Argues that Judy Blume's "Superfudge" presents an unrealistic, "generic" portrayal of middle class existence. Asserts that training children to identify with characters fosters personal and cultural blindness. (MM)

Criticizes outgoing Secretary of Education William Bennett for speech-making designed to pull at the public heartstrings while leaving the purse strings intact. Bennett finds a comfortable refuge in Platonic reality and virtue and stirs up deep-seated frustrations with the nation's failings. These problems play well on the evening news but offer…

This article provides a critique of holism within the learning disabilities field, based on its incipient subjectivism. It examines the issue of objective, scientific study in relation to the works of Richard Iano, Mary Poplin, and Lous Heshusius and recommends consideration of the perspective of critical realism, based on the writing of Roy…

Presents annotations of 10 novels for children (published in 1996 or 1997) that are strongly written and explore tough social and political issues through realistic or historical fiction lenses. (RS)

Three experiments assessed children's abilities to track behavioral, representational, and truth aspects of conventions. Three- and 4-year-olds recognized that conventional stipulations would change behavior, but not how stipulations might affect representations. Three- and 5-year-olds confused pretenses and conventions; 7-year-olds consistently…

Uses a case study of V. Pudovkin's film, "Return of Vasilii Bortnikov" (1953), to (1) address the possible influence of Hollywood-style continuity on the basic film technique of Soviet Socialist Realism; and (2) account for how the American model may have been modified as it was adapted to the Soviet situation. (PA)

In asking the provocative question: "What's wrong with ethnography?" Hammersley draws attention to what he sees as the conceptual and methodological confusion arising from two competing strands of practice: "naive realism" and "relativism". As a solution, he offers "subtle realism" to steer a path through and beyond the confusion. This paper…

This field study examined how early socialization experiences affect new employee mastery of socialization content and socialization outcomes. New employees reported the realism of their preentry knowledge and the helpfulness of socialization agents. A follow-up survey assessed mastery of socialization content along with role clarity, job…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends 2014, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 4 to 6 of April. Psychology, in our time, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and behavioral…

The purpose of this article is to discuss strategies for the secondary, public school educators to implement postmodern thinking in the United States of America. Postmodernism is a set of strategic practices that erase limits or norms to abide by placed upon people in society. The time is now for educators to be recognizant of these changes.…

Much has been written about evaluating student writing in the composition classroom, but there is still a tendency, in the creative writing classroom, to enact unanswered assumptions about what makes a story or a poem "good." If experimental or postmodern fictional writing is not inherently apolitical, neither is it inherently political,…

This student artist's handbook provides illustrations and instructions for visualizing and drawing the human hand in a variety of positions. Focus is on realistic representation and imitation of the natural human form. Eleven chapters cover: (1) "Forms and Structures"; (2) "Proportions and Measurements"; (3) "Anatomy and…

This study investigated the cognitive processes involved in picture interpretation as pictorial realism (i.e., iconic stimulus complexity) increases. Variables influencing cognitive efficiency in picture interpretation were analyzed, particularly field independence and ideational fluency. Field independence is the extent to which a surrounding…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of several independent variables in predicting the perception of television's content as real. The relationship between the perception of television violence as real and agressive predispositions of young viewers was analyzed. Two hundred seventy-three Mexican children in the third and…

Examines an alternative cinematic treatment of rape where the viewer is involved in a first person encounter with rape and betrayal of an intellectual and emotional nature rather than the more traditional physical nature. (MH)