This paper offers a framework for measuring outcomes for students with disabilities using quality of life principles identified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, namely: (1) equality of opportunity; (2) full participation; (3) independent living; and (4) economic self-sufficiency. It urges that these goals guide curriculum and…

Curriculum integration is best achieved when an organizing center lies at the heart of human concerns and interests. Drawing upon existing knowledge to illuminate those interests connects life with learning in a meaningful way. (SK)

This paper explores important points of similarity and difference between schools and universities on three dimensions: (1) the working life and goals of participants in schools and universities; (2) the leadership and organisation of the institutions; and (3) the curriculum, teaching and learning that takes place. The aim is to discover by…

Fifty children (ages 9-15, N=30 with high intelligence) participating in a course on creative thinking were invited to construct questions about mankind's future. Gifted children displayed a high degree of anxiety and a greater, somewhat pessimistic, long-range outlook. Interests included quality of life, faith in human potential, and individual…

Humanistic processes emphasize people, whereas bureaucracies emphasize impersonal roles. Although the two processes are poles apart, they can coexist in the same organization. The authors describe how humanistic processes can be implemented in educational settings. (MD)

Schools can enhance the quality of life by teaching the constructive use of leisure, active citizenship, and internationalism. These programs can be added to schools' curricula with the help of volunteers, thereby improving children's education and the volunteers' quality of life. (Author/SJL)

The ideas of voluntary simplicity and a "small is beautiful" lifestyle are applied to schools in an attempt to make connections between an ecological world view and schools. (JMF)

Explores the nature and uses of human understanding by focusing on three points of emphasis: characterizing the meaning of human understanding as a function of being human, reviewing the consequences of inhumanity, and proposing a process for human understanding through multicultural consciousness. (CM)

A deaf perspective on success, fulfillment, and autonomy is needed, which calls for accepting every way of being deaf as adequate and valid. Education of children with hearing impairments focuses too much on correcting their disability rather than accommodating their disability and giving them self-esteem and rich, full lives. (JDD)

Consists of six articles on home economics education, with some emphasis on Hawaiian education. Topics include (1) home economics history; (2) the secondary curriculum; (3) teaching practical reasoning; (4) the basics in Hawaiian home economics; (5) teaching family living and human relations; and (6) changes in home economics. (CH)

Identifies barriers that keep education from contributing effectively to people's quality of life, focusing on typical community-based health promotion interventions concerning adolescent drug education, school readiness, and African American lifestyle choices. Resource people cannot determine a community's health education and promotion agenda.…

This article focuses on self-determination and quality of life in special education services and supports. It discusses essential characteristics of self-determined behavior, core quality-of-life dimensions, quality-of-life assessment and instruction, assessment, how quality of life and self-determination are related, and curricular issues in self…

This article reviews research conducted by the author and colleagues over a 27-year period on enhancement of peer-related social skills in young children with behavioral disorders or autism. It argues that a logical positivist approach has yielded significant quality-of-life benefits to participants while effectively challenging many outdated…

In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America." This detailed study showed that Americans in almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama--and books in general--at significantly lower rates than 10 or 20 years earlier. The declines were steepest among…

After a brief examination of the concept of "quality of life," the paper explores research related to the concept in geography, the environmental education movement, and problems involved in implementing relevant programs. It is suggested that "quality of life" is a shifting concept. At a basic level it is concerned with conditions that make…