Philip Rieff, who died on July 1, 2006, will be remembered as a most unusual and brilliant cultural critic, theorist of culture, and prophet of cultural doom. This essay is written neither to extol nor to attack him--though there will be some of each--but mainly to reflect on some larger issues raised by his works. The occasion for the essay is…

This article examines the self-presentation goals that underlie attraction to organizations. Expanding on Lievens and Highhouse's (2003) instrumental vs. symbolic classification of corporate attributes, a theory of symbolic attraction is presented that posits social-identity consciousness as a moderator of the relation between symbolic inferences…

Professors may be among the most highly educated members of society, but when it comes to negotiating their daily professional relationships, they sometimes seem to check their intelligence at the door. Ostensibly the bastion of reasoned and collegial discourse, academe is often plagued by inexcusably rude behavior that is the opposite of…

At North Dakota State University, only 10 of 156 full professors are female. This places the university near the bottom of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)'s report ranking 1,445 institutions on the basis of what proportion of their tenured faculty members are female. At a time when recruiting women has become a top…

Today, college quality rankings in news magazines and guidebooks are a big business with tangible impacts on the operation of higher education institutions. The college rankings published annually by "U.S. News and World Report" ("U.S. News") are so influential that Don Hossler of Indiana University derisively claims that higher education is the…

With the exception of academics, occupational groups within universities remain relatively under-researched. Based upon qualitative interviews with 27 research administrators in 19 UK universities, this article reports on a small-scale qualitative project to investigate the workday worlds of these "boundary-crossing" and…

Even with President Barack Obama's promises to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and withdraw troops from Iraq, the subject of torture keeps making the news. With all that detainees have had to endure during their incarcerations--the recent memos detail stress positions, cramped confinement, and waterboarding, among other tactics--perhaps…

664 relatively low achieving first grade children were recruited into a longitudinal study. Measures of peer academic reputation (PAR), peer acceptance, teacher-rated academic engagement and achievement, and reading and math achievement were obtained in Year 2, when the majority of students were in second grade, and 1 year later. Measures of…

This paper discusses conceptions of identity in relation to science education and presents material from a series of interviews and focus groups with graduate students in science and technology. Given difficulties in retention and levels of significant participation by minority students indicated by aggregate data, the issue of race, as it informs…

This study portrays the present social trends of the educational system against the background of the transformation of the social institutions that emerge as a result of the general changes to the social paradigm. These transformations have a direct impact on questions over classical humanistic ideals and educational goals relating to the social…

The crisis in higher education is about more than money. It is about what one has been paying for, paying for dearly. The public, even in these hard times, supports higher education with its tax dollars. And families make huge sacrifices to send their sons and daughters to college. They deserve in return higher education that provides real…

Recent years have seen increasing interest in assessing the prestige and productivity of programs in communication. An NCA doctoral reputational study was published in 2004, and a new National Research Council assessment is underway that will for the first time include the communication field. Two systems relying on objective appraisal of faculty…

In its plan to combat the PhD shortage crisis, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB; 2003) has called for the development of PhD program rankings to serve as incentives for academic institutions to invest more in PhD programs, thereby counterbalancing the disproportionate influence of master of business…

The past decade has seen the emergence, predominantly in Thailand and mainland China, of a form of educational institution that has had little scholarly attention or generic identification. This paper shows how the ad hoc and opportunistic franchising of elite English private schools, beginning with the hyper-capitalist exportation of the Dulwich…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influence African American college students' decisions to attend an HBCU or a PWI 4-year institution. Differences among African Americans in factors influencing the college choice process were examined by gender and parents' level of education. The study was designed to gain a better…