Kenneth H. Cushner,
Kent State University, Kent
Averil McClelland,
Kent State University, Kent
Philip Safford,
Case Western Reserve University
| Accent | Pronunciation habits of the standard language acquired by people from a particular geographic region.
|
 |
|
|
| Accountability movement | The national interest in and reform of schooling that began in the 1980s, continues to the present time, and rests on the idea that schools, teachers, and students are responsible for meeting standards of learning in all major subjects.
|
|
|
|
| Acculturation | The changes that take place as a result of continuous firsthand contact between individuals of different cultures; usually refers to the experiences of adults.
|
|
|
|
| Adaptive equipment | Appliances, materials, and supplies that are used to assist people with disabilities to write, read, move, speak, hear, and otherwise conduct normal activities.
|
|
|
|
| American Sign Language | The only signed system of communication that is recognized as a distinct language.
|
|
|
|
| Anglo-conformity | The belief that all immigrant children must be socialized into the culture and worldview of the dominant Anglo society in the United States.
|
|
|
|
| Assessment | A comprehensive, individualized evaluation of the student's strengths as well as areas that are in need.
|
|
|
|
| Assimilation | The process whereby an individual or group is absorbed into the social structures and cultural life of another person, group, or society.
|
|
|
|
| Assimilationist model | The practices by which children were socialized into the culture and worldview of the dominant Anglo society in the United States.
|
|
|
|
| Attribution | The judgments people make about others based on the behavior they observe.
|
|
|
|
| Autism | A brain disorder that typically affects a person's ability to communicate, form relationships with others, and respond appropriately to the environment.
|
|
|
|
| Behavior management plan | A formal plan for classroom organization and instruction designed to elicit good behavior on the part of all students as well as to plan for adaptations required for children with disabilities.
|
|
|
|
| Bidialectalism | The ability to speak and understand two (and sometimes more) dialects and to switch back and forth between or among them.
|
|
|
|
| Black English | A dialect of English spoken primarily by urban African Americans also called Ebonics.
|
|
|
|
| Categorization | The process of dividing stimuli into classes or groups according to a particular system. In the cultural context, categorization refers to the manner by which people's culture teaches them to view the world around them.
|
|
|
|
| Clean intermittent catheterization (CIC) | A process by which a hollow plastic tube (catheter) is inserted into the bladder to drain it; CIC is normally done on a regular schedule during the day and night and is used to assist children and adults who, for one reason or another, cannot control bladder function.
|
|
|
|
| Cognitive structures | The ways in which individuals organize or scaffold knowledge so as to learn, remember, think, and otherwise use it.
|
|
|
|
| Collaborative classroom | A classroom in which cooperation and group (small or large) activity is in evidence; in which students, teachers, administrators, parents, and members of the community work together; and in which all take part in at least some decision making.
|
|
|
|
| Collaborative teaching | A style of pedagogy in which teachers collaborate with one another in planning instruction, may team-teach with one another, and often collaborate with students in setting instructional goals and designing instructional activities.
|
|
|
|
| Communication style | A set of culturally learned characteristics associated with both language and learning style, involving such aspects of communication as formal versus informal, emotional versus subdued, direct versus indirect, objective versus subjective, and responses to guilt and accusations.
|
|
|
|
| Constructivist perspective | The belief that all knowledge is built, or "constructed," by individual learners; it is thus important when teaching and learning new knowledge to connect it to knowledge already known.
|
|
|
|
| Content standards | One of three kinds of standards (the others are performance standards and delivery standards) for learning; refers to standards for subject-area knowledge.
|
|
|
|
| Cooperative learning | A pedagogical strategy or method in which students work in groups to maximize the learning of all individuals in the group.
|
|
|
|
| Cultural capital | The accumulation of both subjective and objective cultural knowledge that one uses to advance or be a leader in one's society.
|
|
|
|
| Cultural pluralism | A system of social and/or political organization that stresses and promotes mutual understanding and respect among disparate ethnic, religious, and racial groups existing in a society.
|
|
|
|
| Culture | The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or a population.
|
|
|
|
| Culture-general approaches | Cross-cultural training approaches that prepare people for the kinds of interactions and experiences they are likely to encounter, regardless of the groups that are interacting.
|
|
|
|
| Culture-specific approaches | Cross-cultural training approaches designed to prepare people to live and/or work with people of a particular culture or group.
|
|
|
|
| Delivery standards | One of three kinds of standards (the others are performance standards and content standards) for learning; refers to standards for the context of the classroom such as class size, materials available, instructional time, and so on.
|
|
|
|
| Demographics | Vital statistics that characterize human populations, including age, gender, ethnicity, and so forth. Demographics, often generated from population census data, can be used to project future trends and needs of relevance to educators.
|
|
|
|
| Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) | Instructional practices that are organized and designed on the basis of the age and development of the student.
|
|
|
|
| Dialect | A variation of some standard language form that includes differences in pronunciation, word usage, and syntax; such differences may be based on ethnicity, religion, geographical region, social class, or age.
|
|
|
|
| Differentiation | The process of distinguishing the finer points among elements of a given category, such as a wine connoisseur is able to do; in the cross-cultural context, differentiation refers to distinctions made between aspects of a category that are important to a given group of people.
|
|
|
|
| Dominant culture | Culture of the social or political group that holds the most power and influence in a society.
|
|
|
|
| Down syndrome | A genetically inherited condition caused by extra genetic material (genes) from the twenty-first chromosome and resulting in a combination of features including some degree of mental retardation or cognitive disability and other developmental delays.
|
|
|
|
| Educate America Act | Legislation signed into law in 1994 stemming from the Governors' Conference in 1989 that set eight goals for education and their implementing requirements to be met by the year 2000; the law expired in 1991, and its requirements were incorporated into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1992, called the "Leave No Child Behind" Act.
|
|
|
|
| Empathy | A psychological sense of understanding and "feeling for" another person's situation.
|
|
|
|
| Enculturate | The process of raising a child to be a member of a particular culture or culture group.
|
|
|
|
| English as a second language | An approach to teaching linguistically diverse students in which the student's background and cultural experiences become the focal point for learning English; in ESL programs, children are kept in the regular classroom for most of the day but are pulled out at various times for English instruction.
|
|
|
|
| Establishment clause of First Amendment | The clause in the First Amendment that prohibits the government from establishing a state religion.
|
|
|
|
| Ethnic group | Groups who share a common heritage and reflect identification with some collective or reference group, oftentimes in a common homeland. Identification with an ethnic group is reflected in a sense of peoplehood, or the feeling that a person's own destiny is somehow linked with others who share this same knowledge.
|
|
|
|
| Ethnic identity | A sense of belonging and identification with one's ancestral ethnic group.
|
|
|
|
| Ethnocentrism | The tendency that people have to evaluate others from their own cultural reference.
|
|
|
|
| Field dependent | A learning style proposed by H. A. Witkin; students who are field dependent learn best when given a larger context, or "field," in which to embed new learning.
|
|
|
|
| Field independent | A learning style proposed by H. A. Witkin; students who are field independent can learn material that is separated from its context. For example, a student learns the table of elements without an explanation of its history or purpose or how it fits into the larger scientific enterprise.
|
|
|
|
| Fourteenth Amendment | The Constitutional amendment that prohibits states from abridging rights granted to all U.S. citizens, born or naturalized; the amendment also guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and that all persons shall be guaranteed equal protection under the law.
|
|
|
|
| Free exercise clause of First Amendment | Clause of the First Amendment that prohibits the government from preventing the free exercise of religious belief among its citizens.
|
|
|
|
| Fundamentalism | A movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles, usually religious ones.
|
|
|
|
| Gender | A socially defined category in which the biological specialization of male and female are transformed by associating specific personality, role, and status traits to each sex.
|
|
|
|
| Gender bias | Behavior that results from the underlying belief in sex role stereotypes.
|
|
|
|
| Gender discrimination | Any action that specifically denies opportunities, privileges, or rewards to a person or a group because of their sex.
|
|
|
|
| Genderized traits | Traits such as aggression or empathy that are differentially valued by a society when displayed by males and females.
|
|
|
|
| Gender role identity | The sense of identity that one acquires as a result of internalizing specific social requirements of behavior based on one's sex.
|
|
|
|
| Gender role socialization | The process by which young children acquire the knowledge and internalize the values of socially determined sex roles.
|
|
|
|
| Gender role stereotyping | The process of attributing specific behaviors, abilities, interests, and values to one sex.
|
|
|
|
| Gender-sensitive | Instructional and other practices that take differences in gender into account.
|
|
|
|
| Generalization | The tendency of a majority of people in a cultural group to hold certain values and beliefs and to engage in certain patterns of behavior. This information can be supported by research and can be applied to a large percentage of a population or group.
|
|
|
|
| Genotype | The whole complex of genes inherited from both parents; the genotype determines the hereditary potentials and limitations of an individual from embryonic formation through adulthood.
|
|
|
|
| Globalization | The process by which nations of the world become connected and interdependent through ties created by electronic communication, rapid means of travel, and interlocking economies.
|
|
|
|
| Global perspective | A worldview that takes into account the fact that individuals and societies are a part of a larger, worldwide system.
|
|
|
|
| Goals 2000 | A set of goals for education created by the national Governors' Conference in 1989, to be achieved by the year 2000; goals included the following: (1) all children will be ready to learn when they enter school; (2) 90 percent of high school students will graduate from high school; (3) all students will be proficient in major content-area subjects; (4) all teachers will have access to effective preprofessional and professional development; (5) U.S. students will be the first in the world in mathematics and science; (6) every adult American will be literate; (7) all U.S. schools will be free of drugs, violence, and unauthorized firearms and alcohol; and (8) all schools will promote partnerships to increase parental involvement and participation in the education of their children.
|
|
|
|
| High stakes testing | A system of statewide or national testing on the basis of which important decisions-such as promotion in grade or graduation-are made that profoundly affect students' lives.
|
|
|
|
| Homophobia | The irrational fear of homosexuality and of those whose sexual orientation is homosexual.
|
|
|
|
| Hypodescent | A type of categorizing racial membership in which any amount of biological inheritance from a group considered to be a socially lower or minority group automatically places one in that group.
|
|
|
|
| Immigrants | People who voluntarily move to a country of which they are not natives with the purpose of taking up permanent residence.
|
|
|
|
| Inclusion | The belief in and practice of creating heterogeneous classrooms; more particularly, the practice of teaching students with disabilities in regular classrooms.
|
|
|
|
| In-context learning | Learning that takes place through direct participation in real-world events.
|
|
|
|
| Indigenous people | People living in an area generally since prehistoric (or pre-European contact) times; related terms include aboriginal people (particularly in Australia), first nation people (particularly in Canada).
|
|
|
|
| Individual Education Program (IEP) | A formal plan for instruction mandated by laws governing special education that sets forth the educational needs of a student, the goals and objectives that direct his or her program, the educational programming and placement, and the evaluation and measurement criteria that were developed during the IEP creation process.
|
|
|
|
| Informed consent | The legal requirement that parents must approve their child's multifactored evaluation, that parents participate in developing the child's IEP, and that parents know they have a right to procedural due process in the event of disagreement.
|
|
|
|
| Integration | The coming together of ideas, things, people, or objects in such a manner as to form a common unit that cannot be distinguished from the original parts. In the educational context, integration refers to the positive interaction of all people along equal lines of power, authority, status, and involvement in the school process.
|
|
|
|
| Kinesics | The study of nonverbal communication in the form of body movements, often called body language; kinesics includes gestures, posture, facial expressions, and eye contact.
|
|
|
|
| Learning community | An approach to classroom organization and instruction, based on democratic ideals, which is characterized by active teaching and learning, collaboration, belonging, shared decision making, and a strong sense of democratic participation.
|
|
|
|
| Learning style | A consistent pattern of behavior and performance by which an individual approaches educational experiences; learning style is derived from cultural socialization and individual personality as well as from the broader influence of human development.
|
|
|
|
| Least restrictive environment | The aspect of laws regarding special education that requires that children with disabilities be educated in the most unrestrictive context possible.
|
|
|
|
| Low-incidence | A type of disability that does not occur very often, for example, blindness.
|
|
|
|
| Marginalization | The practice of excluding a social group from the mainstream of the society, placing that group-legally or socially-on the "margins" of the society.
|
|
|
|
| Microculture | A social group that shares distinctive traits, values, and behaviors that set it apart from the parent macroculture of which it is a part. Microculture seems to imply a greater linkage with the parent culture and often mediate the ideas, values, and institutions of the larger political community.
|
|
|
|
| Minority group | A social group that occupies a subordinate position in a society, that often experiences discrimination, and that may be separated by physical or cultural traits disapproved of by the dominant group.
|
|
|
|
| Misogyny | An irrational hatred and fear of women.
|
|
|
|
| Mountain English | A dialect of English that is spoken primarily in the nineteen states of the Appalachian region of the United States.
|
|
|
|
| Multifactored evaluation | An evaluation that looks at many possible aspects of the learning problems of children with disabilities; may include cognitive, physical, social, and psychological factors.
|
|
|
|
| Muscular dystrophy | An inherited disease that causes increasing weakness in muscle tissue; the muscles affected are the skeletal muscles and, occasionally, the muscles of the heart.
|
|
|
|
| Nativist religions | Religions practiced by native peoples, often based on a sense of oneness with the earth.
|
|
|
|
| Nature versus nurture debate | A long-standing argument about which is more important in the outcome of an individual's development: a set of inborn and immutable characteristics, or education, that is to say, learning.
|
|
|
|
| No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 | The name given to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1992.
|
|
|
|
| Normalization | A philosophical view that the lives of exceptional individuals of any age should be characterized as much as possible by the same kinds of experiences, daily routines, and rhythms as those of persons who do not have disabilities.
|
|
|
|
| Normative | The fact that the norms of a society influence and regulate an individual's beliefs and behavior.
|
|
|
|
| Norms | Accepted ways of agreed-upon behavior that enable similar groups of people to function in a similar manner.
|
|
|
|
| Objective culture | The tangible, visible aspects of a culture, including such aspects as the artifacts produced, the foods eaten, the clothing worn.
|
|
|
|
| Out-of-context learning | Learning that typically occurs in the abstract as opposed to with concrete objects and references.
|
|
|
|
| Paralanguage | Forms of nonverbal communication involving vocalizations that are not words.
|
|
|
|
| People of color | Nonwhite minority group members, but reflects recent demographic realities of the United States. The phrase people of color refers to groups such as African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans and is often preferred over the phrase ethnic minority because these groups are, in many schools and communities, the majority rather than the minority.
|
|
|
|
| Perception | The process by which people are aware of stimuli in the world around them.
|
|
|
|
| Performance standards | One of three kinds of standards (the others are content standards and delivery standards) for learning; refers to standards for achievement in subject-matter knowledge.
|
|
|
|
| Phenotype | All the observable characteristics of an organism, such as shape, size, color, and behavior, that result from the interaction of its genotype (total genetic inheritance) with the environment. The common type of a group of physically similar organisms is sometimes also known as the phenotype; the phenotype may change constantly throughout the life of an individual.
|
|
|
|
| Placement continuum | The degree to which students with disabilities are involved in regular education.
|
|
|
|
| Portfolio assessments | Comprehensive evaluations of student work, usually selected by students themselves and contained in a notebook or other venue, that demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired by the student.
|
|
|
|
| Prejudice | Nonreflective judgments about others that are harsh, are discriminatory, or involve rejection.
|
|
|
|
| Proxemics | The normal physical distance between speakers when they are communicating with one another and is normally acquired as part of one's culture; sometimes referred to as social space.
|
|
|
|
| Pseudoscience | A set or system of beliefs claiming to be "scientific" without the benefit of the scientific method used to make further inquiries that might suggest that the belief system is wrong in any particular way.
|
|
|
|
| Race | In a biological sense, the clustering of inherited physical characteristics that favor adaptation to a particular ecological area. Race is culturally defined in the sense that different societies emphasize different sets of physical characteristics when referring to the concept of race. Thus, race is an important social characteristic not because of its biology but because of its cultural meaning in any given social group or society.
|
|
|
|
| Racial identity | One's sense of belonging and identification with a racial group; may also refer to the categorization of an individual in terms of a racial group by society or other social groups.
|
|
|
|
| Racial profiling | The practice of constructing a set of characteristics or behaviors based on race and using that set of characteristics to decide whether an individual might be guilty of some crime and therefore worthy of investigation or arrest.
|
|
|
|
| Refugee | A person who flees for safety to another country.
|
|
|
|
| Rural English | A dialect of English, sometimes called mountain English, spoken primarily in Appalachia and derived from the language of early English settlers in the area.
|
|
|
|
| Segregation | The act of separating or setting apart from others. In the educational context, segregation may refer to the establishment of separate schools for students of different races or abilities/disabilities.
|
|
|
|
| Separation | Situations in which two or more social groups voluntarily decide that it is of value for each to maintain its own cultural identity but not of value to maintain relationships with the other groups.
|
|
|
|
| Separation of church and state | The philosophical belief that religion and government should not be cojoined; in the United States, this belief is codified in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
|
|
|
|
| Sickle cell disease | An inherited condition in which an abnormality of the red blood cells causes a variety of serious medical and physical problems.
|
|
|
|
| Social class | A term used to categorize individuals in a stratified social system; social class characteristics are often related to (but may not be limited to) child-rearing practices, beliefs, values, economic status, prestige and influence, and general life chances.
|
|
|
|
| Social institution | A formal, recognized, established, and stabilized way of pursuing some activity in society.
|
|
|
|
| Socialization | The process whereby individuals learn the appropriate behavior that allows them to be functioning members of a particular group, such as a family, work, or social group.
|
|
|
|
| Social reconstructionist | One who believes that education can, and should, be devoted at least in part to the rebuilding or reform of a society.
|
|
|
|
| Social status | The degree to which an individual has power, influence, or leadership in his or her social group.
|
|
|
|
| Sojourner | A person who stays in a place for a relatively brief period of time; often used in reference to tourists or short-term visitors or strangers to a country.
|
|
|
|
| Spina bifida | A condition in which there is a congenital cleft or opening in the vertebral column.
|
|
|
|
| Standard English | A dialect of the English language, usually taken to mean that version of the English language most acceptable or most "correct," used by educated middle and upper classes and thus the dialect taught in public schools; standard English may vary by geographical location, but in general it is the dialect used in formal writing and in the broadcast and print media.
|
|
|
|
| Stereotypes | Beliefs about the personal attributes of a group based on the inaccurate generalizations that are used to describe all members of the group and that thus ignore individual differences.
|
|
|
|
| Structured immersion programs | Educational programs for students for whom English is a second language in which students are taught by teachers who are fluent in the native language of the child; while students are allowed to speak in their first language, the teacher usually responds in English.
|
|
|
|
| Subculture | A social group with shared characteristics that distinguish it in some way from the larger cultural group or society in which it is embedded. Generally, a subculture is distinguished either by a unifying set of ideas and/or practices (such as the corporate culture or the drug culture) or by some demographic characteristic (such as the adolescent culture or the culture of poverty).
|
|
|
|
| Subjective culture | The invisible, intangible aspects of a group, including such aspects as attitudes, values, norms of behavior-the things typically kept in people's minds.
|
|
|
|
| Submersion programs | Educational programs for children for whom English is a second language in which language minority children are placed in the regular classroom with native speakers of English; may be referred to as a "sink-or-swim" approach; found to be unlawful by the Supreme Court.
|
|
|
|
| Task specialization | The practice of assigning a specific subtask to each member of a collaborative learning team or group.
|
|
|
|
| Teacher expectations | A construct used to refer to the phenomena associated with the relation between what a teacher believes a student can do and what the student can actually do; generally, the more a teacher believes a student can do, the higher the achievement of the student, without respect to such factors as measured intelligence, social class, or family background.
|
|
|
|
| Testing | A process of evaluation that implies standardization in which the individual is compared against some norm-referenced set of scores or to a known group of individuals.
|
|
|
|
| Theocracy | A system of government in which a particular set of religious beliefs, or an organized religion, is completely intertwined with the processes of government.
|
|
|
|
| Transitional bilingual education | Educational programs for children for whom English is a second language in which efforts are made to phase out the student's native language while developing the student's facility in English as quickly as possible.
|
|
|
|
| Transition plan | A formal education plan that elaborates the steps to be taken to move a student with disabilities into adult and working life.
|
|
|
|
| Traumatic brain injury | An injury to the brain that causes subsequent cognitive or psychomotor disability; usually the result of an accident, but sometimes can be sustained at birth.
|
|
|
|
| Working poor | A categorization that refers to individuals who are employed (often underemployed) but still fall within the category of poverty because their income does not enable them to participate fully and effectively in everyday life.
|
|
|
|
| Zero exclusion mandate | Section of P.L. 94-142 that requires that all children with disabilities must be provided a free, appropriate, public education; local school systems do not have the option to decide whether to provide needed services.
|
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education