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A survey of volunteer firefighters in five states shows that volunteer firefighters, while predominantly white males, come from a wide variety of occupational backgrounds. Most say that this is their major volunteer role and that they are firmly committed to it. The author relates characteristics of fire departments to volunteers and draws implications for the further elaboration of this voluntary role.

This study of 40 adolescents with visual impairments and 23 of their best friends found that adolescents with visual impairments are successful in establishing and maintaining reciprocal, intimate best friendships. The friends engaged in activities together that were typical of adolescents without disabilities. Although some participants stated that the visual impairments affected the activities the friends could do together, they also noted that these limitations did not have a strong negative impact on their friendships.

This study has two purposes: (1) to document and analyze the centralization phenomena in China's higher education system and (2) to make suggestions to improve or modify the centralization of China's higher education system in light of the documentation and analysis. A major outcome of this study is an analysis of telephone interviews and secondary documents, and four recommendations are derived from this analysis. In this study four research questions have been investigated: (1) What relationship exists between the government and individual colleges or universities? What should this relationship be? (2) What kind of relationship exists between the Party committee and the university administration, especially the relationship between the university president and Party committee? What should this relationship be? (3) How much autonomy should the colleges and universities possess? (4) How should higher education institutions move from the centralization planning economy and adapt themselves to the market economy? Two methods have been employed in this study: secondary document analysis and telephone interviewing. The secondary analysis consists of information collection in both Chinese and American libraries, information evaluation, categorization, and analysis. The telephone interviewing has been used to strengthen secondary analysis. The interviews were conducted with 15 Chinese scholars who were studying in the U.S. at the time and who have either worked in China's higher education system for more than ten years or have assumed some administrative responsibilities above the department level in that system. The major findings of the telephone interviews and secondary analysis lead to the conclusion that the higher education system in present China is highly centralized and, according to the consensus viewpoint, should be decentralized in light of the four recommendations made in this study. ; Ph. D.

This study examined the vocational education programs at residential schools for the deaf to find out what adjustments they have made to help high school students prepare for future employment, as well as to assess the status and some of the trends affecting the programs from 1980 through 1987. This study also attempted to determine what schools plan for the next five years (1988 through 1992). Additionally, the study looked at residential schools' student populations to assess the extent of mainstreaming of deaf residential school students into public schools and the reverse mainstreaming of hearing students into residential schools. Finally, the study attempted to identify what actions, if any, residential schools are undertaking in their vocational programs to meet changing enrollment patterns and other education trends in employment and technology.