This book contains the full text of papers and posters presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2021), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.), that this year had to be transformed into a fully Virtual Conference as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic.…

This paper reviews research on small rural primary schools in Finland and analyses it under three thematic foci: the relationship between the local rural school and the surrounding community, the small rural primary school as a learning environment, and the teachers' profession in this context. Over 30% of Finnish primary schools are small rural…

Investigates attitudes toward mathematics of elementary school teachers and students in rural Texas. Finds a slight negative correlation between teachers' mathematics anxiety level and third-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students' attitude toward mathematics. Finds that, although fourth-grade teachers had the most positive attitude toward mathematics,…

Two recent books complement each other to provide a more complete and realistic understanding of the challenge of Education for All in rural India. The World Bank report offers a macrolevel, statistical perspective on Indian primary education, while the "Public Report" portrays the reality of village primary education as lived and…

Two studies in southeastern Sweden examined rural children's conflicting attitudes toward environmental change in the local community. Following a yearlong curriculum in environmental studies, 14 fifth and sixth graders in Ramkvilla were presented with an imaginary scenario involving the construction of a new factory. Their small, somewhat idyllic…

The Radio Mathematics Project was established to design, implement, and evaluate a prototype system of teaching elementary mathematics using radio as the major medium of instruction. The project, working in rural and urban primary schools in Nicaragua, presents daily mathematics lessons in second and third grade classrooms. Each lesson has a 30…

It is crucial that educator training provide future educators with the skills and strategies to ensure gender-fair education for girls and boys from all cultures. To investigate the effect of gender bias on students, the differences between teachers in urban and rural settings must be examined. This descriptive study sought to determine the…

This study assessed the music background and music achievement of 178 13-year-old rural students in southwestern Montana. The population for this study consisted of all 13-year-olds attending designated elementary schools in a six-county area in southwestern Montana. 1-, 2-, and 3-teacher K-8 schools were referred to as "rural" while…

Multigrade schooling is a strategy to increase the educational opportunities of children in situations where it is impractical to have one primary school teacher per grade because of the limited size of the student population. In a multigrade school, teachers manage two or more classes simultaneously. A single teacher may be responsible for all…

This study examined the incentives and obstacles to instructional improvement perceived by 27 rural elementary teachers who participated in a cooperative school district/university language arts staff development project. Participants were almost all female, and averaged 42 years of age and 12 years of teaching experience. Most had lived in the…

In 1977 the Radio Mathematics Project provided radio lessons in mathematics for 2,800 students enrolled in 105 second-grade and third-grade classes in Nicaraguan public schools. Comparisons between randomly selected experimental and traditionally taught groups show that the achievement at the end of both second and third grade was significantly…

The first part of a four-part analysis and assessment of Pakistan's system of primary education, this document presents summary conclusions and recommendations. Despite gains in primary school attendance and recent good economic performance, Pakistan's educational base remains so weak as to constitute a serious threat to continued economic growth.…

In order to investigate the efficacy of a decade-long language arts tutoring program, a study compared students' responses to a survey of their participation in and attitudes about the program with their Reading, Language, Math, and Total scores on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and other tests. The tutoring program assigned college students…

Reports a study comparing various combinations of the English language with the local language for science instruction in three Kenyan primary schools. Concludes that science concepts were acquired more effectively when English was used in combination with local language and recommends implementation of a language of instruction policy. (LS)

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released Mexican American Education Study findings in a series of documents: (1) "The Ethnic Isolation of Mexican Americans in the Public Schools of the Southwest" (ED 052 849), "The Unfinished Education" (ED 056 821), and "The Excluded Student" (ED 062 069). The research methods…