Calls for language education to be retheorized to make it serve education for democracy. Highlights the relationship of language and power. Suggests that progressive language educators' theories-in-practice may well just be a kinder, gentler way to maintain those systems of dominance that keep democracy as far away as ever. (RS)

Investigated the motivation of Dutch adolescents to obey authorities, noting authority relations between parents and adolescents and between adolescents and professional authorities at child welfare agencies. Interview data indicated that adolescents attributed twice as much authority to parents as to child welfare supervisors. Teens and…

Academic feminists must confront class structure within the academy and women's studies. Changes in the academic work environment include: funding cuts, rapid growth of non-tenure-track faculty, and overproduction of Ph.D.s relative to jobs available (which exemplifies the class structure of academic feminists). Education is a social institution,…

Describes how the proverb, "When the fish stinks, say that it stinks" permeates the author's writing of biographies of well-known American "heroes" for young readers. Points out the writer's obligation to illuminate both the negative and positive character and behavior of the people he or she writes about, offering examples from the author's…

Details the three major forms of evaluative authority (administrator, teacher, outside instructor) in the portfolio program at a large, urban, Midwestern university. Documents and theorizes the rhetorical and political dynamics by which the three forms of authority interact. Explores and maps the contested borders of authority among outside…

The relationships between autonomy and a set of attitudinal, professional participation, and reasons-for-leaving-teaching variables were studied for 770 urban teachers in Florida. Results suggest that job satisfaction and a perceived lighter paperwork load are predictors of autonomy, as are insufficient rewards for outstanding performance and lack…

Finds no significant differences between women and men in their use of interruptions, hedges, and tag questions, which supports "gender similarities" approach to understanding sex differences and not the dominant "dual cultures" approach for investigating sex differences (i.e., men use more powerful language while women use…

The authors examine the concept of subjectification, using Judith Butler's theorizing of subjection to investigate their memories of being subjected in school settings and analyze subjectification. Their collective biography highlights aspects of the achievement of the individual appropriated schoolgirl subject who simultaneously constitutes…

Notes that as women take part in the workforce in greater numbers and in higher positions, they need representation in visual images that will signify their achievements. Concludes that communicators can help to change the conventionalized readings of women's portraits through careful document design that highlights women and their achievements.…

Notes that feminist interventions are communicative acts that bring attention to shifting power relations within a specific discursive context. Argues that enacting feminist interventions in online environments changes the online community's identity and narrow sense of audience, and that creating feminist multimedia helps ensure a more human,…

Expresses the opinions of a Native American woman who is active in civic and school organizations about the role of the school superintendent, especially in schools with Native American children. This Lakota community worker views the quality of community as essential in redirecting the superintendent's role from "power over" to…

Discusses situations in which mother-tongue education may not be desirable. Separate sections discuss language in education systems, multilingual settings, mother-tongue education in the "Cosmopolis," determining the mother tongue, definition of a language, social and ethnic divisiveness of mother-tongue education. The final section…

Despite much talk about balancing freedom and responsibility in higher education, a more appropriate pairing is of freedom with authority. The concept of responsibility has become problematic, and educators have lost the ability to speak with authority. Although we have come to identify freedom with the free market, it is the bottom line which has…

Distributed leadership has come to prominence in school management discourse as a means to achieve the participation and empowerment of teachers and to create democratic schools. In this paper I explore the contradictions between these claims and both the hierarchical power structure of schools and the use of distributed leadership to secure the…

The field of rhetoric has generated studies of definitional disputes and of the relationship between definition and power. Informed by the idea of collective definition created over time, these studies raise an important theoretical-practical question about definition and contestation that may be approached through a concept of authority.…