Diverging paths in upper secondary education: competence attainment among students with special educational needs

The main objective of specially adapted teaching in upper secondary education in Norway is to help students attain vocational or academic competence. However, a contested issue is whether it is conducive to place students with special educational needs in regular or special classes. Another question is whether boys and girls benefit to the same degree from placement in a specific type of class. The analyses presented in this article are based on data from a longitudinal study of nearly 500 adolescents with special educational needs who have been followed prospectively over 6 years. The results demonstrate that students receiving special support in regular classes obtain vocational or academic qualifications to a greater degree than students in special classes. In particular, girls benefit from placement in regular classes. This pattern does not change when the analyses control for relevant variables that are known to affect competence attainment, e.g. the students’ functional level registered at the start of upper secondary school.     

Biographical Sketch of Frederick G. Kilgour Librarian,Educator, Entrepreneur, 1914–2006

The article traces the career of Frederick G. Kilgour (1914–2006), who is widely recognized as one of the leading figures in 20^th-century librarianship. He founded the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) and from 1967 to 1981 was its first president and chief executive officer, presiding over OCLC's rapid growth from an intrastate network to an international network. In 1971, under Kilgour's leadership, OCLC introduced an online shared cataloging system and an online union catalog (WorldCat) that is today the world's foremost bibliographic database. In 1978, he created the OCLC Office of Research, and in 1979, under his direction, OCLC launched its online interlibrary loan system. The author of 205 scholarly papers, Kilgour received numerous awards and honors over the course a career that took him from Harvard University Library, to the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, to Yale Medical Library, to OCLC, and finally, to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he spent his final years on the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science as a Distinguished Research Professor.     

Telecommunications

Rufus P. Turner's The Illustrated Dictionary of Electronics (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1980---$19.95/14.95)

Sam Fedida and Rex Malik's The Viewdata Revolution (New York: John Wiley, 1980--- $34.95)

The latest from the Harvard Program on Information Resources Policy (200 Aiken, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138)     

Economic independence for adolescents with special educational needs

Do young men and women diagnosed with special educational needs succeed in finding full‐time employment that provides sufficient income to live on? The analyses presented in this paper are based on interviews conducted between October 2001 and April 2002 of nearly 500 young people with various types of disabilities. The young people who were interviewed have been studied prospectively since they entered upper secondary school as special needs students six or seven years earlier. These adolescents are followed through a critical phase of life when they are trying to find their way in society as adult individuals. This process is gradual and involves making tentative steps in various arenas. A crucial topic is how these young men and women, between 23 and 25 years of age, succeed in gaining employment that allows them to become economically independent. This is a vulnerable process for most youth, but it is especially challenging for young people with functional difficulties who have experienced protracted and disjointed transitions throughout their educational trajectories.     

Social Skills as Exchange Resources

The documentation given in the 1970s and 1980s of social skills deficits in children and adolescents who lack friends and other positive peer contacts is well‐known, and so is the increasing attention paid to social skill development. However, it seems that a broad or integrating theoretical framework for the analysis of social skills remains to be developed, and that this makes application of research findings and experiences in this area difficult. The article suggests a conceptualization of social skills as exchange resources, as a contribution to an integrating process.     

Autonomy Support and its Links to Physical Activity and Competitive Performance: Mediations Through Motivation,Competence, Action Orientation and Harmonious Passion,and the Moderator Role of Autonomy Support by Perceived Competence

The purpose of the present study was to test a Self‐Determination Theory (SDT) process model in relation to involvement in physical activity and competitive performance among students (N = 190). In this model, perceived autonomy support from teachers and coaches was expected to be positively related to autonomous motivation, perceived competence, harmonious passion and action orientation, and that they would be positively related to involvement in physical activity and competitive performance. In using LISREL to test the model, autonomy support was positively linked with perceived competence, autonomous motivation, and action orientation. In turn, perceived competence (through harmonious passion), autonomous motivation, and action orientation were all positively associated with involvement in physical activity, whereas perceived competence and autonomous motivation were positively correlated with competitive performance.     

Student Teacher Attitudes to Sex Role Stereotyping: some Australian data

The sex role attitudes of 461 teacher education students were measured on a 32‐item questionnaire. Chi‐square analyses produced significant effects for gender on 22 of the items, showing that the females were more egalitarian than the males. However, most of the students adopted an egalitarian stance on many, though not all, of the items. Responses to some items (women getting drunk and swearing, corporal punishment, boys doing heavy chores, and boys dressing up and playing with dolls) suggest that some traditional stereotypes may be particularly resistant to change. The data also suggest that students may adopt egalitarian attitudes out of self‐interest rather than as a matter of principle, and are more accepting of general principles of gender equity than of specific practices designed to achieve it. Finally, although there is some evidence of ambivalence among the students, particularly the males, it is more accurate to characterise these students as definite in their gender attitudes.