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A framework is presented for analyzing the role of communicative and intercultural competence and their teachability in second language instruction. First, several problematic communication situations are examined in which: (1) a native English speaker and native Danish speaker with limited English converse; (2) native speakers of two languages converse, each using his native language (Swedish and English) and understanding the other language; and (3) native speakers of two languages (Swedish and Chinese) using a third (English) to communicate. Six specific sample situations are discussed. The concepts of communicative and cultural competence are then defined and their teachability and interrelationship are investigated. It is concluded that, contrary to conventional wisdom, knowledge of a language and culture, and sometimes even mastery of specific behaviors, does not necessarily lead to well-functioning communication. In addition, sometimes lack of mastery of an affective cultural component and very often lack of metacommunicative and metacultural awareness may even prevent people from using their linguistic or cultural knowledge and behaving appropriately, either linguistically or culturally. A 14-item bibliography is included. (MSE)

This essay offers a preliminary examination of public support for private elementary and secondary education as it is incorporated into the systems of Denmark, Australia, and Holland. Its purpose is to stimulate American thinking about family choice systems. After a brief introduction on the ad hoc quality differentials in American public schooling, a discussion ensues of the ambiguous definitions of "private" and "public," as these terms are alternately used to refer to ownership and use. The third section addresses the implicit values and the historical context behind the American policy of denying aid to religiously affiliated private schools. The following three sections discuss the history and structure of education systems in Denmark, Australia, and Holland, respectively. Denmark has a national system of public elementary schools, coupled with the right of minorities to establish "free" schools at public expense. Australia provides comprehensive government aid to private religious schools, primarily because of pressure from a large Catholic constituency; as a result, the quality of Catholic education has steadily improved. In Holland, two thirds of the children attend private religious schools fully supported by the government. The paper concludes by recommending a carefully deliberated shift to a choice system that recognizes the centrality of religious values to the educational process and that provides alternatives for families with different interests and values. (TE)

Representatives from five West European countries and the U.S. present overviews of their respective countries' education systems and approach to vocational education. The introduction notes that both money spent on and student enrollments in vocational education are increasing in Europe as in the U.S. and that educational reform appears to take into account the need for more career development, more clustering of occupational areas, and more coordination with business and industry. Education system diagrams are included from each country, along with discussion of educational and governmental policy. Papers deal with (1) Great Britain--its further education, industrial training, teacher education, and financing and building; (2) Sweden--its comprehensive compulsory schools, the new organization of study with vocational orientation counselors and new forms of orientation to the working life; (3) West Germany--its occupational training system and full-time vocational schools; (4) Finland--a review of its development efforts, its problems and major issues; and (5) Denmark--trends in its educational development, the further education of teachers, and pedagogical development. Finally, an Office of Education deputy commissioner gives his overview of the present situation in vocational education in the U.S. (CP)

In order for information to be stored and processed in a computer, it must be reduced to data and organized and systematized in accordance with the rules and principles of formal logic. Reducing manifold reality to data for use by the computer results in loss of information because an arbitrary screening of data eliminates that gathered by the uniquely human modes of cognition (kinetic, emotive, and symbolic). For this reason, it is argued, it is not surprising that women are most skeptical of new information technology. The development in women--to a greater degree than in men--of kinetic, emotive, and symbolic modes of knowing has been the product of socialization and the division of labor in society, and is in opposition to the principles embodied in information technology. It is argued that the closing out of these modes of cognition resulting from the reduction of holistic experience to data is a limitation of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and that an effort to achieve holism should be promoted. (GL)

The general aim of education is seen as creating possibilities for gaining experiences and acquiring knowledge, hence development of cognition. The knowledge ideal in education is understood within the frames of the historically produced scientific ideal, which also indicates the road by which knowledge may be obtained. This historical production may be characterized by a growing polarization in feminine/masculine, where the qualifications ascribed to the feminine ideal become devalued and repressed, whereas those ascribed to the masculine become ennobled as the road to knowledge. It is in the relation to this that the computer--the embodiment of the masculine ideal--as a tool in informatics is comprehended. It is argued that in order to ensure the development of knowledge, the feminine universe of interpretation is a necessary complementary approach. The point of departure for this shift is a greater emphasis on the uniquely human modes of cognition: the sensorimotor, the emotive, and the symbolic. Informatics--and education as a whole--should be founded in the relation between the two roads to knowledge. (29 references) (GL)

The new research and practice area of "adults and mathematics" is situated within the didactics of mathematics as it is structured and delimited by the concrete forms of practice and knowledge currently regarded as mathematics teaching, learning, and knowing. "Adults Learning Mathematics" (ALM) is a community of practice and research within the didactics of mathematics in which adults' learning and numeracy are central and where the reason to teach mathematics is empowerment for social and working life. Epistemological reconnaissances have resulted in these five conclusions on ALM: (1) The ALM community of practice and research is accepted as a domain within the didactics of mathematics; (2) the learner is the focus of the ALM studies, and her/his "numeracy" is understood as mathematics knowledge; (3) didactic questions are integrated with general adult education questions in ALM and the studies are interdisciplinary; (4) the duality between the objective and subjective perspective is implicit, or explicit, in all ALM problematics; and (5) the general aim of ALM practice and research is "empowerment" of adults learning math. Interdisciplinary studies involving mathematics, sociology, and pedagogy are necessary to bridge mathematics and adult education. (Contains 3 figures and 11 references.) (MO)