Practices of attendance, suspension, and non-promotion in middle schools in Boston (Massachusetts) encourage at-risk students to drop out. School policies and practices, student data, and interviews with at-risk students were reviewed to determine which practices encourage disengagement from school. Personal narratives are included. Major findings…

With minimal guidance and counseling from the community college system, nontraditional students attempt to engage with the educational community as they struggle to escape the poverty that has defined their own lives. Noting that college instructors are challenged to work effectively with a new generation of nontraditional students that includes…

This book presents case studies of classroom research into the teaching and learning of English, mathematics, and sciences, drawing on the experiences of teacher researchers who, in partnership with their local education agencies and local universities, set out to intervene in key areas of the primary curriculum. After "Introduction: Inviting…

In light of the increasing numbers of men becoming fathers during middle age, this book examines the social and economic pressures facing older fathers and the personal adjustments that they and their families must make. Chapter 1 introduces the topic through a narrative recounting a personal experience. Chapter 2, "The Twilight Zone," presents…

This book combines personal stories of rhetoric and composition teachers with statistical data derived from various government and academic research studies to document gender experiences of college writing teachers and administrators. Anecdotal evidence was drawn from a survey questionnaire mailed to 3,000 college writing teachers, follow-up…

This book reports research on the question, "Why do mature women return to education?" Chapter 1 describes 49 women/participants (all of whom were attending colleges or universities in northern England) and their interviews. Chapter 2 discusses reasons women gave at the start of the interview for returning to education and different…

The papers included in this yearbook of the Finnish Society of Applied Linguistics (AFinLA) were presented at the 1998 AFinLA conference "Linguistics and Finland: Crossing the Gulf." Papers are in Finnish, Estonian, or English, but all have accompanying English abstracts. The topics discussed in the papers include the following: speed…

Papers by graduate students, and occasionally papers from their mentors which establish a context for the student papers, are organized by sponsoring University. Student papers presented are: (1) "Cognitive Strategy in Design: The Measurement of its Effect On the Student Design Project" (Michael Eckersley); (2) "The Effects of…

This study followed six "culturally aware" elementary school teachers through student teaching and their first two years of teaching to look at how their life experiences as minority people affected their classroom practices. The study was a qualitative inquiry based on reciprocal and interactive relationships. The approach was…

The student magazine created by the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes of a local unit of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is a collection of personal opinions, reports, and creative writing with illustrations. The Chinese immigrant community, where the magazine was produced, is reflected in the magazine's content. Sections…

Educators suggest that children whose families have read to them during their preschool years acquire lexical and syntactic knowledge of sentence-level features typical of written narrative before they begin formal literacy instruction. To test this claim, to discern growth in this knowledge over time and experience, and to describe the lexical…

The personal stories of young women who have either dropped out of school or are at risk of dropping out, reveal a complex set of perceptions, interpretations, and contradictions regarding the roles of race, gender, and class in their behavior and attitudes. A one-year research project was conducted in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) with 75 females,…

A combination of narrative, autobiographical, and arts-based research methods was used to explore experiential learning and professional practice in diverse teaching/learning and adult education settings. The research methodology drew upon concepts developed by the following individuals: Jerome Bruner and his constructivist approach that values…

In recent years, adult education for Native Americans has reflected broader goals and has been concerned with playing a role in preserving native language and culture rather than encouraging assimilation. These four trends appear in the literature related to adult education for Native Americans: how adult education theories and methods such as…

This book provides a personal, day-by-day record, kept over a period of 3 years, to illuminate how one teacher brought the Montessori approach to children in a kindergarten classroom. The book's introduction outlines Maria Montessori's approach to education from birth through adolescence as one which focuses on the development of each person as a…