This unit provides six lessons in which students develop a strategy for political action on a local environmental issue. The unit emphasizes the process of solving political problems within the political system and may be adapted to any geographical or social problem. The first lesson introduces a general environmental issue and requires students…

A seminar focused on the role of the land grant universities in an emergent and largely urban society. Papers were presented on: information needs of an urbanizing post-industrial society; minimum necessary elements to enable the university to meet the challenge; overcoming the constraints of the present university system; the role of the…

Focusing on the controversy which surrounded Thomas Jefferson and the Embargo of 1807, this social studies unit examines the numerous factors which affect presidential policy-making and leadership. The unit presents newspaper accounts of the boarding of the American frigate "Chesapeake" by the English in 1807 and enumerates the factors…

This study of incumbent British Columbia school board members prior to election analyzes relationships between individual members' feelings of political efficacy and trust and their decisions to seek or not seek reelection. The 60 subjects, from 24 districts, represented candidates (those members seeking reelection) and retirees (members not…

The third unit to the first-semester course, "Comparing Political Experiences," provides 16 activities to help 12th-grade students acquire in-depth knowledge of various kinds of political activities, such as decision making, leadership, communication, and participation. The activities and readings are divided into six sections which…

This report presents the preliminary findings of a research project designed to investigate the ways local school systems in the North deal with de facto school segregation. The communities chosen for the investigation are those 95 cities in the Permanent Community Sample of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) which are non-Southern and…

Described are two longitudinal studies, one British, the other American, which examined the influences of varied socializing agents--e.g., family, school, peer groups--on voting behavior. The studies emphasized the hitherto unappreciated importance of the political, social, and economic climate of society and its changes on socialization. (CS)

Papers from the National Conference on Trusteeship discuss: recent board- president imbroglios; Rutgers legal headaches; governing boards and legal policy changes; 5 percent of operating income set aside to build operating reserve; and how the South Dakota State Board involved campuses in decisions. (Author/MLW)

An analysis of the changes in Western European higher education in the last decade focuses on three developments, all with origins in earlier periods: the increased pace of international exchange and cooperation, strengthening of regional cooperation and planning, and a reassessment of the role of government in educational planning and governance.…

Three faculty workload planning methods in United Kingdom universities are compared, focusing on workload planning principles, computerized decision support, institutional contexts, political dimensions, and management of change. One is based on contact hours; the second on actual hours; and the third on translating supervision, teaching,…

This paper proposes that consultation meets the definition of an educational technology and examines reasons why it has not been utilized more frequently by practitioners. First, it defines an educational technology and compares consultation to exemplars of educational technologies (such as classwide peer tutoring) and to non-exemplars (such as…

In the past 15 years a new curriculum field known as "Science, Technology, and Society" or STS has been established, first in higher education and since 1982 in K-12 education. The first section of this review charts the development of the STS field since the late 1960s. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s a group of writers, called STS prophets,…

An exploration of the decision-making processes of state legislators on public school finance issues focuses on major school finance changes that occurred in Michigan in 1973 and in Washington and Missouri in 1977. Roll call votes, primarily in the lower chambers of the state legislatures, on both selected amendments and the complete versions of…

Proceedings of the 1982 forum of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and the 1982-1983 AIR Directory are presented. Titles and authors of general session addresses contained in section 1 are as follows: "On Quality: The Federal Connection" (David Pierpont Gardner); "New Initiatives of State Policy in Higher…

An approach to assess organizational change within the university is considered. The research approach was designed to use the strength of the university to examine and document an organizational change that evolved over time and resulted in unplanned outcomes is described. Important decisions that influenced the design of the survey instrument…