The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes and judgments of public school superintendents in the State of Indiana in regard to the public school system and early childhood programs. Early childhood education was defined as: parent education for parents of young children, nursery school (prekindergarten) for children of ages three and four, kindergarten for five year olds, and day care programs for children.A questionnaire containing forty-five items was developed and refined with the aid of the Northeastern Indiana School Study Council serving as the pilot study group. A questionnaire was sent to all 289 superintendents of public school corporations in Indiana. Two hundred five, or 71 per cent of the superintendents replied to the questionnaire. The data were analyzed and reported as raw numbers, percentages, and totals.Major findings included:1. Approximately 51 per cent of the superintendents indicated the present educational services available to all three, four, and five year old children were not adequate in the school districts represented.2. Approximately 80 per cent of the schools did not provide educational programs for adults relating to the role of the parent.3. Approximately 78 per cent of the superintendents strongly agreed the early childhood programs should have been concerned about all aspects of a young child's development.4. Over 95 per cent of the responding superintendents indicated strong agreement or agreement that the family had the primary responsibility and the rest of society had a supplemental responsibility for providing adequate health, education, and care of young children.5. Approximately 64 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed that teaching people ways to be better parents was an educational need in the community.6. Approximately 63 per cent of the superintendents disagreed that day care and nursery school programs in the community might have been best provided by the public school.7. Approximately 97 per cent of the superintendents strongly agreed or agreed the availability of revenue for financing programs for young children was limited.8. Approximately 87 per cent of the superintendents expressed agreement that an enriched experience in a planned educational program was important to a young child's development.9. A total of approximately 63 per cent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed early childhood services could be effective when delivered through the public school system.10. Approximately 57 per cent of the responding superintendents disagreed or strongly disagreed that the nursery school for three and four year old children should have been operated as an integral part of elementary education in the public schools.Conclusions were:1. Early childhood programs, outside the home,were a need in the State of Indiana. Kindergarten programs were not available for all five year old children. The educational needs for all three, four, and five year old children were not being adequately met.2. A program teaching high school students and adults how to be competent parents was a need in the State of Indiana. A t the same time competency as a parent was judged to be an important element for the provision of meaningful experience in a young child's life.3. Approximately 75 per cent of the superintendent's attitudes and judgments concerning the philosophy of early childhood development was in agreement with the review of research and related literature.4. Superintendents expressed agreement that a planned educational program was important in a young child's development and the public schools could effectively deliver the early childhood services. However, over one-half of the superintendents expressed disagreement that the have been operated as an integral part of elementary educational programs for three and four year old children should be operated in the public schools.

Zugl.: München, Univ., Diplomarbeit, 2006

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1991. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-216).

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Audrey Goodman, committee chair; Thomas McHaney, Chris Kocela, committee members. Electronic text (84 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed June 19, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 82-84).

This thesis is a study of John Steinbeck's observations and opinions during twenty-eight years of writing about the relationships between people of difference economics and social classes.

The purpose of this thesis, if with respect only to the short fiction, will be to provide some measure of resurrection for a much-ignored and much-maligned talent. Scholarly interest in John Steinbeck has been distinctly minimal and even his admirers admit his artistic decline of recent years. Unlike the attention lavished upon his illustrious contemporaries, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, the number of major critical surveys of Steinbeck's works can be counted upon the fingers of one's hand. It has been customary to regard Hemingway and Faulkner, usually in company with F. Scott Fitzgerald, as titans, while John Steinbeck's, cast as a johnny-come-lately, tends to be regarded as a dwarf among mammoths, an intruder among the immortals. Even those critics who, like so many readers, have enjoyed the gifted storytelling of the man, whose intentions are kind, and who come to praise, often stay, in the word of F. W. Watt, "to damn, or at least to remonstrate with the author on the theme of artistic seriousness and moral responsibility."2 Steinbeck is peculiarly annoying to his friends for the precise reason that many of his party have expected much more from him than he was perhaps able or capable of giving, especially after his departure from California. Certainly one of the most popular and repeated criticisms is that Steinbeck has never lived up to his potential, that he has never lived up to the promise he displayed in his "golden age" of the 'thirties, and that far greater things should have come from him to sustain a critical reputation which has suffered, especially in the post-war years, a steepening decline. Such indictments ignore the fact that by 1945 the expatriate and the southerner, like the man of the West, had already written the bes of what was within them. Thereafter, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck continued to write; but what they wrote, most agree, was not the measure of what had gone before.

No description available.

No description available.

In recent years, the concept of monstrosity has received renewed attention by literary critics. Much of this criticism has focused on horror texts and other texts that depict supernatural monsters. However, the way that monster theory explores the connection between specific cultures and their monsters illuminates not only our understanding of horror texts, but also our understanding of any significant cultural artwork. Applying monster theory to non-horror texts is a useful and productive way to more fully understand the cultural fears of a society. One text that is particularly fruitful to explore in this context is John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, East of Eden. The personification of evil in the text is one of the most memorable monsters in 20th century American literature—Cathy Ames Trask. Described by the narrator as a monster from birth, Cathy haunts the text. She rejects any and all attempts to force her to behave in socially acceptable ways. Cathy refuses to abide by the roles that mid-century American culture assigned to women, particularly the roles of wife and mother. Feminist theorists have often examined Cathy’s character in this context, although many of them emphasize Steinbeck’s personal misogyny. While Steinbeck’s personal fears have clearly formed the basis of Cathy’s character, the concept of the monster extends beyond idiosyncratic fears. Monster theory, through its emphasis on the particular cultural moment of the monster, allows for a broader understanding of cultural fears. Although the description of Cathy in the text connects her to a long tradition of female monsters, including Lilith and the Siren, Steinbeck’s characterization of the monstrous woman focuses on specific mid-century American cultural fears. The most significant of these cultural fears are those of emasculation and the potential flexibility of gender roles. These fears have often been associated with the feminine monster, but they became a crucial part of postwar American cultural discourse. The character of Cathy Trask, while exhibiting many traits that have been assigned to female monsters during the course of Western history, is essentially a 20th century American monster, one who encapsulates the fears of midcentury American men faced with rapidly changing gender roles and boundaries. The creation of such a horrifyingly monstrous woman, one that continues to haunt the reader even after her eventual de-monstration, testifies to the intense cultural anxiety about gender roles, particularly in the context of the heterosexual nuclear family, present in post-World War II America. This anxiety is dealt with in the figure of the monster Cathy, who represents forbidden desires and is then punished for those desires; her eventual demise reinforces the culturally patriarchal social structure and serves as a warning against transgressive gender behavior.

John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men explores themes of morality and masculinity through its many male characters. With the use of hegemonic masculinity theory, this essay analyzes how different elements of masculinity are characterized, constructed, and valued in relation to one another. Masculinity is defined by a utilitarian sense of purpose, systematic loss, and homosocial desire in Of Mice and Men. The men in this novella yearn for connection and meaning, in contrast to the inevitable nature of violence presented in the novella. Ending the life of an animal or a man that has lost its purpose is considered a compassionate and unavoidable act. In this way, hegemonic masculinity in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice in Men is defined by a duality of homosocial desire and utilitarian violence.