Presents an overview of the teaching activities of Emma Azalia Hackley, an African-American concert artist, teacher, and author, who devoted much of her career to promoting music in black communities. Provides background information on music in the United States during the 19th century. Addresses connections between Hackley's work and contemporary…

Examines the performance of expressive dynamic variations by advanced pianists in an aural modeling performance task. Indicates that the performer's identification of dynamic features and their incorporation into a performance goal influenced expressive performance of dynamic variations. Subjects who identified features played nonidiomatic…

Reports on a study that aimed to develop teaching cases for instrumental music education methods courses through analysis of current teaching practice. Using a case study design based on four experienced instrumental music teachers, the study documented daily interactions, decision-making skills, and use of pedagogical knowledge. Offers research…

Investigates the changing voices of boys in the fifth and sixth grades. Categorizes their voices by J. M. Cooksey's changing voice stages and uses his criteria for determining stages (highest and lowest pitches sung, overall range, and pitch of the speaking voice). Results indicate an earlier voice change than previous research. (CMK)

Reviews key literature on rural education, 1974-98. Describes characteristics of rural schools and communities. Discusses the results of 100 years of efforts to urbanize and homogenize rural schools, and the question of whose interests should be served by rural schools. Examines ideas about the nature of appropriate rural school improvement, and…

In a reborn rural community populated by former urbanites, a small private school established by newcomers provides a place where upper-middle-class newcomer families negotiate their sense of rural place and contest that sense with working-class long-time residents' concept of rurality. Former urbanites' conception of rural community emerges as…

Group discussions and interviews with counselors in small and rural schools in Maine and upstate New York focused on the advantages and disadvantages of working in small schools, role generalization and confusion experienced by school counselors, professional autonomy and accountability, and the need for relevant inservice training. (Contains 33…

A survey of 145 rural and urban high school teachers in the Southwest examined differences in classroom management beliefs and practices. Rural teachers were significantly more interventionist in the area of instructional management, while urban teachers were significantly more interventionist in the area of people management. (Contains 27…

Analyzes the debate over closure of a rural Pennsylvania high school and consolidation with a much larger school in the state's geographically largest school district. Discusses parent survey results, which highlight the enduring social tension between the centralizing efforts of governing bodies and the interests of local communities in…

Examined differences in teacher qualifications, inservice training, program quality, and children's development in Head Start, public school, and private nonprofit early childhood classrooms. More formal education for public school teachers was offset by better inservice training for Head Start teachers, as programs achieved equal levels of…

Describes experiences of children in two public preschools in Russia, one a typical district preschool, the other, an experimental preschool. Presents case studies for each school, focusing on family, setting, teacher characteristics, and child behaviors and public policy. Notes the effect of tradition, beliefs, and policies on the preschool…

Explored the effect of folding traditional origami forms on size comparison strategies among 4- to 6-year-old Japanese and American children. Found that girls in particular improved superimposition skills through practice, and children's use of superimposition strategies rather than less effective strategies also increased. (JPB)

Details the strategies used by one Chinese immigrant child learning English as a second language as he became an active participant in literacy events in his first-grade classroom. Notes the boy's participation in journal writing and writer's workshop, the initial difficulties he faced, and the role of teacher and parents in overcoming these…

Investigated the relationship between developmentally appropriate practices in the classroom and preschoolers' perception of self-confidence. Found that developmentally appropriate practice influenced social development, and that teaching strategies, curriculum goals, motivation, and guidance of social-emotional development predicted peer…

Examined preschool children's self-management as they engaged in a literacy task of constructing an "autonomous" text for others to read. Analyzed texts for their holistic quality, and identified metacognitive utterances surrounding the texts, which showed the development of metacognition and its indications for preschoolers. (JPB)