be more person-centered than…

This study explored the impact of mandatory work requirements on welfare-reliant mothers struggling to pursue postsecondary education and the overwhelming difficulties created by rigid and punitive policies at both the federal and state levels. The study documented and analyzed the policies and practices of the Family Independence Agency and Work…

Examines two adolescents' narratives collected when evaluating a multicultural arts festival held at a middle school located in an isolated, economically depressed, Christian fundamentalist, rural southern community. Students' complaints about teachers' racist, uncaring behavior represent not a cynical, negative derision of schools, but a…

This article describes how the self-confrontation method (SCM) can help people cope with visual impairment. The actual impact of the impairment can be studied by establishing how being visually impaired is expressed in self-narratives. The different phases of SCM are explained and two case studies are presented. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This article focuses on the variety of cultural meanings students articulate when asked about their experiences within the special context of a multiethnic California high school. The article presents excerpts from verbatim accounts in which four Black students, part of a three-year study, describe their worlds in their own words. (IAH)

A Kentucky kindergarten teacher describes the conceptualization, planning, and implementation of a writing program she designed for her students. She discusses the impact of writing activities on reading, phonics, and spelling development. Included are samples of pupil writing and an explanatory letter to parents explaining the program. (IAH)

An eighth-grade language-arts teacher describes action research she conducted with her class of "bums." She sought to determine what environmental factors in the classroom might influence motivation and what types of rewards are effective. (IAH)

Classroom action research provides preservice and inservice teachers with a valuable form of teacher-centered professional development. Results of a case study are related; action research was applied to the question of student cooperation in an elementary classroom. The research format includes four stages: plan, act, observe, reflect. (IAH)

Social work students' responses to their professor's in-class disclosure of homosexuality are examined. Topics addressed include student awareness of gay/lesbian issues, reactions to disclosure, effect on learning environment, recognition of homophobia and heterosexism, classroom power balance, relationship between personal and political actions,…

Adaptation is used to examine processes of education historically at the personal/subjective level of human experience. A look at three generations of the author's family illustrates differing adaptive responses facilitated by education, which allowed the author's father and grandfather to cope with racial injustice and adapt to societal changes.…

A third-grade teacher and her students used the Foxfire practice of reflection to analyze student projects in reading. Analysis of student comments and levels of participation indicate that elementary-age students are capable of using high-level thinking skills to improve the quality of their work. (LP)