In this paper the 'subjective consciousness' of 'Bettina' (who begins from a place of self-conscious obedience to the edict that teachers should always 'speak proper English' and battles cognitive dissonance as she attempts to use the students' home language, Jamaican Creole as the medium of instruction) is interwoven with the subjective consciousness of students participating in her JC/SJE bilingual project. This dialogue of perspectives exposes some of the complexities of the classroom as sociolinguistic and emotional psychological space.

The introduction of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), which has taken the place of the A-level examinations set by and for British institutions, was a logical step in the process of decolonization of educational practices in the officially English-speaking Caribbean. It also offered an opportunity to base curricular and examination practices in local realities. The CAPE syllabus for “Communication Studies'' very clearly aims to do so.

The current study explores the racial and linguistic self-concept of 138 children between the ages of 5 and 10 years, enrolled in a poor, urban, Jamaican government school. In Jamaica, studies into the racial self-concept of adults have been conducted since as early as 1952 (Kerr); however no study into the development of racial and linguistic self-concept in Jamaican children has yet been documented.

The Jamaican linguistic map is a very complex one. Many scholars who have contributed to our understanding of this map present it as a continuum linking two extremes: Standard Jamaican English (SJE) and Jamaican Creole (JC). Between these two extremes, many Jamaican speakers produce variations which lean in either direction, depending on their level of socialization. Unfortunately, the writings of the scholars are often too technical, inaccessible and of little use to the average Jamai can.

Although the official language of Trinidad is English, the vast majority of the population speaks Trinidadian English Creole (TEC) as a first or sole language. Varieties of international standard English, standard Trinidadian English, and TEC, overlap in areas of lexicon, phonology and grammar, but TEC has a basically different grammatical system not always recognized as distinct because of superficial formal similarities (Carrington [7], Solomon [27], Winford [30]).

That school children should be seen and not heard seems a commonly held view among school administrators and researchers. This paper reports on children's views of various aspects of school organisation and administration and their suggestions for change within schools. The views expressed by these children indicate that administrators are failing to avail themselves of a valuable asset in problem-solving in school administration and organisation. The paper also discusses the implications of the children's views for school administration.

One of the outgrowths of the human capital revolution of the early 1960s (see Bowman [13], Schultz [40] and Becker [4]) was the vocation aliasing of curricula. From the standpoint of the third world, this seemed a timely development in that many of the emerging post-colonial societies had inherited education systems which, according to Eric Williams [48], "showed an almost total absence of any approximation to the technical and vocational” (p. 250).

Until recently the West Indian islands have been utilizing curricula developed in other countries. In the late sixties a few islands began to develop their own curricula. The pressure of demand from the new secondary schools for the immediate provision of material led to the rapid and efficient production of detailed curriculum guides but often precluded any fundamental study of the way children in the schools actually think.

This study addresses the issue of equality of opportunity in Trinidad and Tobago. It examines (1) the social-class background of students attending two types of secondary schools and (2) differences between the two types of secondary school regarding students' self-concepts, attitude toward technical and academic forms of education and educational and occupational expectations.

After Trinidad and Tobago gained independence in 1962, noticeable changes began to take place in the Education System. An important aim of these changes was to increase educational opportunities by providing greater access to secondary education. A conscious effort was set in train, therefore, to expand and transform the education system. Changes in the system which began after the attainment of statehood greatly accelerated in the seventies thanks to considerably increased revenues from the oil windfall.