Describes several facets of small-group instruction including teacher, group, and individual behaviors and use of time. Observational data were supplemented by teacher interviews concerning student groupings. Grouping practice appeared to result from decisions teachers made primarily on the basis of three factors: the teacher, the students, and…

States that the combination of group rewards (based on group members' individual learning) and peer interaction on learning tasks is necessary to produce learning gains characteristic of effective cooperative learning methods. Discusses research on group contingencies and cooperative learning in the elementary school classroom.(NH)

Investigated how eight teachers untrained in holistic scoring rated elementary school students' compositions about baseball. Teachers varied in knowledge level about baseball and were classified as having either an academic or a cognitive-developmental teaching approach. Findings are discussed in terms of a classroom competence model of writing.…

This review presents evidence that student nonverbal behavior may be an important component in the formation of teachers' impressions, attitudes, beliefs, and reciprocal behavioral expressions. Results of the studies are considered within the research on impression formation, communication theory, and classroom activity and participation…

Teachers with relatively high scores on the Defining Issues Test of moral development, contrasted with teachers with relatively low scores, had a more democratic view of teacher and student roles, and saw rules as protecting the rights of individual students as well as the group's rights. (NH)

Reports a study of kindergarten children's strategies for acquiring and protecting status in interactions with peers. Focusing on children's negotiations of relative social standing in face-to-face interactions, discusses strategies children used to improve and defend their relative positions in the social structure of their peer group. (NH)

A study assessed the social experiences and social development of kindergarten children enrolled in an after-school program. Subjects were these children and children attending only the morning kindergarten program. Study results indicated that both groups of children selected as friends the children in the after-school program and that programs…

Introduces a journal issue that is intended to regenerate research on minorities in elementary schools and focus on important questions that have been underexplored. Discusses declines in research on minorities, and the problems and possible directions of new research.(SKC)

Investigates whether Black and White first-grade students' cognitive growth as marked by teachers is affected by the same factors as those that affect their growth as gauged by the California Achievement Test. Finds that factors are much more closely matched for White children than for Black. (SKC)

Uses LOGO and computer assisted instruction as a means of determining how successfully minority students' learning styles can be matched with computer instruction and the nature of concomitant effects on student achievement, reflectivity, and self-esteem. Suggests that learning style may be mediated through social and cultural contexts. (SKC)

Uses Boocock's model of the social context of education to compare divergent climates for Black students in two rural southern elementary schools. In both schools Black and White teachers and students use an assumed color blindness and a preoccupation with subject matter to mask differential treatment of Black students. (SKC)

Identifies four sources for recent declines in numbers of minority teachers and administrators: (1) overall decline in education majors; (2) decline in Black college students; (3) widening career options for Blacks--especially females; and (4) teacher competency tests. (SKC)

Examines leadership skills and the perception of leadership by students and teachers in 10 desegregated elementary schools that were divided into high equity and low equity groups. In low equity schools, perceptions of leadership were lower among Hispanics than Anglos. (SKC)

Describes "acting," a process of group resistance to teachers among low-income Hawaiian children that occurs at the beginning of the school year. Relates this process to the children's peer group norms and discusses ways in which classrooms can be adapted to the peer culture of Hawaiian children. (SKC)

Describes the economic and educational achievements of Asian American immigrants to the United States. Criticizes current theories of the causes of Asian American achievement, and posits that family structure, along with middleman and niche theories of migration, may explain their success. (SKC)