Growing out of the belief that children need to acquire tools that will help them understand and interact with people from different cultures, a study examined the effect of a global education unit about Africa on the images of Africa held by sixth grade students, specifically investigating whether such instruction would reduce existing…

A study was conducted in order to determine the specific classroom qualities and characteristics that promote and motivate students to develop attitudes and behaviors conducive to civic participation. One classroom is a bi-lingual sixth grade, located in an older neighborhood school in a coastal southern California city and the other is a…

Grounded in a communication theory that assumes that the form of communication affects the content of the knowledge that a teacher conveys to his or her students, a study attempted to determine how violence is treated in the classroom. The site for the study was Darbin Elementary School, in a suburb of San Francisco. The method was observation,…

A study determined the effect of three types of text structures (attribution, comparison, and collection) on fifth graders' reading comprehension. Subjects, 71 students from 3 classrooms in 1 public elementary school in southern California, were randomly assigned to 1 of those 3 conditions. There was no instruction given. Students read…

"Sharing the ownership of knowing" (a constructivist concept of motivation for literacy learning) is a dynamic classroom interaction in which a teacher's constructivist epistemological stance facilitates students' sense of their own construction of meaning and the integrity of their own thinking. Sharing the ownership of knowing was one…

A descriptive study investigated whether a common middle-level writing program exists, and what factors impact the writing program and the relationships among these factors. A random sample of 1,500 classrooms in California and Missouri stratifying on four grade span school types (K-8, 6-8, 7-8, 7-9) was chosen. A survey was developed, sent, and…

This paper reports on two case studies conducted at three schools in California. The first case study investigated computer literacy levels of 35 teachers at one elementary school and one middle school. Both schools have fast access to the Internet, and each classroom has at least one computer hooked up to the Internet. Findings indicate that…

Discusses problems reflecting the crisis in education, presenting general approaches for resolving the problems. Also discusses the California Earthquake Education Project (CALEEP), a program which provides education of current concern (including personal emergency preparedness) to the public. CALEEP activities are successful due to many social,…

The purpose of this study was to find out what middle school principals and teachers were doing to increase parental participation. The interview survey method was used and the instrument included questions eliciting demographic data about the schools and open-ended questions to identify methods used by the schools to increase parental support and…

A study was conducted to draw attention to how sixth graders use their leisure time and to suggest some implications for reading and literacy instruction. Subjects were 723 sixth-grade students in six middle schools in Northern California. The sixth-graders completed the California Media and Library Educators Association Literature/Reading Survey…

This study explored the sensitivity of a multilevel approach in detecting outcomes of a hands-on science program, exploring whether the instruction of a hands-on unit had any impact on students' performance and whether the estimated magnitude of the impact was different according to the proximity of the assessments to the unit taught. Also studied…

This study, based on interviews and classroom observation, evaluates what seven fifth-grade teachers in California did one autumn when a controversial new state-approved social studies textbook arrived at their doors. By tracking the teachers' daily curriculum decisions for social studies during the first few months following receipt of the…

A study was conducted to examine motivation as a precursor of reading achievement in middle school students. The California Media and Education Librarians' Literature Reading Survey (1984) was used as the instrument for collection of data. Sixth graders (n=753) of varying ability were studied in six different settings. Data were coded in 10 ethnic…

A study examined the hypothesis that learning strategy coupled with efficacy-building teaching interactions would lead to greater strategic learning than learning strategy instruction alone. A reading comprehension strategy was taught to 184 students from 4 Los Angeles County (California) public and independent schools. Included were 65…

The Spanish speaking Mexican immigrant population accounts for the fastest growing population in California, where one in six students is an immigrant. This study utilized organizational theory to relate school characteristics such as interdependence, coordination, and information processing to working with immigrant students. The sample consisted…