THE REAL MISSION OF THE BUREAU

Education is a profession. It is unique in that most people believe they have a handle on what education should be. Education is the only profession for whom the service recipient believes himself to be as knowledgeable as the service provider. In Jewish education, this may be compounded to the extent that parents of the service recipient remember a negative experience in Hebrew school.     

SELF‐DISCLOSURE OF GIFTED YOUTH

This article aimed at showing the degree of self‐disclosure of high ability youth to various persons. The degree of self‐disclosure was expressed in six categories: Attitudes and Opinions, Tastes and Interests, Work or Studies, Personality, Money, Body. The above mentioned categories were used by the subjects in self‐disclosure to: Mother, father, brother or sister, fiancé or fiancée, best friend, grandparents, relatives, friend and strangers (they are target persons). The tested group consisted of 32 persons: 26 students in the fourth and fifth year of university and 6 university graduates.     

Group norms, threat, and children's racial prejudice

To assess predictions from social identity development theory (SIDT; Nesdale, 2004) concerning children's ethnic/racial prejudice, 197 Anglo-Australian children ages 7 or 9 years participated in a minimal group study as a member of a team that had a norm of inclusion or exclusion. The team was threatened or not threatened by an out-group that was of the same or different race. Consistent with SIDT, prejudice was greater when the in-group had a norm of exclusion and there was threat from the out-group. Norms and threat also interacted with participant age to influence ethnic attitudes, although prejudice was greatest when the in-group had an exclusion norm and there was out-group threat. The implications of the findings for SIDT are discussed.     

Using Class Climate Scales to Evaluate Gifted Inservice Programs

This study represents a novel approach to evaluating the effectiveness of an inservice program designed to help teachers enrich classroom instruction to make it more appropriate for gifted students. Results indicate that the number of inservice courses taken by teachers over a two and one‐half year period was associated with increased emphasis in their classes on higher‐level thinking skills and illustrates the use of class climate scales as a tool for program evaluation.