Although the nature of knowledge is contested, "official knowledge" is promulgated in national standards such as New Zealand's National Qualifications Framework. Autonomy and accountability are used in the politics of official knowledge by competing interests. Critical theory provides guidelines for adult educators to deal with the…

Psychologists (N=305) completed a questionnaire concerning criteria for sexual consent capacity by individuals with mental retardation. Factor analysis identified five factors of which basic sexual knowledge, knowledge of the consequences of sexual behavior, and abilities related to self-protection were most critical for sexual consent capacity.…

I will argue in what follows, following the insights of James Marshall on busno-cratic power, that resistance to this new power is already well underway, and that this resistance is potentially problematic and potentially transgressive (in Marshall's words "a reflective reconstitution"). The self is not only a chooser in busno-cratic land, it is…

Locus of control is fairly stable over time but does change as a result of natural events, such as the acquisition of college education. Previous research found this to be so in a study of the high school class of 1972. This investigation asked whether a model of stability and change in locus of control had changed since the benchmark study of the…

While discussing critical individuality as one of the main goals of liberal education, the emphasis has usually been on direct educational measures. Much less attention has been given to the social preconditions for its development. This paper discusses the societal aspect of the question by employing the notion of sphere pluralism. The attempt is…

Various cross-cultural researchers state that autonomy is not valued in Eastern cultures and, hence, is unlikely to predict optimal study functioning and well-being. In contrast, self-determination theory (SDT; R. M. Ryan & E. L. Deci, 2000) maintains that autonomous or volitional study motivation is universally important and should predict better…

This article explores the meaning and experiences of paid work for older women. Taped, in-person interviews were conducted with 53 ethnically and economically diverse women, 55 to 84 years old. The interview guide contained open-ended questions regarding the meaning of work, reasons for working, and the centrality of work to personal identity.…

The author contends that by reclaiming their own valuable connection to reflective artistic experience and reception, aesthetic theory and art education can contribute to a reconceptualization of autonomy and critique and, perhaps more importantly, to a reorientation of educational practice. Adorno's aesthetics is exceptionally relevant to this…

It is estimated that 13 million to 15 million adults in the United States have chronic conditions that impair cognitive function, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, Parkinson's disease, and traumatic brain injury. The growing number of people with chronic conditions that include cognitive impairment and the family members who assist them face…

This article presents the results of research that explored the relationship between emotional intelligence and learner autonomy in the context of nontraditional higher education and their impact on student retention. This was predicated on previous research that suggested emotional intelligence might lead to student success and that autonomous…

This article attempts to provide some transparency with regard to how the intersection of race and class negatively affects African Americans in their effort to fight for social justice with regard to classism. Based on the explicit historical attempt to definitively make race and class synonymous, such a manufactured intersection is powerfully…

The present study investigated intraindividual variation in students' interest experience in 3 school subjects and the predictive power of perceived autonomy support and control. Participants were 261 students in 7th grade. After a survey of students' individual interests and other individual characteristics, repeated lesson-specific measures of…

Maternal elaboration and autonomy support during reminiscing facilitate middle-class children's autobiographical narrative skills. In this study, low-income Hispanic, White, and Black mothers' elaboration and autonomy support in reminiscing were examined in relation to children's joint and independent autobiographical narratives and engagement.…

This paper arises from an evaluation of the study support programme developed in a midlands city in the UK, in the context of the national extended schools initiative. It offers a framework based on activity theory to explain how and why "out-of-lesson-time learning" is felt by many students to impact positively on their self-esteem and…

The Supreme Court first affirmed the importance of academic freedom in 1957. Yet in subsequent cases, First Amendment precedent has displaced the concept of academic freedom to resolve disputes among competing interests on public campuses, primarily in favor of institutions. This paper draws on the concepts of path dependence and policy space to…