Includes "Texts and Margins" (Greene); "Arts as Epistemology: Enabling Children to Know What They Know" (Gallas); "To Arrive in Another World: Poetry, Language Development, and Culture" (Steinbergh); "The Uses of Folk Music and Songwriting in the Classroom" (Cockburn); and "And Practice Drives Me Mad;…

Inclusion of race-related content in a college course identified three sources of resistance to learning about racism: race as taboo topic; myth of meritocracy; and denial of personal connection to racism. Strategies for reducing resistance include a safe classroom climate; opportunity for self-generated knowledge; model of racial identity…

Data from survey of 872 African-American students at predominantly white colleges and 928 at historically black colleges suggest that academic achievement is highest for students who have higher educational aspirations, positive faculty relationships, confidence in their college choice. Beyond individual characteristics, academic performance is…

Degree completion data from an Office of Civil Rights survey of over 10,000 colleges show (1) African-American and Latino graduate enrollments were not better in 1988 than in 1982; (2) traditionally African-American colleges enroll significant numbers in math and sciences; and (3) nonresident aliens are substantially overrepresented in sciences…

Based on studies of girls' loss of voice and self-confidence in early adolescence, the author introduces a poetics of research grounded in feminist epistemology to explore why this happens and how women can recover their "courage"--to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart. (SK)

Postformal thinking concerns questions of meaning and purpose, multiple perspectives, human dignity, freedom, and social responsibility. Curriculum and instruction based on postformalism involves detecting problems, uncovering hidden assumptions, seeing relationships, deconstructing, connecting logic and emotion, and attending to context. (SK)

Six curriculum orientations predominate in African-American educational experience: functionalism, accommodation, liberalism, Black Nationalism, Afrocentrism, and social reconstruction. Tied to the history of slavery and oppression, these orientations will continue to develop separate from the mainstream. (SK)

Two team teachers in an open-area elementary classroom describe how they create with their students a curriculum derived from the students' interests and varied experiences. They stress the importance of connecting the life of each child outside the school with the life of the classroom. (SK)

A case study of a state university illustrates the overt and covert limitations of study and discussion of gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues on campus. Although the university is committed to the advancement of human understanding, gay, lesbian, and bisexual faculty and students feel their civil rights are threatened, and research pertaining to…

The history of the Caswell County (North Carolina) Training School, a segregated African-American school, shows that the community and school supported each other in ways that do not fit current definitions of parent involvement. Adopting some of the methods of the Caswell School might help today's African-American parents and schools improve…

This critique of the current educational system challenges educators to examine potentially dangerous educational practices that foster specialization while ignoring the need to develop critical thinking. Examples demonstrate that, without the ability to interpret the world critically, people are subject to political manipulation, a state…

An inmate and literacy prison educator describes how she sought to make literacy instruction more relevant to women by using the subject of AIDS to link student experiences with the acquisition of literacy skills. She emphasizes that the process is applicable to women in the larger community who are dealing with multiple social problems. (SK)

Tribal Rhythms is a program presented by professional artists in elementary schools, using the themes of "tribe" and the "artist in self" to create a framework for cooperative learning, community spirit, democratic values, self-esteem, and multicultural understanding. (SK)

An art program at an alternative elementary school in Acton, Massachusetts, revolves around the belief that every person has an inner sense of self that should provide the direction for learning. The educational environment is designed to stimulate individuals to find their own personal direction. (SK)

At the New England Conservatory of Music, computer-assisted instruction is used not only to teach harmony through collaborative learning and aural feedback, but also to bring the roles of composer, performer, and audience closer together. (SK)