COGNITIVE,ATTITUDINAL, AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS OF DEATH AND DYING IN ADULTHOOD: IMPLICATIONS FOR CARE PROVIDERS

Relationships among general anxiety, age, and measures of conscious and unconscious death anxiety were assessed in three groups of adult subjects varying in age and extent of contact with elderly persons. Data suggested that these relationships are complex, but that some degree of overlap exists among these factors both within and across groups. Knowledge and attitudinal data relating to death and aging suggested that similarities rather than differences should be emphasized in comparing these groups of students and care and service providers, and that there is less reason to assume a perceived conscious association between death and aging than previously believed based on current literature. These data are discussed from an applied developmental perspective.     

Subjective and Objective Intellectual Change in Older Adults

In this longitudinal study, 108 older individuals (M age = 70.58 years, SD = 6.94) estimated the extent to which their fluid and crystallized skills had changed over the previous three years. For each perceived change, individuals also estimated the extent to which numerous explanatory factors were responsible for such change. Crystallized skills were seen as unchanging, whereas fluid skills were perceived as having declined slightly. In both cases, self-initiated efforts to maintain one's skills were endorsed most frequently as explanations for the maintenance of one's skills. Variability in attributions in three-year changes in both fluid and crystallized skills was associated with individual differences in health, self perceived everyday cognitive failures, and state anxiety. The findings from this study suggest that it is important to identify factors over which older adults perceive themselves as having control as salient targets for educational interventions fostering a sense of self-efficacy, critical to feelings of enhanced competence in later life.     

Television

Erik Barnouw's The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978—$10.00)

Bert Randolph Sugar's “The Thrill of Victory”: The Inside Story of ABC Sports (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978—$12.00)

David L. Wolper and Quincy Troupe's The Inside Story of TV's “Roots” (New York: Warner Books, 1978—$2.25, paper)

James Robert Parish and Mark Trost's Actors' Television Credits, Supplement 1 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978—$16.00)

Jerry Mender's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: Wm. Morrow, 1978—$11.95/4.95)

Mary Lewis Coakley's Rated X: The Moral Case Against TV (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, l978—$9.95)

TV and Elections: Proceedings of the Meeting (Prix Italia Secretariat, c/o RAI, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Viale Mazzini, 14, Rome—price not provided, paper)

FTC Staff Report on Television Advertising to Children (Federal Trade Commission, Washington D.C. 20580—free on request, paper)

The CoEvolution Quarterly (Winter 1977/78, Issue 16 available from Box 428, Sausalito, Calif. 94965—$3.50, paper)     

Frequency,efficiency and flexibility of indirect addition in two learning environments

This study examined the development of indirect addition as an alternative for solving multidigit subtractions, by means of two learning environments in traditionally schooled third-graders in Flanders (Belgium). Thirty-five third-graders, who did not demonstrate mastery of indirect addition, participated in an Explicit (n = 20) or Implicit (n = 15) learning environment that aimed to encourage the development of indirect addition. Over a period of six weeks, children participated in nine individual sessions: four practice sessions, three test sessions, one transfer session, and one retention session. The results revealed that throughout the study indirect addition was rarely used, even by the children in the explicit learning environment. However, when indirect addition was used, it was executed very efficiently.     

Developing and Implementing a Whole-School Policy for Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development

The OFSTED inspection report on Stalham High School praised the quality of its pastoral care and PSE, but also noted that the promotion of students' cultural and spiritual development across the whole curriculum was less satisfactory. The writer describes how the school set about responding to this weakness through the development of a whole-school policy. It was decided to develop an overarching policy for social, moral, cultural and spiritual development. Once an outline policy was produced, the views of staff were sought in a way which also increased their awareness of and involvement in the programme.     

Dilemmas faced by a university president in educational reforms

This paper explores higher education reforms in China in the 1990s. Confronted with the furious conflicts and mismatch between the market economy and the highly state-controlled socialist educational system, educational reforms in China are extremely complex and difficult. The authors present a case study here telling the tragedy of a university president's reforms in China. They have unfolded how the macro system changes impacted on the micro system reforms. They point out that multilayers exist within an organizational culture. Although understanding organizational culture does not guarantee successful reform, however, a thorough understanding of the fabric of an organizational culture may become an effective lever to initiate or implement the context-fitted reforms. The authors try to describe informatively what dilemmas the Chinese IHE leaders were faced with in the 1990s. Seeking new means for school reforms in a time of turbulent policy environment, in a testing period with sharp contradictory forces, school leaders should have not only sharp eyes, clear thinking, and independence but also creativity, endurance, and persistence.     

From context to contextualizing

Although context is rapidly becoming one of the core concepts in modern educational thinking, this notion still remains ill-defined in literature. This article aims at contributing to the definition of the notion of context and examining its value for research and development of educational praxes. The article starts out from a general conception of context, identifying its basic intentions as particularization of meaning and providing for coherence. In this article the activity approach to context is explored more particularly. It is argued here that one consequence from this approach is, that context should be conceived of dynamically, i.e. in terms of context-making (contextualizing). Reasoning from this activity approach, several new research questions arise.