Examines factors that work against the success of foreign language education (power, authority, domination, and social bias), using critical theory to examine structural constraints within foreign language education, the context of foreign language curricula, and teachers' roles as language authorities. The paper concludes that, without a change…

Investigates children's language and interaction during sharing time in a first-grade classroom. Observes that when sharing time shifted from a teacher-led to a child-led event, corresponding changes appeared in children's language. Suggests that teachers create speech situations that children control to encourage language development and…

Investigates the relationship among principal leadership power; teacher empowerment; teacher compliance; and conflict within self, with peers, and with the principal, based on a survey of 250 teachers. Factor analysis and regression analysis revealed a strong association for expert power and referent power with each conflict dimension and teacher…

Although organizational theorists have long acknowledged control processes as integral to organizational operations, we may be entering an age of more insidious, deleterious forms of control. Recent technological and managerial innovations disguise control in emancipation rhetoric. The papers selected for this special issue cover various…

Explores how modern and postmodern theory (including Mann's political sociology of power, Foucauldian theory of knowledge/power regimes, and feminist theory) might be used to examine problems in comparative higher education, including how globalization is related to shifting power/knowledge regimes in which comparative higher education is…

Presents one college professor's reflections on the challenges of mediating the boundaries of race, class, and professorial authority in an undergraduate multicultural education course. After discussing current debates about multicultural education, the paper examines assumptions underlying a multicultural discourse, poses questions about…

Addresses the need to reflect on how the dynamics of gender and power can be articulated together and adversely affect counseling and supervision relationships. Suggests incorporating a social analysis into supervision to help counselors clarify the political nature of some therapeutic issues, thus addressing gender stereotypes. Supports a…

Questions commonly held views on the necessity for leaders, particularly in education. Claims that educators do not need or want much leadership and that a hierarchy among professionals is neither necessary nor natural. Suggests that people coordinating certain functions to ensure that teaching and learning can take place need not be formal…

Many British further education colleges have cross-college coordinators overseeing procedural implementation across the college without direct management of staff. These coordinators derive power from a continuum of sources. The stronger the external requirements, the greater the coordinator's power. (SK)

Reviews 50 years of superintendency literature. Offers a possible reconciliation of the superintendency by juxtaposing the traditional with ideas from feminist and postmodern literature. Recognizing postmodern paradoxes allows questioning of the traditional superintendency and leads to more caring, socially committed leadership strategies.…

Explored use of punitive force by adults with low perceived power in teaching interactions. Found that those women with low perceived power were more likely than the others to use high levels of punitive force and show elevated levels of autonomic arousal when given ambiguous control, and more likely to attribute intentionality to children whose…

This paper places a discussion of assessment in higher education (HE) in the UK within the wider policy context. It argues for a critical sociological analysis to consider some of the issues, themes and debates in relation to assessment in HE at this time. Recent trends in assessment policy and practice are discussed, alongside a consideration of…

This article focuses on the construction and development of cross-cultural analysis tools for students in Colombian universities. Primarily, it is a reflective piece of research which shows how ethnographically based constructs when combined with appropriate curricular platforms can constitute valuable tools in the acquisition of complex concepts…

Even after more than a decade of experience, surprisingly little is understood about the entities responsible for authorizing and overseeing charter schools. In this article, the authors argue that the success of the charter school movement depends on the effectiveness of those authorizers. In order to find out how charter authorizers are doing…

Strategies of response for HIV/AIDS education should account for structural relations of power, be culturally relevant to its audiences, and have the community as the focus of the intervention.