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This paper describes the communicative situation of 17 Mexican immigrant women in San Diego County (California), focusing on a set of narratives of personal language experiences in everyday life. Data collection included intensive fieldwork in an adult computer literacy project serving predominantly Mexican immigrants and interviews with seven project coordinators, seven participants, and four nonparticipants. Subjects' English language proficiency ranged from none to full bilingualism. To exemplify how events involving communicative challenges took place, the women reported on dialogues that occurred in different situations. By quoting others' words, the women were not only reporting speech, but also assessing the problematic nature of the incident. Analyses of these dialogues include setting, unexpected event, psychological response, attempt to resolve the challenge, and consequences. Examples presented in detail involve the women's interactions with doctors, other medical staff, school personnel, their own child in a school situation, and a priest. In monolingual U.S. institutions, the women experienced "invisibility" (exclusion) responses from the people they interacted with. The examples show that the invisibility responses occurred when the women did not have enough English to defend themselves, when language judgments were mapped onto Mexican ethnicity, and when Spanish was underprivileged in institutions. (Contains 84 references.) (SV)

Immigration and domestic industrial policies have been powerful instruments in the creation of immigrant "niches" in labor markets. While Indians have clustered in the information technology industry, Mexicans have formed niches in low-skilled industries such as agriculture. A review of the relationship between immigration policy and the requirements of the information technology industry reveals two important conclusions. First, immigration policy changes of the mid-1960s facilitated the immigration of Indians with high levels of education. Asians and Africans could not use family reunification to enter the United States, so the only path open to them was the use of occupational skills. This explains why these immigrants are so highly educated and why they concentrate in high-tech industries. On the other hand, Mexican immigrants constitute the largest group of unskilled workers because economic and social costs of immigration are lessened by geographical propinquity. In addition, specific U.S. immigration policies, direct recruitment, and the development of social networks have encouraged the immigration of unskilled workers. The departure of IBM from India in 1978, and the failure of the country to develop a domestic viable computer industry forced most Indian users to rely on imports. Thus, during the 1970s and 1980s Indian programmers learned how to work on a variety of platforms. In contrast, Mexico has solidified its role as the preferred location for the electronics manufacturing industry. (Contains 33 references.) (TD)

An 8-year ethnographic study in two rural Iowa towns examined the incorporation of recently arrived Mexicans and Mexican Americans into the social, economic, and political life of the community. Relocating to work in a nearby food processing plant, the newcomers altered the ethnic composition of this formerly homogeneous area. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews, informal conversations, observation of community events, and review of government documents and local newspapers. Conceptual frames for the study include modes of incorporation, racial formation and racialization, and social regulation. The experiences of Mexican and Mexican American newcomers demonstrate how local social regulatory activities circumscribe the ways in which these new residents can make claims as permanent members of the community. These social regulatory activities construct the racialized, gendered, and class-specific grounds on which Mexican Americans can earn a living wage, access social services and education, and gain a political voice. Various experiences of the newcomers are described, including recruitment to the food processing plant, poor working conditions, disadvantages arising from limited English proficiency, local resistance to providing English as a second language classes or offering Spanish in school, lack of proficient translators in the school and community, harassment by the police and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, lack of affordable housing, harassment and discrimination during use of health and social services, biased attitudes of educators, and community fears about Hispanic youth. (Contains 116 references.) (SV)

This report discusses the outcomes of a project that examined the acquisition of reading and writing skills in 135 children with deafness or who are hard of hearing. Eighty-three of the children attended a state-sponsored residential school and 52 attended a local school district program where students with deafness or who are hard of hearing are educated in special self-contained classrooms. Studies 1 and 2 examined reading achievement in two age-matched groups of these students in two school settings. These studies included a review of institutional variables of the settings where the students received their schooling and analyses of associations between the students' performance and these institutional variables. Studies 3 through 6 examined instructional strategies employed by teachers who use different modes of communication during reading and writing instruction in two distinct settings. Results found: (1) the proportion of students with deaf parents in the residential setting was nearly five times higher than that in the public setting; (2) ages of detection and of first educational contact were higher for students attending public school; and (3) three variables that correlated with reading achievement were parents with deafness, age of detection, and length of time in school. Other findings are also discussed. (CR)

Grade 3 and grade 4 classrooms in a California bilingual Spanish/English environment were studied. In the first study, reading lessons were observed and analyzed in a bilingual classroom. Using the analysis of this experience, in the second study a series of theory-driven experimental interventions were initiated. It was found that the achievement of Spanish language dominant students in English language lessons is underestimated. However, it is possible to reorganize these same lessons to advance the students' academic performance. Some of the student selection and placement procedures used in bilingual education programs make it difficult for teachers and students to take full advantage of their respective skills and resources. Similarly, it is possible to reformulate these procedures in a way that goes beyond reliance on English language proficiency assessments. Teaching situations should be based on the children's oral skills in English and their reading skills in Spanish. For monolingual Spanish students, reading lessons should be initiated in Spanish only when instruction in English as a second language is begun. It is vital that the teacher be bilingual for all of these program interventions, or that a bilingual teacher's aide be present to assist a monolingual teacher. (RW)

The Education for All Handicapped Students Act (PL 94-142) mandates a referral process for learning disabled or educationally handicapped students. To see how a local agency implemented the federal law, and to describe institutional decision making in general, the day-to-day decision making activities of educators in a California elementary school as they made evaluative decisions about referring students to special education programs were studied. Detailed data were gathered by field observation, review of reports, interviewing, and videotaping key decision making events. The interaction of teachers with referred and nonreferred students was also compared. Results showed that there was considerable variability in the behavior of referred students but consistency in teachers' accounts of students' behavior. "Normal" and many different types of special students were described in similar terms. An examination of school psychologists' diagnostic practices found students' performance on psychological tests were collaboratively produced between testers and students. Analyses of district level placement committees showed that the full range of placement possibilities was not discussed. Results suggest that school districts are organized to implement standard practices rather than make systematic choices from a range of alternatives. The report includes a section on policy implications of the study, references, a summary of psychological and educational tests administered, and an explanation of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised). (JAC)

This ethnographic, longitudinal study investigates the home literacy experiences of low income children to gain insight into why such children generally do not learn to read and write as well as middle class children. Participating were 24 children, approximately 2.5 to 3.5 years of age, in groups equally divided by sex. Subjects were from three ethnic groups: Anglo-, Black-, and Mexican-American. To identify the sources of those life experiences leading to the development of literacy, extensive naturalistic home observations were made for periods ranging from 3 to 18 months. Observer-participants taking field notes described literacy events, specifically focusing on actions, the contexts of events, participants, co-occurring/alternating events, reasons events ended, and subsequent activities. Over 1,400 literacy events were recorded and analyzed; both qualitative and quantitative analyses were made. In the quantitative analysis, the independent variable was ethnicity. The literacy event, the original dependent variable, was differentiated into two quantitative and three qualitative components. Quantitative components included duration and frequency of literacy events; qualitative components were participant structure, lesson content, and context. Many transcriptions of literacy events are provided in the text, and results and their implications are extensively discussed. A coding manual, the Literacy Event Observation System, is appended. (RH)

A study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Classic Theatre" course, a series of televised plays and play previews, offered for credit by 275 two- and four-year colleges throughout the country. Criteria used in evaluation were the participant institutions' attitude toward and utilization of course materials and prescribed format, response to the course by students, and indications from both schools and students of further interest in televised presentations of humanities materials. Participating institutions, students, and faculty were surveyed to provide necessary data. Additionally, seven schools were chosen for in-depth study and analysis. Results of the study indicated: (1) faculty/administrators gave a positive evaluation of the course, felt the course textbooks were helpful and well-integrated, although occasionally too demanding of introductory-level students; (2) television was considered to be an effective mode for presentation of humanities materials to the public; (3) very little uniformity in course standards and requirements existed between institutions; (4) although students had generally not previously taken a televised course or a drama/literature course, the majority were approving; and (5) faculty members, students, and administrators gave strong support for future television courses in humanities and other curricula. Study-related materials are appended. (JDS)

Presented is a general overview and summary of the 1974-1975 Sea Grant Program activities and research. Included are marine advisory services, education, coastal resources, aquaculture, fisheries, new marine products, and energy resources. (SL)

The Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services (OASIS) at the University of California, San Diego administers an Instructional Materials Development Program. An overview of the program is presented along with a description of the product development/evaluation cycle. Program evaluation is generic to this process, since several formative evaluation steps are intrinsic to the product development cycle. The OASIS Orientation Program is used to illustrate the application of the product development cycle to a particular project, and evaluation data that was gathered in the process is presented. Summaries of progress are presented for the projects producing self-instructional modules for note-taking instruction. A description of the development of the OASIS media playback center is also provided. (Author/JMF)

Black female, Chicano female, Asian female and total female enrollment representations as well as total Black, total Chicano and total Asian enrollment representations were determined for undergraduate major areas at seven University of California campuses. The number of mathematics courses required for each major was also determined from the catalog for each campus. Significant negative correlations were found between the number of math courses required for majors and the representation of each female group and total group in the major except Asians. A significant positive correlation was found for all Asians while no significant correlation was found for Asian females. Implications for increasing the representation of women and minorities in professional and academic careers are discussed. (Author)

The results of an evaluation of the Provost's Tutorial Fellowship Program (PTFP), the Tutorial Clinics and an interpersonal communications skills workshop are presented along with recommendations for change. The PTFP met its three objectives: Over 90 percent of the tutees who received a letter grade passed the course (objective 1). A formal system for gathering noncognitive data on tutees was instituted (objective 2). Tutors received positive ratings from tutees (objective 3). The Clinics also met their objectives by being able to meet requests for assistance from more than 10 percent of the enrollment in lower division chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses. (Author)

This study investigated the long term effects of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) method at the University of California, San Diego. Groups of 139 and 137 undergraduate students took three physics courses taught by either the PSI method or the lecture/discussion method. Students from these groups were compared in two subsequent chemistry courses and a subsequent biology course. The chemistry and biology courses were taught using lectures and discussion sections. The PSI group achieved significantly higher grades in both the physics courses and the subsequent courses. The fact that the PSI students achieved higher grades in the subsequent lecture courses seems to indicate that they were not at a disadvantaged because of the earlier PSI courses. The junior year major area grades of students who majored in applied mathematics and engineering sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics were also compared. In each case, the PSI group achieved significantly higher grades. For each comparison, the mean high school grade point average, SAT scores, and freshman university grade point average were used to verify that no selected attrition had occurred. (Author/RC)

Presented in this publication are summaries of projects in advisory services, coastal zone studies, fisheries and aquaculture, marine products, and ocean engineering. A listing of publications and an activity budget are included. The Annual Report for 1973-1974 is intended to be a general overview of the total activities of the Sea Grant Program which supported projects that involved the services of 271 people, including graduate and undergraduate students from seven University of California campuses, a state university, a major state university laboratory and at a private university. (Author/EB)

This report is the first in a two-part series introducing an interactive activation model of context effects in perception. A model for the perception of letters in words and other contexts is described and applied to a number of experiments. It is proposed that the model accounts for (1) the perceptual advantage for letters in words compared to single letters and letters in unrelated strings, (2) the basic findings on the perception of pronounceable nonwords as well as words, (3) the role of masking in determining the magnitude of the various effects, (4) the fact that expectations influence perception of letters in words, and (5) the fact that effects of contextual constraint and letter cluster frequency are obtained under some conditions and not others. (Author/AEA)

In an investigation into the process of retrieval from very long term memory, four subjects who had been out of high school from 4 to 19 years were asked to think aloud while attempting to recall the names of their high school classmates. The retrievals were found to be characterized by overshoot, systematic hypothesizing, fabrications, the establishment of search contexts, self-corrections, and the use of a number of basic search strategies. These phenomena, as well as an array of traditional memory phenomena, can be understood on the basis of an interpretation of retrieval as a reconstructive problem solving process. Information about the target item is used to construct a description of some aspect of the item, which is used to recover a new fragment of information about the item; from this information a new description can be formed to retrieve still more information, and so on until the piece of information sought is recovered. Three subprocesses may be identified: finding a context for the search, searching, and verifying that what has been recovered is about the target item. (Author/GW)

The schema theory of comprehension as it relates to understanding while reading is reviewed in this report. Several techniques for the study of on-line measurement of comprehension are described that are based on a series of ten stories, each with two versions. The report notes that when subjects were asked to generate interpretations of stories while reading a story line-by-line, they hypothesized about the possible contents of the story and evaluated those hypotheses against the sentences as they read; if they found the new information confirmatory they maintained and further elaborated their hypotheses; and if they found the new information disconfirmatory they eliminated the hypotheses and constructed another consistent with the data. Also, the report notes that reading time measurements conducted on-line appeared to confirm the theory-generating view. The report concludes (1) that in order to understand the comprehension process a detailed description of the schemata that readers have available as well as an account of the conditions under which certain of these schemata are activated is needed, since there is a tremendous amount of knowledge brought to bear on even the simplest story comprehension task, and (2) that the process of comprehension is very much like the process of constructing a theory. (MKM)

This directory provides descriptions of marine academic programs in California's community colleges, 4-year private colleges and universities, and 4-year public colleges and universities. Each program listing (by institution) includes; (1) program title corresponding to official degree title; (2) degree(s) offered; (3) descriptive information gathered from 1978-79 general college catalogs, program brochures, and telephone interviews; (4) number of graduate and undergraduate marine science or marine science-related courses offered by the degree-sponsoring institution; (5) number of faculty; (6) description of research facilities; and (7) name, address, and telephone number of contact person. Two tables and one chart are included. Tables list those 2- and 4-year institutions with marine research affiliations (marine stations, centers, institutes, or laboratories complementing an institution's marine science program). The chart identifies each 4-year public and private institution that offers a degree program in marine science, listing private institutions first with public institutions following. (Author/JN)

The paper describes research examining the interrelationships among cognitive, linguistic, and social development in a sample of dysphasic children (having severe linguistic problems disproportionate to cognitive abilities) using microprocessors as a special diagnostic and training environment. Two studies are described; the first (the Comparison Study) examined problem solving, social skills, and linguistic performance of eight dysphasic and eight normal 8- to 10-year-olds on diagnostic and computer-based tasks. Ss worked on computer games in cooperative and didactic sessions. The performance of dysphasic Ss was lower on almost all measures. In the second study (the Training Study), the dysphasic Ss were given training in problem solving on computers. With small amounts of training, the performance of dysphasic Ss resembled that of the control group. The results of both studies suggest that students' educational history can result in the development of secondary deficits. Lower performance is not always a property of individual deficits, but occurs within a system of interrelated activities. Among educational implications discussed are ways to draw the children into educational experiences, in part by redirecting their metacognitive skills from task avoidance to task analysis; considerations in grouping children with language problems; and the role of computers in education. (CL)

An alternative to the standard "rule based" account of a child's acquisition of the past tense in English is presented in this paper. While the rule based assumption suggests that children typically pass through a three-phase acquisition process in which they first learn past tense by rote, then learn the past tense rule and overregularize, and then finally learn the exceptions to the rule, this paper argues that the acquisition data can be accounted for in more detail by dispensing with the assumption and substituting in its place a simple homogeneous learning procedure. The paper shows how "rule-like" behavior can emerge from the interactions among a network of units encoding the root form to past tense mapping. The paper concludes with the observation that a large computer simulation of the learning process demonstrates the operating rules of this alternative account, shows how details of the acquisition process not captured by the rule account emerge, and makes predictions about other details of the acquisition process not yet observed. A description of a binding network for converting the computer representation to a phonological representation is appended. (Author/HOD)

This report describes a curriculum development program designed to address three problems associated with computer use in the schools: underutilization of the computer capabilities by overemphasis on basic skills instruction; stratified access to computers, or inequitable access based on race, sex, or income; and emphasis on teaching computer programming when the skills needed for the workplace are much more diverse. This project involved the systematic introduction of computer curricula in language arts and mathematics to students in grades 2-6. One classroom was part of a designated bilingual program, two others had a number of students who spoke Spanish as a first language, and one was designated as a Chapter 1 classroom. The report is presented in nine chapters: (1)"Introduction" (Hugh Mehan); (2) "The Classrooms" (Marcia Boruta, Ann Marie Newcombe, Marti tum Suden, and Christina Drale); (3) "Microcomputers and Classroom Organization: Some Mutual Influences" (Hugh Mehan); (4) "Some Cognitive and Social Benefits of Peer Interaction on Computers" (Hugh Mehan, Nick Maroules, and Christina Drale); (5) "A Holistic Approach to Computer Literacy" (Hugh Mehan, Margaret M. Riel, Marcia Boruta, Christina Drale, Nick Maroules, and Kim Whooley); (6) "Functional Learning Environments for Writing" (Margaret M. Riel); (7) "Computer Activities in a Bilingual Setting" (Luis C. Moll and Ann Marie Newcombe); (8) "Teaching Problem Solving Strategies" (Marti tum Suden and Robert Rowe); and (9) "Summary and Conclusions" (Hugh Mehan, Luis Moll, and Margaret M. Riel). The text is supplemented by 25 tables, 151 figures, and 103 references. Two appendices contain guidelines for selecting prompts and rubrics for use in teaching writing and a functional computer literacy test. (EW)

The traditional explanation for dual-task interference is that tasks compete for scarce processing resources. Another possible explanation is that the outcome of the processing required for one task conflicts with the processing required for the other task. To explore the contribution of outcome conflict to task interference, this paper describes two experiments with college undergraduates that manipulate the relatedness of tasks. Experiment 1 found that the difficulty of the individual tasks is not the only determinant of how much they will interfere when combined, and that there must be substantial interactions between processes carrying out the two tasks. Experiment 2 found that although between-category search was more efficient than within-category search in single tasks, it was less efficient in dual tasks. There appears to be significant task interactions due to the confusability emerging when the nontargets of one task belong to the same category as the targets of the concurrent task. In addition, the congruence of target presence or absence on the two channels was found to have a sizeable effect. Four potential sources of outcome conflict are discussed. (Author/PN)