Reviews two books by Henry Giroux that consider the relations among schooling, culture, and power, and that argue for a critical science drawing on contemporary European and American Marxist cultural analyses and critical structural traditions. Argues that Giroux's work provides an important theoretical perspective for a method of study and…

Describes dividing up the responsibilities of the department chairperson among senior members of the department, then reconsiders the profession and the state of the humanities. Discusses views advocating "excellence," cultural literacy, great books, and a core curriculum in the humanities. Identifies political tasks and continued…

Criticism of higher education in recent years has been characterized by a failure to examine our assumptions about what education should be and a wish for an authority to prescribe it. Educators have the right and responsibility to educate without arrogance, ignorance, and dogma. (MSE)

The role of feminist faculty and unions in forming alliances to change the traditional academic power structure and in addressing faculty issues common to women and other groups is discussed. (MSE)

Questions of power, leadership, and the struggle of academic versus administrative influence at Oxford University are explored, and Weber's theory of leadership and authority is applied to the institution, whose objective is to produce members of the elite or ruling social strata. (MSE)

Advances a model of individual teacher power using data collected in three high schools. A teacher's power resides in his/her access to various persons, information, and material resources. The resulting dependency of administrators on these resources can allow teachers to influence behavior. (Author/CS)

Conceptual and ethical guidelines for institutional evaluation are proposed that reflect higher education's inherent ambiguity and conflict, emphasizing plurality in values and perspectives, dispersion of power, the need for early negotiations about the purposes and control of evaluation, the kinds of information needed, and access to it. (MSE)

Factors common to the budgeting process in all institutions and influencing the degree and quality of faculty participation are outlined, including governance, budget cycles, levels of review, expenditure plans, sources of revenue, and hidden costs. Suggestions are given for enhancing both the substance and the timing of faculty participation.…

This digest of assertiveness training research advises principals of their professional rights and recommends assertiveness techniques for maintaining authority over manipulative staff while preserving a collegial relationship. Such techniques as broken record, fogging, negative assertion, and negative inquiry are illustrated. (MJL)

Three issues are addressed: the nature of the disciplinary unit in higher education (department); the membership of the department, particularly the chairman and his role; and how changes such as open administration, a trend toward legal or quasi-legal settlement of conflicts, and accountability to government have affected department management.…

Reports the relationship between the teachers' participation in organizational decision-making and the perceived influence attributed to their administrative superiors, the principal and the superintendent. (Author)

Concepts developed by systems and organizational theorists are defined and used in a review of research on the structure of admissions in higher education. Relationships are identified among these influential factors: roles of those in boundary positions; administrative units; interorganizational associations; and institutional variables.…

A mixed method study using surveys and in-depth interviews was conducted with women school superintendents in four Midwestern states during the 1999-2000 school year to understand how they perceive their leadership skills, their uses of power in their positions, and how they generally talk about the job. Results of how the women perceived their…

This paper reviews composition textbook publishing. It is not enough simply to examine textbooks themselves, rather a methodology of institutional critique demands an examination of the institutions that create and perpetuate instructional materials. It is now more important than ever to examine not only the textbooks themselves, and not only the…

Many female administrators fear that white male culture will not allow them to be viewed as successful and powerful unless they behave as "ladies should." To explore such fears, this study examined the definition and application of power within the practice of women educational administrators. The purpose of the research was to construct a theory…