Academic institutions document their rhetoric through the written communications that show up in faculty mailboxes. Much of what arrives serves to remind faculty of what needs to be done to participate in the events and decision-making processes of the institution. The mail encountered by graduate students also reflects hierarchical power inherent…

Teachers' attempts to establish and maintain authority in their classrooms give rise to one of the essential tensions of teaching: reconciling caring and controlling. This paper examines sociopolitical questions about the nature of classroom authority and the uses of power to understand this tension. The first part presents an overview of the…

A writing teacher, troubled by the hierarchical, authoritarian design of his courses, restructured his writing classes to alter the dynamics of authority in the classroom. The idea was rooted both in Paulo Freire's writings and in the simple notion that students should be designing their own writing tasks. First, students brainstormed possible…

While studies by Stanley Milgram have shown that obedience to authority influences subjects' willingness to engage in behavior potentially harmful to others, Drout and Vandler (1992) found that observers consider an authority figure who harms or commands another person to harm someone more responsible and punishable than the obedient subordinate.…

According to Strong and Matross (1973), a counselor's main sources of influencing the client's behavior are expert, referent, and legitimate power bases. To date, the only studies examining the differential preference of counselors for interpersonal power bases have focused on preference as a function of counselor gender, counselor level of…

Perceived control is becoming an increasingly popular topic in the literature of communication. Intriguing evidence exists to suggest that the key to understanding the role of locus of control in the interpersonal encounter lies in appreciating the enthymematic nature of human interaction and the role of perceived control in this enthymematic…

An in-depth examination of restructuring is provided in this policy brief, which shows how the meaning of "restructuring" changes according to the setting and participants involved. After a review of the current context of the restructuring movement, different types of reform efforts are described, which include restructuring of…

This paper presents a critical analysis of the forms of constructivism that owe their origin either directly or indirectly to Piaget's theory. The paper is organized into three sections. The first provides a brief synopsis of the structuralist assumptions underlying Piagetian theory and then demonstrates the ways in which these assumptions…

Communication technology (CT), which involves the use of computers in private and group communication, has had a major impact on theory and research in organizational communication over the past 30 years. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, mainframe computers were seen as managerial tools in creating more centralized organizational structures.…

The status of women in college and employment, the attitudes of mature-age alumni, individualized instruction, unsuccessful innovations, and grading are addressed in five articles in this issue of an Australian journal. "Women in Advanced Education, Advancement for Whom?" (Jan Craney, Carol O'Donnell) cites evidence to indicate that the…

The implications for nursing education of the fact that nursing started as a woman's occupation in a field dominated by the male physician are considered. Although in 1873 nursing represented a real educational opportunity for large numbers of women, none of the prestigious women's colleges were interested in educating women for careers. In the…

Suggests that power may be a better ally for the social reformer than logic. There seems to be little chance that the majority will recognize the claims of the exploited minorities unless they can amass enough power to enforce their demands. The powerful are seen to generate philosophies to justify the most unequal of outcomes. (Author/AM)

Attempts to show conceptually that the continued poverty of the black community is a result of the persistence of an overall environment that keeps black people in subjugation, developing a framework identifying the quantitative and qualitative nature of the environment, and discussing various aspects of the economic conditions of black people.…

The pressures for accountability and collective bargaining will formally and forcefully alter the existing informal balance of power relationship between the structures of official law and policy on the one hand and the informal structure of teacher professionalism and colleagueship on the other. (Author/IRT)

Three samples of graduating students, drawn from engineering, education, and social sciences, were tested before and after a period of full-time employment for changes in attitudes toward authority. The hypothesis that negative attitudes would decline and submissive responses would increase for subjects making the transition from university to…