Looks at what is entailed when education and experience are regarded as equivalent. Identifies faulty inferences resulting from learning by experience. Considers how experience can close avenues to conceptual and social change. Argues that ideas based on secondhand information are more likely than firsthand experience to manifest both the real and…

In the context of contemporary questions about higher education and the working class, describes the background and the particulars of a debate at Ruskin College, Oxford University (1908) among worker-students, the university chancellor, and representatives of the Workers Educational Association. Offers a comparative analysis of the three…

Outlines four limitations inherent in using a minimum competency test to determine eligibility for a high school diploma and, in some jurisdictions, to determine advance to the next grade. Discusses the appropriate uses of testing in an overall program.(MP)

Tells the story of the New Deal's educational activities, concentrating on (1) redefinition of the federal government's responsibility for education, (2) the effect of federal intervention on the education of Blacks and other educationally deprived groups, and (3) the nature of federal administration and its consequences. (MP)

Outlines some methodological problems inherent in the study of Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore (1982) on achievement in public, Catholic, and private high schools.(MP)

Through a review of Coleman and colleagues' study on high school achievement, the author elaborates on some possible reasons for students in Catholic schools being better achievers than those in public or other private schools.(MP)

Discusses current relevance of ideas of pragmatic thinkers and John Dewey. The pragmatic understanding of pluralism displays a sensitivity to difference but also emphasizes reaching out and communicating with what is other and different from ourselves. Without that, pluralism becomes chaos. (PS)

Richard Bernstein's John Dewey lecture is a political cautionary tale intended for the Left. It is the call for and justification of an emancipatory phronesis. The kind of questions Bernstein puts to others in his lecture, to obtain concrete social and political knowledge, must ultimately be put to Bernstein. (PS)

Argues for the necessity of evaluation and analysis of attempts at education reform. Uses data gathered on minimum competency testing and career ladders to illustrate ways in which policy intervention may affect teachers' academic success with students and their sense of teaching efficacy and commitment. (PS)

Examines the effects of individual-, dyadic-, group-, and classroom-level variables on cross-race friendship choices. Analysis shows that a student's environment creates both constraints on and opportunities for interracial friendships. Constraints and opportunities affect both black and white students. (PS)

Provides a historical survey of black school politics in Atlanta between 1872 and 1973. Identifies four major periods in the struggle to improve educational opportunities for black children. Changes in strategies and goals from one period to the next were determined by changes in the political resources available to the black community. (PS)

In an attempt to make Vygotsky's theories more accessible, Wertsch in "Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind" takes significant liberties with the original works. That leads to serious errors and moves the focus away from the author's own psychological theories. (PS)

Extended programs are likely to reduce the quality and quantity of teachers and probably will not improve teacher performance. Because the risks of extended programs are great and the benefits uncertain, other strategies for improving teacher education should be explored more aggressively. (Author/LHW)

Critiques the position that extended teacher preparation programs are likely to reduce the quality and quantity of teachers and unlikely to improve teacher performance. Argues that to improve teacher education we must attend to the process of professional education. (LHW)

Critiques the position that extended teacher preparation programs are likely to reduce the quality and quantity of teachers and unlikely to improve teacher performance. That position is driven entirely by cost consideration at the expense of any discussion about value. (LHW)