Let's understand Skodak and Skeels,finally 1

The well‐known study by Skodak and Skeels (1949), in which one hundred infants who were born to unwed mothers of below‐average IQ and were adopted into superior foster homes and grew up to obtain Stanford‐Binet IQs averaging 20 points higher than the IQs of their biological mothers, has frequently been interpreted as a contradiction of the evidence for the high heritability of intelligence. It is here shown that this is a misinterpretation of the Skodak and Skeels results, based on failure to consider the prediction made from a simple polygenic model of parent‐offspring resemblance. The Skodak and Skeels data, when analyzed properly in terms of a quantitative‐genetic model, are found to be not all improbable or contradictory of a broad heritability for IQ in the range of .70 to .80. Also, the common fallacy of generalizing the results of Skodak and Skeels as an environmental explanation of the cause of the approximately 1 σ mean white‐Negro IQ difference is explicated from the standpoint of genetic theory.     

The Public,The Media,and the Knowledge Gap

Abstract

Academic wilderness education is separate from adventure and skills-oriented approaches. Though problems in logistics, academic expertise, and leadership place unusual demands on teachers and students, the qualitative benefits of field studies can be profound. Three programs are described ranging from short- to long-term immersion in backcountry environments. The University of Montana Wilderness and Civilization program focuses on the boundary between wildness and domesticity. The Outdoor Program of Hampshire College uses an individual-in-community approach that leads toward participatory empowerment. Sierra Institute programs, offered through the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, challenge students with eight weeks in wilderness areas, probing the roots of ecology and attitudes toward nature. At the deepest level, wilderness studies direct participants toward reconnecting culture with nature through advocacy and cultivation of the ecological self.     

The song remains the same: the selective tradition of technical rationality in adult education program planning theory

The purpose of this study is to depict the historical development of American adult education planning theory. We argue that adult education planning theory represents a ‘selective tradition’ promoting a dominant ‘discourse’ that privileges ‘technical rationality’. Using discourse analysis, we demonstrate how technical rationality emerged in the professionalization movement in the 1930s to dominate planning theory discourse, how technical rational planning theory became codified by 1950, and how little it has varied since. Using relational analysis, we juxtapose this dominant tradition of technical rational planning theory with historical examples of adult education to begin expanding our notions of what could count as legitimate planning practice and theory.     

"PRIME TIME": THE INTEGRATION OF THE CONTENT OF A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER COLUMN ON AGING INTO THE GERONTOLOGY CURRICULUM

This paper provides suggestions for the curricular introduction of materials from a weekly newspaper column on aging (or similar local or nationally syndicated newspaper column - for our purposes, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY) for a period of one year (October 5, 1997 to September 27, 1998). The study provides a content analysis of the column and presents numerous specific suggestions for the inclusion of its content into the curriculum, especially columns with course-related themes (e.g., medical problems, elder abuse, nutrition, and so forth) to show the relationship between theory and practice. In one exemplary activity, students wrote their own aging columns to develop their research and writing skills.     

USE OF CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR PLANNING,IMPLEMENTING, AND EVALUATING A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR FOSTER GRANDPARENTS

The authors report the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a training program for foster grandparents employed at a residential diagnostic and treatment center for disturbed children and youth. The training needs were assessed by task and performance analysis procedures, including the use of critical incident technique. A scoring procedure derived values for various responses to a set of problem situations presented to each foster grandparent. The training objectives focused on the role of the foster grandparents in helping their charges to develop socially acceptable behavior. A cognitive problem‐solving strategy was taught by use primarily of role‐modeling and role‐playing methods. The effectiveness of training was evaluated by comparing pretraining scores on a problem situation test with posttraining scores. Foster grandparents who had been highly rated by supervisors on an independent criterion improved with training; the others did not.     

The One-Man Band by the Quick Lunch Stand: Modeling Audience Response to Street Performance

This paper considers street performance, or busking,focusing on differences between performance in thisenvironment compared with the standard concertsetting. First, in contrast with a set, known ticketprice, the price of street performance isendogenously determined. Second, busking generallyinvolves a joint product: music and charity, wherecharity is produced internally by the audience andhas as its principal input the price paid for music.We show that these facts call into question somegeneral conclusions of conventional public financemodels, which suggest that the major efficiency problemwith busking is its inability to preventfreeriding behavior, and that freeriding, while efficient at the individuallevel, is inefficient at the societal level. In contrast, we argue in thispaper that busking, with freeriding and all, is not unambiguously inferior toconcert hall performance in terms of efficiency.