Career/Life Planning for Displaced Homemakers

This article describes the development, content, and outcome of a highly cost-effective program designed to meet the personal and vocational needs of displaced homemakers. Future research directions are suggested.     

Inundating the School Board with Support for Counselors: An Eleventh Hour Strategy for Saving an Endangered Species

Counselors in the Santa Barbara (California) High School District recently faced the threat of abolishment of all counseling positions. This article describes how a guidance task force, consisting of counselors and teachers, sought and obtained community and professional support needed to defeat the proposed staff realignment plan.     

EFFECTS OF SELF-EFFICACY AND POST-TRAINING INTERVENTION ON THE ACQUISITION AND MAINTENANCE OF COMPLEX INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

This study examined the effects of self-efficacy and a two-stage training process on the acquisition and maintenance (i.e., retention) of complex interpersonal skills. In stage one, all participants received basic training in negotiation skills; behavioral measures of negotiation performance were taken following this training. During stage two, alternative post-training interventions (goal setting and self-management) were offered to facilitate skill maintenance. Six weeks later, behavioral measures of performance were repeated. Results indicated that pre-test self-efficacy contributed positively to both initial and delayed performance. While training condition contributed to skill maintenance, self-efficacy also interacted with post-training method to influence delayed performance. Specifically, self-management training attenuated the self-efficacy performance relationship, while goal-setting training accentuated performance differences between high and low self-efficacy trainees. Implications of these findings are discussed for researchers and practitioners concerned with interpersonal skills training.     

EXAMINING A MODEL OF EVOLUTIONARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMIC CHANGE WITHIN EXISTING SOCIETAL SYSTEMS

Within today's emerging global society, educational systemic change is a dynamic, complex process that must seek to engage active participation of all stakeholders. This article examines alternative models of this process, providing different perspectives of the recursive and comprehensive nature of change when viewed from the vantage points of those stakeholders within the process. An envisioned school or educational system that addresses preparation of a citizenry dedicated to democratic principles and issues of social justice must consciously examine the relationships, that form and reform interconnecting and unifying diverse subsystems within the school's constructed meaning and purpose.