This book presents a case study that describes the difficulties involved in collaborative efforts between public school bureaucracies and university teacher-education organizations. The book is situated in the larger context of educational reform. Each chapter is centered around the question of how to overcome the intractability of bureaucracy,…

Headteachers in the United Kingdom face the challenge of acting as both the main strategic planner for the whole school and as the leading professional practitioner within it. This paper describes how general changes in the occupational characteristics of school headteachers have been contingently interpreted in a large urban primary school in…

As funds for supporting library and information services dwindle, librarians are beginning to recognize the value of evaluating and justifying their library in terms that the decision makers--those who control the budgets--understand. This book offers proven techniques for implementing a program that both promotes information services and dispels…

Teachers' views on their control of school policy and classroom practices are analyzed on the basis of data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of 1990-91. The SASS, a nationally representative survey of more than 53,000 teachers, reflects teachers' opinions of school conditions. Overall, teachers (61 percent) did not believe that they had…

Within the teacher empowerment movement, a theoretical framework for analyzing the condition of teaching as work is not widely considered. Given the special character of the varying expectations held by interest groups focusing on teacher productivity, a concise theory would provide teacher education students a foundation for participating fully…

This paper addresses questions of validity, textual authority, and the rhetorical handling of the researcher-as-self by examining current thinking on poststructural approaches in the work of Patti Lather and Laurel Richardson. The first section introduces the idea of inquiry validity as an "incitement to discourse," a view which changes…

Until recently, corporations of all kinds, including educational institutions, were hierarchical structures. Today, the most successful private sector corporations are flexible collectives of teams and production units. To achieve this success, covenantal relationships, based on a shared commitment to ideas, values, goals, and management processes…

The shift toward self-directed work teams in organizations is well documented and is further underscored by models that give teamwork an integral role in accomplishing organizational goals. The traditional classroom fails to mirror such shifts when it emphasizes instructor control and decision making with a premium placed on clarity in direction,…

A study investigated whether parents' use of power-assertive or negotiating strategies to resolve conflicts with children predicted children's psychosocial adjustment and use of comparable strategies with peers. The study also determined whether children's behavior with mothers at 2 years of age predicted their behavior with peers at age 6. The…

This paper presents findings of a study that conceptualized how the mass media in England are involved in the education policy process, and identified major influences on media production and its link with education policy. The project is being conducted by the National Development Centre for Educational Management and Policy from October 1993 to…

Focusing on the area of student participation, this paper considers the findings of a research project conducted by a team at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean, and funded by the New South Wales Department of School Education. The project was broadly focused on investigating the dynamics of communication within the school communities of…

Mentoring programs have consistently demonstrated their value in assisting new and early faculty members to make successful adjustments and productive contributions to the academy. Yet, mentoring programs have failed to be consistently implemented despite their efficacy and increasing levels of job dissatisfaction reported by new and early faculty…

A study examined the governing system in two Florida community colleges in order to better understand the dynamics of policymaking and policy implementation at the two-year college. The study focused on institutional characteristics, specifically communication, and how this may affect state-mandated program implementation. It was found that the…

The participation of minorities and women in the accrediting process was examined in a national study, based on the perspectives of the accrediting agencies, the member institutions, and active participants in the process. Accrediting agencies belonging to the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation provided names of colleges that conducted a…

The necessity for candidates for public office to gather money in order to mount effective campaigns has raised concerns that campaign contributions may give some individuals and groups improper influence on the selection of public officials and the making of public policy. Part of this concern stems from the pluralist theory that maintains that…