Conflict, as a natural part of daily life is to some extent inevitable in all child care centers. Children need to develop effective strategies to deal with conflict, and educators need to reduce the amount of conflict present in the total child care environment. Two roles early childhood educators can play in encouraging conflict resolution are…

School administrators' uses of subjective understandings and common language to gain and maintain power and predictability in their environments are described. Micropolitical theory, with a focus on language, is utilized to understand administrators' knowledge of the assumptive worlds of their subculture, and how these assumptive worlds constrain…

This qualitative study explored the effects of the Second Step Curriculum, designed to teach the social skills necessary for children to peacefully solve problems and resolve conflicts through empathy training, impulse control, and anger management. The study focused on teachers' perceptions of the program: what they perceived to be the program…

Middle Tennessee State University recently developed a satellite-linked, interactive distance learning system with six rural K-12 schools. Faculty were then invited to make a single presentation over this system. The social work department, recognizing both the opportunities and the limitations presented by this new system, elected to be one of…

This poster presentation outlines the work of the DFE Anti-bullying project. In the first part of the poster the results of a large scale survey in the United Kingdom are presented. The results show the extent and nature of bullying. The questionnaire survey was administered to students from 24 schools in and around Sheffield, a northern…

This study examined student and instructor reflection upon a 2-year teacher education seminar designed to provide experiential and theoretical grounding in democratic pedagogy. Through conversation-as-research, instructors interpreted group dynamics in their conversations during breaks, lunch hours, and evenings throughout the seminar. The central…

The five major societal changes in the past twenty-five years which have had a major impact on education services are (1) our transition from a rural, agrarian society to an urban, technological society; (2) changes in occupational and employment structures; (3) education services have become a major enterprise; (4) expansion of Federal and State…

This study is an attempt to identify social interactions which fit into a Piagetian model for cognitive change, and specifically to examine the degree to which the frequency of those interactions predicts the rate of cognitive development. The subjects were 74 elementary school children enrolled in 19 K-4 classrooms. These children were in the…

The institutional goals of the University of Illinois and the Illinois Board of Higher Education during the 1960s and conflict between the two entities are examined. One goal of the University of Illinois was to develop new general purpose campuses in the urban areas of the state in order to increase its educational services to the state. One goal…

This ethnographic study examined students' definitions of violence and aggression, the context in which threatening situations occur, and the strategies and consequences that a group of 30 urban African-American elementary school children used when they were in threatening situations. Data were obtained from several sources, including participant…

This study examined whether recent graduates of the Northfield Public Schools (Minnesota) had acquired the skills necessary to make successful transitions to adulthood and postsecondary education. Survey responses (n=146) were obtained from two recently graduated classes 3 years after graduation and from graduates of the Alternative Learning…

Of 35 prominent Chief Executive Officers (CEO's) from 10 Canadian provinces participating in this study, 31 were interviewed by telephone and 4 in writing. The vast majority of CEO's (82 percent) agreed that they work in an increasingly political environment. Many CEO's perform a "screening function" between community groups and the…

Dynamics in the education policy arena suggest that, despite two generations of researchers extolling democratic leadership styles and consensus building over autocratic techniques, wide participation in policymaking and the broadest possible consensus are not always productive: American society has not yet agreed on what schools should…

Today, society has a greater understanding of what constitutes children at risk. Unlike years past, educators within society can no longer take the luxury of ignoring students facing emotional and social challenges. Instead, they must respond quickly and positively to the needs of students faced with many of these challenges by developing…

In order to promote critical thinking in young children, particularly children ages 5-8, teachers need to understand skills and dispositions of critical thinkers. This paper discusses these skills, dispositions, and the appropriate classroom climate, within the context of pedagogy, along with learning activities for kindergarten and primary…