This study examined the effectiveness of curriculum-focused diversity initiatives on a college campus by determining the relationships between GPA, social class, year in school, residential status, racial diversity courses taken, and cross-racial friendships on the level of social distance between Whites-Blacks, Whites-Hispanics, Hispanics-Whites,…

Results from the Monitoring the Future's 2005 nationwide survey of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students are given in this report. Recent trends in the use of licit and illicit drugs are emphasized, as well as trends in the levels of perceived risk and personal disapproval associated with each drug. This study has shown these beliefs and attitudes to…

This 2004 Annual Report to Congress has two volumes. Volume 1 focuses on the children and students being served under IDEA and provides profiles of individual states' special education environments and early intervention settings. It also includes tables of states rank-ordered by their reported data on exiting, dropouts, educational environments,…

This study examines whether two online courses offering educational support for junior faculty have a positive effect on their attitudes to learning and curriculum and teaching capacities (CTC). The data used in the analysis are from two 2005 online university training courses. The tasks the online courses assign to faculty, the resources they…

Ten essays address aspects of second language instruction at the elementary school level: "Elementary School Foreign Languages: Perspectives, Practices, and Promises" (Carol Ann Pesola, Helena Anderson Curtain); "The Integrated Curriculum: Rethinking the Elementary School Foreign Language Program for the '90s" (Virginia…

This study investigated construct validity and factorial invariance of a performance assessment of reading comprehension and writing proficiency through a multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) structure using confirmatory factor analysis. The performance assessment was administered to 1,023 fifth and sixth graders. Interrater reliability was examined for…

Although hypotheses about the consequences of peer relationships for children's development have served as the foundation for much of the research into children and adolescent peer relationships, direct assessment of the impact of such relationships on children's personality, social behavior, or cognition has rarely been done. This book discusses…

Data from the U.S. Census describe the economic and social characteristics of students enrolled in elementary, secondary, and higher education as of October 1994. At that time approximately 69.3 million persons were enrolled in regular education at nursery school through college levels. About 45.1 million of these were between the traditional…

This paper examines the definition and practice of intergenerational learning programs, and attempts to determine the characteristics of successful and meaningful programs of this type. The first section defines intergenerational learning and states its purpose: to bring young and old together for the purpose of learning from one another, under…

Two related studies investigated (1) the extent to which native language input to five Japanese children was varied based on the children's age, and (2) the effectiveness of adult Japanese second language input to a three-year-old American child during a one-month period in Japan. In the first study, interactions of adult-child dyads were compared…

By discussing commonly held myths and misconceptions about second language learning, this discussion attempts to clarify a number of important issues concerning the ease and rapidity with which children learn a second language, the optimal age at which to begin second language instruction, the importance of the extent of exposure to the second…

Statistics indicate that 15 percent of beginning teachers leave the profession after the first year of teaching, and more than 50 percent leave within 6 years. This study was conducted to identify the problems and concerns faced by neophyte teachers at the middle and high school levels, and to distinguish between the concerns of first-year,…

This curriculum presents career, academic, and life skill activities to assist education and training organizations in developing and delivering comprehensive career development and life skills programs. The guide helps individuals to develop self-awareness, discover career options, secure an understanding of occupational information, acquire…

Diversity is welcomed at the Jefferson Davis Campus, Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College, where the commuting students include teenagers, retired military personnel, displaced homemakers, the foreign-born, blacks, the full-time employed, and senior citizens. The students are counseled to take a reading and study skills class if their reading…

Data are presented on characteristics of secondary school teacher education candidates at Indiana State University (ISU). Most of the 11 charts present comparisons of students' grade point averages (GPA) in relation to another variable, such as major, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score, etc. There is a 10-year difference between the student…