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Educational theorists and researchers have long considered time a key component of individual learning. Caroll, in his classic model of school-based learning, conceptualized achievement as an outcome of two time variables: first, the amount of time a learner is engaged in learning; and second, an individual's learning rate. Caroll's ideas generated a wave of research on instructional time and learning. Many studies focused on issues of classroom dynamics and teaching efficiency; others were preoccupied with establishing statistical associations between time variables and pupil achievement. Overall, evidence from various studies suggests that there is a positive--and fairly consistent--association between instructional time and pupil achievement. Researchers disagree over the magnitude of this relationship, the relative importance of various intervening factors, and the nature of the socio-economic contexts in which the relationship is more or less salient. In this article, the authors assess the implications of these issues in the educational settings of the least-developed countries (LDCs), and briefly discuss key distinctions with respect to instructional time. (Contains 15 notes.)

This paper examines the psychological significance of traditional African mourning practices in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In Tanzania, untimely multiple losses through AIDS increasingly force communities to forgo traditionally prescribed mourning practices and rituals. An increase in psychiatric and psychological problems associated with incomplete mourning and unresolved grief has been observed in clinical settings. This may be due to the psychosocial inadequacy of these abridged mourning processes. It is unlikely that western forms of grief counseling can replace traditional mourning rituals, at least in terms of psychological efficacy. An approach is suggested that permits a wider elaboration of cultural psychic processes through the creation of new rituals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]