The purpose of this study was to understand cultural differences and similarities in children's creative characteristics in Korea and Australia. In this cross-cultural research, the Integrative Creativity Test (K-ICT, [13]) with identified validity and reliability for measuring elementary school students' creative ability and creative personality,…

This study explored the cultural influences on children's self-reported environmental actions, perceptions, and understandings; investigated the relationships among the behavioral, affective, cognitive, and demographic variables; and developed models of children's responsible environmental behavior (Huang, 2001). The cross-cultural comparison…

Describes a year-long process in which a group of fourth- and fifth-grade students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds learned to participate in reading, writing, and talking about books in a literature-based instructional program. Reveals a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to students as they developed the knowledge…

Shares how one teacher used literature to extend her fifth graders' multicultural knowledge of African-American culture. Discusses how fiction and nonfiction books were coupled with a literature-based basal program and integrated into existing classroom themes to provide a natural impetus for meaningful individual and group dialogue about other…

Reconceptualizes the idea of curriculum integration to include "cultural imagination." Uses the example of a fifth-grade child's responses to literature to demonstrate the types of connections that can be made. (SR)

Examines how dimensions of reading motivation related to students' reading activity and achievement. Finds that the strength of the relations between reading motivation and reading achievement was greater for girls and for white students. Demonstrates that reading motivation is multidimensional and should be regarded as such in research and in…

Describes the author's work in his fifth-grade class as he helps his students understand the importance that culture plays in their representations of meaning. Shows how opportunities to transcend language by using other sign systems allow multiculturalism to flourish. Describes a schoolwide celebration of cultures through various arts and sign…

Focuses on the role played by a cultural and linguistic mediator in helping to elucidate the literacy learning opportunities of a Hmong child in that child's fifth-grade mainstream classroom. Notes important implications for working with second language children in mainstream classrooms and for the educative potential of viewing sessions when…

To test the language experience hypothesis, the comprehension of high-, moderate-, and low-familiarity idioms was examined in 24 African-American and 24 European-American fifth graders. Results indicated a significant effect of group on idioms rated as low-familiarity. The influence of social and regional culture on idiom comprehension is…

When educators lack the knowledge, understanding and acceptance of their students' language and culture, especially when it differs from their own, a huge mismatch can and often does occur between school and home. What happens to African American children who are raised speaking Black English but schooled in standard English? How do teachers help…

Examined achievement goals and their correlates in physical education in 180 Chinese students and 121 Anglo-American students in grades 4, 5, and 6. The same two-dimensional factor structure of goal orientation (task and ego orientation) cut across the two cultural groups in physical education, but relationships seemed to vary as a function of…

Describes how a fifth-grade teacher intervened to bridge the language and cultural social divisions in her classroom. By experiencing a key math lesson entirely in Spanish, native English speakers quickly began to understand what it is like to not be able to understand. Teachers reported a profound effect of this experiment on the classroom. (ET)

It is hypothesized that a "cultural communication" theory is more useful and veridical for explaining ethnically related educational and social inequity than are either "ascriptive" or "deficit" theories. The study site was a successfully desegregated, urban elementary school. A fifth-grade classroom was selected for the intensive observations of…

This supplementary math curriculum guide for use with Spanish-speaking, fouth through sixth grade students in Chicago public schools employs a contrastive analysis approach. Lessons are presented for objectives for which the instructional strategies used in the United States differ from those used in Spanish-speaking countries. (Objectives for…

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to examine friendships of early adolescents in a culturally diverse fifth grade class in an urban elementary school in the southeastern United States. The study described and interpreted the experiences of being a friend and having a friend in a culturally diverse classroom. The approach was grounded in…