Explores the knowledge teachers will need to have in the future and considers the implications of new requirements for teaching and teacher education. Advances several propositions for changes in the perception of pedagogical knowledge, school curricula, and school structure and proposes a strategy of "core" and "periphery" aspects of…

Presents a conception of word recognition involving both phonological and orthographic processes. Discusses three explanations about the origin of orthographic processes in word recognition, and suggests that automatic orthographic word recognition is directly dependent on children's amount of reading practice in an out-of-school setting.…

Studied attributions for school-based loneliness for 36 Finnish students with a high degree of loneliness and 42 with a low degree of loneliness. More lonely students mostly used a nonself-serving internal-stable attributional style, while less lonely students attributed temporary loneliness to external, unstable, and controllable causes.…

Criticizes phenomenographic research in education for its failure to meet methodological requirements for the consistent study of life worlds and because the product of phenomenographic research, a structure of categories of description, may inhibit entry into the actual world of student experience. (SLD)

The six chapters of this theme issue focus on equivalence and comparability issues in international assessment, examining the impact of these issues on the validity of international assessments and the interpretation of results, including those of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. (SLD)

The five chapters of this theme issue examine trends and issues that will affect education in Asia over the next decade, focusing on (1) the continuing need for policy development; (2) changing educational management, especially with regard to decentralization; (3) educational finance; (4) equity issues; and (5) challenges of improving school…

Two chapters in this theme issue review the evidence in support of smaller class size. Two other chapters examine factors that enable a teacher to teach effectively in large classes. Three research studies present additional class-size data, including the fact that teachers do not appear to maximize the potential of smaller classes. (Author/SLD)

The eight chapters of this theme issue address two broad themes related to the study of school leadership in four countries. The first is the changing role of the principal/headteacher as a result of legislated change and societal expectations. The second is the implications of these changes for the roles of principals and headteachers. (SLD)

Within a university course, a professor and two graduate students explored societal and individual implications of literacy in general and of information and scientific literacies: conceptualizations (or ideologies) of specialized literacies in society, injustices caused by a narrow view of literacy perpetuated by dominant groups, literacy as…

Twenty urban Canadian community health and social workers received six hours of training in family-literacy development-strategies As a result, participants demonstrated a shift in attitudes about literacy, from skills-achievement to sociocultural perspectives on literacy-achievement, and included literacy events more frequently in their own…

In two Alberta elementary schools, volunteer mentors were paired with 27 children, primarily in grades K-2, to provide support for literacy development. After six to eight weeks, interviews with students, mentors, and teachers showed that child-mentor relationships were enjoyable for both parties and that students improved in self-confidence and…

Compares the 1996 Canadian Language Benchmarks for describing English-language proficiency among second-language-learners with the International Adult Literacy Survey. Points to the potential for aligning the Benchmarks with other systems for describing adult competencies to enable more systematic integration of immigrants' experiences, skills,…

Discusses aspects of an ongoing study of Alberta secondary-school teachers of written composition who have been teaching for two to seven years. Examines these "formative-years" teachers' developing responses to the tensions of job insecurity in the 1990s, increasingly diverse student populations, and conflicts between their own pedagogical…

College students judged the credibility of specially constructed news briefs about science. Their credibility ratings were influenced by area of research, plausibility of conclusions, and quality of research methods, but not by the social context of the research. Students justified their judgments with information in reports, prior knowledge, and…

A survey of 21 of the 22 public and Catholic schools in Edmonton (Alberta) examined materials used in 10th-grade English classes. Teachers cited 1,698 titles, but a small number of titles predominated the lists, suggesting a clearcut "school canon." Includes discussion and tables of the most frequently cited novels, plays, films, short stories,…