This book reports on a study undertaken to explore the adoption by U.S. middle schools of key practices recommended by the 1989 Turning Points report by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. Three questions were examined: (1) To what extent have the organizational practices identified by research to impact the development of “small learning communities” been adopted by U.S. middle schools? (2) To what extent do the instructional practices of U.S. middle school teachers reflect developmentally responsive or traditional/bureaucratic methods?, and (3) Do the instructional practices of U.S. middle school teachers differ between those who teach in schools with developmentally responsive organizational practices and those who teach in schools with more traditional/bureaucratic organizational practices? National data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics through the 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey were extracted for this study. A...