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This report includes the presentations of the speakers appearing before the National Clinic on Technical Education. Topics cover human resource development; the impact of technical education on economic development (in Mississippi); economics of allied health education; manpower implications of environmental protection; manpower needs for environmental protection--water; manpower needs for nuclear energy; educational facilities planning; metrics conversion and technical education; Comprehensive Employment and Training Act and its implications for technical education; training minorities in technical education; industry based career education; developing manpower for nuclear technology; faculty development in technical education; growth areas in medical services; identifying human resources (a discussion of the Department of Defense High School Testing Program); technical education in Washington; marketing technical education; and the state of the art of technical education. Members of the American Technical Education Association (ATEA) National Planning Committee, exhibitors, officers, representatives, speakers, and others are also listed in the report. (TM)

The student teaching experience often creates affective friction between the student and his supervisor which may have debilitating effects on the student's self-image and ultimate performance in the teaching role. This study reports on the formal evaluation of a technique (developed at Clark University) of sharing personal biography which aimed at building self-image, developing bonds of solidarity, and improving in-class performance. Matched treatment and comparison groups of 10 pairs each of students and teachers were administered FIRO-B and COPE, pre and post. Student in-class performance was also rated by disinterested observers at the same times. The results support the effectiveness of the treatment in meeting its goals. (Author)

To talk about human development requires some point of view which will allow the visualization of the various parts and processes within the context of an organized unit. Social policies will be formulated differently, depending on the assumptions one holds about people. The concept of an open system is used in this presentation to illustrate that point of view. Briefly illustrated are some implications for social policy when one views the person as a complex open system existing through transactions with multiple contexts, and when one adopts positive development as the highest priority human objective, with remediation as the backup system. (RC)

In attempting to define the "ecology" of human development, the term's history and connotations are discussed. The ecological approach requires that the person, the environment, and the relations between them be conceptualized in terms of systems, and subsystems within systems. The experimental situation is not limited to being unidirectional and dyadic, allowing only first-order effects. Two or more environmental settings can and should be included, and these environments should be studied and described along with the subject. An ecology of human development must be concerned not only with the developing child, but also with the developing ecology; that is, changes both in the micro- and macrostructures which envelop the child and those in his immediate environment. Finally, the author urges a reversal of usual experimental procedure, beginning the experiment by trying to change one of the environmental elements in order to get some idea of the delicate balance between the developing organism and its surroundings. (Author/BW)

This report discusses the five-year history of the Mountain-Plains Education and Economic Development Program. In broad terms, the program is viewed as a human development program and not simply as a technical training program. The adult population it serves is defined as rural disadvantaged, and the primary selection criterion is un/underemployment. Intensive developmental career guidance including awareness, exploration, and choice is the critical area of the core curriculum, although other important general need areas (health education, consumer education, parent effectiveness training, and home management training) are also addressed. After a career choice is made, students enter specific career preparation programs which include work experience and permanent job placement. The unique aspect of the program design is that entire families participate in the program. Based on research and experience, the program developers found that putting an individual into an artificial program environment, working with him, and then returning him to his unaltered family environment pre-assure a high failure rate. The author attempts to inform others about the program and to stimulate a new interest in the "unvisible" foundations of educational approaches, particularly those for disadvantaged adults. (Author/PC)

If work experience is a desirable way to improve the socialization of youth to adulthood, there is a need to know the kind of work experience which should be provided, and the ways in which opportunities for such experiences can be increased. Generally, the author believes that young people are less likely to be intimidated by the bureaucratic environment if they have become familiar with it in a variety of educational forms prior to their full-time entry into the labor force. Ideally, they will have acquired a wide range of experiences at all levels of a number of different kinds of organizations. The author believes that the most effective way to improve socialization to adulthood is to establish a network of federally funded, specially designed, educational work experiences for young people prior to their full time entry into the labor force. (Author/PC)

The Center for Social Organization of Schools has two objectives: to develop a scientific knowledge of how schools affect their students, and to use this knowledge to develop better school practices and organization. One of the three programs sponsored by the center is the Schools and Maturity Program. It is studying the effects of school, family, and peer group experiences on the development of attitudes consistent with psychosocial maturity. The objectives of the program are to formulate, assess, and research important educational goals other than traditional academic achievement. This report contains three papers on psychosocial maturity entitled: (1) Psychosocial Maturity and the Social Environment, (2) Attitudes Toward Self and Society, and (3) the Phenomenological World of the Mature Adolescent. A bibliography of the Schools and Maturity program is also provided. (Author/PC)

Human development from about ages 2 to 5 is presented in terms of the history of a child conceptualized in terms of stimulus and response functions and his interactions in current situations which consist of organismic, physical, and social conditions. The concepts describing the changes that occur during this developmental period, such as exploratory behavior, cognitive behavior, and moral behavior are invariably cast in nonobservable terms indigenous to the psychoanalytic, social learning, and cognitive approaches. To make them consistent with the objectives, assumptions, and principles of a functional analysis of behavior, these concepts must be reanalyzed and redefined. The resulting reformulations would have extensive implications for research and for practical applications. (Author/CS)

This paper elucidates the implications of life-span developmental psychology for theory and method in the field of child development. Emphasis is given to three theoretical issues: (1) historical-evolutionary versus ontogenetic components of change, (2) the role of chronological age, and (3) continuity versus discontinuity in the description and explanation of behavior development. Two methodological issues are discussed: (1) the conceptual and methodological distinction between developmental change versus developmental differences and (2) the problem of examining historical, distal relationships among variables. While none of these is completely novel in developmental psychology, lifespan research and theory has led to propositions and arguments which accentuate, clarify, and articulate important developmental issues. It is concluded that child development researchers need to recognize these issues and that such recognition should lead to a heightened understanding of the unique aspects of a developmental approach to the study of behavior and to novel questions, interpretations, conceptualizations, and methods of study. (Author/JMB)

As a contribution to the philosophical enquiry into the nature and forms of human activity, the hypothesis is ventured that "knowledge" relative to human movement and physical activities encapsulates and presents modes of perception, reflection, experience, and communication that are at least as important in human development as other generally more prized forms of knowledge. A person subsumes both intellectual and physical elements in his development; both of these are centrally involved in his experience and awareness of the world. Without experience of and instruction in the various modes of being and cognizing, no knowledge is possible in any extended sense. On this basis, human movement studies-physical education-must have a place in the curricula of educational institutions. Physical education, it seems, requires knowledge of mathematics, science, interpersonal relationships, history, politics, aesthetics, and ethics with all the peculiar sets of propositions, modes of procedure, and tests for truth, relevance, and appropriateness that are associated with each of these ways of knowing. In other words, physical education seems to be a field of knowledge which draws upon the insights available from a wide range of discrete disciplines in order to formulate answers to problems both of a theoretical and practical kind arising from the one central feature that draws its concerns together--the way in which the human person can develop his understanding of his life through the medium by which his existence is objectified, his body. (MM)

Both popular and academic perceptions of conflict have been historically negative. Conflict, however, or the discrepancy between the demands of the environment and the demands of a living system, is common to individuals, groups, organizations and societies, and is part of the communication process by which living things interact with their environment. Assessments of the nature of conflict are subject to the variation in evaluative criteria selected and the time frame considered. By definition, however, conflict is functional and necessary to the adaptation of life. The communications system perspective can provide an alternative unit of analysis, "system+ environment," which attempts to synthesize a cross-contextual, cross-level, communication-conflict paradigm and has implications for interactions from the international to the personal level. (KS)

This paper asserts that what is really basic in education lies first in recognizing what it means to be human, to accept the challenges and pains and joys of being alive, and to attempt not only to preserve but to raise the level of that humanity a notch or so for the next generation. It is suggested that adolescent literature can be a vehicle for those who are struggling to break the bonds of childhood to enter into maturity. Passages from various adolescent novels are quoted which exemplify stages in adolescent development and those problems often encountered during the period of adolescence. A selected, annotated list of adolescent novels is also included. (LL)

Literary analysis is approached as an atypical research modality: a modality that falls outside the parameters of experimental research usually described in the literature of educational meta-research. It is maintained that atypical research is appropriate as ancillary and complementary to typical research. Following Guba's explication of "experimental" research, six characteristics of literary analysis (applied to literary life-cycle research) are identified. Literary life-cycle research which is used by the researcher to describe the life cycle in terms of information gathered from literary works; (1) is complementary to conventional empirical research, (2) is comparative, (3) is explicative, (4) is interpretive, (5) is disciplined, and (6) can be viewed as a form of case history research. A procedural model for literary analysis is presented. The model is illustrated with an example of how analysis of literature discloses knowledge about the nuances of the so-called mid-life crisis. It is concluded that literary analysis has the potential for generating knowledge about human development and the phases of adult development, and that this knowledge is highly valuable for the practitioner of adult education. An 18-item bibliography is included. (Author/MS)

William James drew a distinction between knowledge of a subject (experiential knowledge gained in every trade and profession) and knowledge about a subject (knowledge resulting from sustained, systematic study or scholarship). Scholarship plus workmanship serves to integrate both kinds of knowledge. The document contains three papers which present the following issues central to both adult education and James' statement: (1) where to look, (2) need to know, and (3) what to know in relation to knowledge of and knowledge about adult students. The paper on where to look describes demographic and psychographic analyses and the use of a marketing needs approach to provide information in relation to knowledge of and knowledge about the adult learner. The second paper discusses knowledge of and knowledge about an adult student's need to know which is seen as concerned with the human as well as economic developmental stages of the adult learner and calls for a flexible learning situation (including experiential learning) to meet those needs. The third issue concerns what to know and its many dimensions including curriculum and appropriate instructional strategies. A task force approach for designing a more flexible learning environment is described. (Author/MS)

The paper examines the methodological issues involved in the relationship of adult education to adult development. The practice of adult education during the past 25 years has been built upon a series of assumptions derived from theoretical fragments regarding lifelong development. Considering the theoretical base of adult development, however, very little has been verified and set within a sound, comprehensive framework of the total life-span. Any comprehensive theory of adult development must take into consideration not only the psychological and social factors of human life, but also the physiological, economic, vocational, religious, and political factors which affect contemporary life. Of the three traditional research methodologies, the cross-sectional, the cross-sequential, and the longitudinal designs, the longitudinal has proven the most effective technique for studying developmental change. Within the latter methodology, the technique of biography has proven effective because it provides primary data across generations and even epochs. Whichever research design is selected for the study of life-span development, the researcher must effectively manipulate the factors of change and sameness which define the developing individual. In order to do so it is necessary to learn more about the developmental stages through which the individual proceeds. (JR)

These conference papers deal with many topics of current interest to community college educators in the United States and Canada. Subjects discussed include: staff development as institutional change; adult education; personhood development in the community college; community-based education priorities and alternative futures; community college development in Saskatchewan; future shapes of governance in community colleges; humanistic education; internal and external public relations in educational institutions; the experiment in participatory democracy at Dawson College, Montreal; and Project ARISTOTLE, a research project to design and implement a computerized data information system for management of training centers. Contributors include: George M. Delgrosso, Terry O'Banion, Alan Thomas, John Roueche, Gunder A. Myran, Lewis Riederer, Richard Richardson, Jr., Jeffrey M. Elliot, Charlie K. Field, Gertrude MacFarlane, and W. E. Sinnett and A. E. Jiminez. A list of Institute delegates is appended. (JDS)

Elizabeth College has been historically a traditional liberal arts institution in the career-oriented programs of business, education, and more recently the health professions. In 1972, the faculty adopted a new nontraditional educational program primarily for adults, called the Center for Community Education. The purpose of the Center was to offer a variety of innovative programs leading toward the baccalaureate degree. A comparison of values, attitudes, and aspirations shared by the recipients of the nontraditional degrees with the graduates of the traditional program provides insight into the similarities and differences between the groups the College is attempting to serve. This analysis compares the graduates of both traditional and innovative programs regarding their backgrounds, their motivations for enrolling at the College, and the impact of the degrees on their professional aspirations. (Author/KE)

Assuming that a romanticized view of American Indians is as disasterous as a bigoted view, this paper considers some alternatives for Native American life directions which go beyond the present narrow choices of either total assimilation within the white value system or isolation on the reservation. Major points presented are: (1) forced assimilation has not worked; (2) indifference is the essence of inhumanity; (3) a viable social philosophy must unite and utilize the experiences and cultures of many different peoples, taking into account the evolving experience of multi-cultural/multi-lingual people; (4) the new organizing principle of our institutions may be symbiotic--the successful and necessary reconciliation of apparently irreconcilable differences; (5) the loss of traditional ways does not necessarily equate with loss of identity (the loss is in and of itself part of the identity), since identity is the conception of or feeling about events lived by a people; (6) the Indian in America needs to feel pride in his people before he can gain self-esteem, and he cannot develop self-esteem if others rob him of the opportunity to do things for himself; (7) coexistence of multiple viable social systems in America should enhance our sense of freedom, as freedom is predicated upon the presence of alternatives. (JC)