The juvenile justice system is society's response to juvenile misconduct. In spite of numerous federal, state, and local programs, the problem of juvenile delinquency persists. An increasing number of juveniles are being taken into custody and placed in institutional settings. Although juvenile delinquents share a number of common general characteristics (e.g., sex, minority, lower socioeconomic status, a history of school failure), they are not a homogeneous group. Effective educational interventions with delinquent juveniles can meet their unique academic, vocational, and social skills deficits. Handicapped juveniles are disproportionately represented among juvenile correctional facility populations. The identification of handicapped juveniles among delinquent populations is compounded as they share many of the same general characteristics. Federal statutes require individualized educational programs for all handicapped juveniles. This research investigated academic, behavioral, and social competencies of non-handicapped and handicapped adjudicated youth. Specifically, this investigation assessed measures of academic performance, classroom behavior, self-esteem, and social behavior. ANOVA indicated statistically significant differences between non-handicapped, learning disabled, and emotionally/behaviorally disordered adjudicated juveniles in reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and teacher generated measures of classroom behavior.

The purpose of this study was to construct portrayals of teachers7 work conceptions in various career stages from the stories they told and the metaphors they used to describe the ways in which teachers learned about their work. Specifically, the study included preservice teachers, first-year teachers, third-year teachers, and teachers with more than four years of teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school levels. Thirty-five elementary and secondary school teachers from the North-Central area of Texas participated in this study (nineteen inservice and sixteen preservice teachers). Qualitative techniques were employed to collect data. The preservice teachers filled out a questionnaire and wrote short stories about their preconceptions of their first year of teaching. Inservice teachers were interviewed using a short questionnaire and a long interview schedule. Nine inservice teachers participated in a storytelling workshop/focus group session. Group stories based on predetermined scenarios were constructed, tape-recorded and transcribed. The focus group session was videotaped and transcribed. Fifteen categories emerged from the analysis of the data: cyclical, ritualized, hierarchical, reciprocal, developmental, experiential, reflective, cumulative, body of knowledge, folkloric, individualized/personalized, order/control/manage, disciplinarian, facilitative, and replicative. These categories represent a summary of the constructs, images, contextual maps and metaphors held by these teachers …