JOURNAL OF EDUCATION
Year:2007 | Volume:23 | Issue:2 (90)|Papers Count:7

The purpose of this paper is to show the role of emotional intelligence in education. The traditional system of education stresses the cognitive dimension while ignoring the social and affective dimensions. It seems worthwhile to ponder upon the role that emotional intelligence plays in explaining the social and affective factors. The necessity of using emotional intelligence in the educational process can be shown by answering the following questions: Can we use emotional intelligence in order to improve educational process? Can the emotional intelligence be utilized as a useful guide in gaining life skills, and also as a criterion for measuring and improving students' reactions toward life events, especially during the sensitive years of spent in school? Can the El be used for creating an environment within which motivation to learn and to connect to others is more facilitated? And finally, if students can achieve affective competency through emotional intelligence, can we hope a better future for them by planning for their psychological wellbeing?

Hidden curriculum refers to the values, interests, norms, and attitudes that are learned indirectly by students and through the cultural environment of the school. In order to identify the norms and attitudes related to the scientific spirit, interviews and observations were conducted in three guidance schools for girls in the city of Tabreez. Results show that students, along the regular curriculum, learn things that stand in opposition to the development of a scientific attitude. These include development and reinforcement of the spirit of obedience and imitation rather than curiosity and creativity as well as passivity and fear instead of active enquiry and critical thinking. Students also learn to compete negatively over grades instead of cooperation and group participation.

To determine the differences in classroom behaviors of the third graders whose school performance was evaluated either traditionally or descriptively, a sample of 103 students were cluster sampled, 49 of whom were evaluated descriptively. Instruments uses were the Alice Pope's self esteem questionnaire and an observation list covering classroom behaviors. Results show that there is a significant difference in self esteem between the two groups of students despite their gender. However, gender played a significant role when comparing the sub-scales of academic and physical self esteem of the two main groups of students. The observational data also reveal that the class room activity is much greater among students who were evaluated descriptively. However, they lagged in discipline; just as the boys did compared to girls.

Awareness of the special status of different educational systems and their role in the socio-political developments of the recent decade, has caused the field of comparative education to be one of the most dynamic scientific fields in many countries. There are more than thirty national associations, under the auspices of the international association of comparative education that are active today. In Iran the trend seems to be reverse and increasingly less attention is paid to this field despite the fact that there is a master's program in this field and a master's level course that is offered at many universities. The present paper, following a brief history of the comparative education field, gives a portrayal of the current trends and thoughts governing the field. These trends have brought about a new outlook towards the field based on the socio-political developments during the past two decades.

Evaluation of the quality of the school performance requires a comprehensive and objective set of indices. In this paper, using the CIPP model, quality evaluation indices for school performance are identified and validated. The research was conducted with the help of elementary and guidance schools' head masters and experts in elementary and guidance education across the nineteen school districts in Tehran. A sample of 329 individuals was randomly selected and then given a researcher- made questionnaire in which likert scales were used. The reliability of this instrument was determined to be 0.88. Factor analysis and the orthogonal rotation of the factors yielded ten factors including the input factor consisting of the budget, physical space and facilities, library, and instructional material and instruments, the process factor consisting things like teacher and student activity, administrative affairs, teaching-learning strategies, etc., and the out put factor consisting of the school earned competencies of the graduates.

School library, at all levels, is a fundamental element in the educational process. School library is a lively and dynamic place wherein the process of identification, collection, organization, and distribution of information takes place and is managed. Managing information is one of the necessary skills of a librarian in the process of managing knowledge. Information consultant or te librarian is a chain link between the students and teachers. The librarian facilitates accessing information in an appropriate length of time by selecting appropriate sources and creating organized collections. Te active role of the library and the librarian in transferring organized information makes it necessary that these factors be attended to. In this paper the status of library and librarian in Iranian educational system is reviewed.