This report describes the second year of an award-winning summer enrichment program aimed at developing independent learning skills and encouraging lifelong learning in gifted elementary students. The program featured contact with university scholars actively involved in problem solving, introduction to general bodies of knowledge, and in-depth…

Reforms of educational practice arise from attractiveness of new ideas rather than from research findings because researchers import frameworks from other disciplines rather than using actual classroom phenomena as a basis for conceptual apparatuses and methods. (JW)

Responds to Elliot Eisner's claim (Phi Delta Kappan, v. 65, p. 447-52) that educational research often affects educational practice subtly rather than overtly. Also argues, like Eisner, that educational research often is too indebted to social science language and too removed from practical applications. (JW)

Educational policy climate of the 1980s is being shaped not by educational research but by appeals to public opinion that emphasize standardized achievements, local classrooms, heightened yet vague requirements of teachers, technological solutions to educational problems, and private school methods. (JW)

Educational research can indeed avoid being shaped by political or social ideologies; an objective reality is present in the fundamental processes of education and remains the valid object of educational research. (JW)

After a short survey of distinctive characteristics of Japanese schooling, the author enumerates the strengths of the Japanese system and its weaknesses. He then draws conclusions about what the United States can emulate in Japanese education and what it should avoid. (JW)

Surveys characteristics of the Soviet philosophy of education, which emphasizes character development consonant with Communist Party goals. Describes the attempts to train "the new Soviet man." (JW)

Compares Indian and Chinese educational systems on bases of their channelling of students, school dropouts, and attempts at reform. Emphasizes the conflict of academic schooling and productivity in both nations. (JW)

An overview of the effects on faculty of the international cutbacks in university and college budgets. Sketches developments in England, Australia, Europe, and Canada. (JW)

Having spent 7 months teaching in United States schools, a dozen teachers of English from the People's Republic of China compare teaching methods, rapport with students, and school life in both countries. (JW)

Argues that instead of lengthening school days and years, schools should efficiently include rescheduling school days to include solely academic courses and instituting mastery learning. (JW)

Identifies five obstacles to effective teaching of thinking skills, including lack of consensus among teachers, lack of knowledge among teachers, mistaking of skills testing for skills teaching, teaching of too many skills in too little time, and testing that inhibits students' thinking skills. (JW)

Summarizes research on public support of sex education courses in public schools, the content and effects of such cources, and the pertinent public policy stances of legislatures and courts. (JW)

Recounts the inception, philosophy, and successes of Cleveland Ohio's Major Work Program, a course of study founded in 1922 for gifted students. (JW)

Summarizes the case of "Winkes vs. Brown University" and interprets its significance in the controversy over whether granting salary increases to women faculty under affirmative action constitutes reverse discrimination against male faculty. (JW)