As the conservative restoration movement gains power in the educational arena, public schooling itself has come under attack. This book analyzes current educational debates and critiques the rightist proposals for change. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to cultural politics and education, and addresses hegemonic cultures. Chapter 2 examines…

This book scrutinizes some basic assumptions about educational research with the aim that such research may act more powerfully on those persistent and important problems of our schools surrounding issues of race, class, and gender. In particular, the 13 essays in this book examine how power is infused in research by addressing such questions as…

This study examined the quality and characteristics of black families in South Africa. The research focused on three areas: values and norms regarding marriage and family life, the deterioration of traditional and parental authority, and parenting skills. The fieldwork was done during the years 1988-1990 and consisted mostly of group interviews…

A research project that developed methods for describing, organizing, analyzing, and predicting state education policy activity had as its major focus the way that values affect that policy. Data were drawn from six states: Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Arizona, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They were chosen to represent ranges of political…

This study examined the perceptions of African American faculty on their socialization to the academic professional culture, and is based on the premise that the process of such socialization is circumscribed by the organizational culture. Taking a qualitative research approach, the study used a three-part interview process. The focus of the first…

This essay explores the roots and implications of stance, which helps examine the daily practice of educating new teachers. Stance is about the positioning involved in teaching. It depends on a postmodern view of reality as being situational and interpreted, rather than fixed and predefined. In literacy education, a reader's relationship to text…

This study explores, from a critical-theory perspective, the relationship of power among stakeholders in either a mandated or voluntary elementary-school-site decision-making body (SSDMB). The purpose is to describe, explain, and clarify complexities regarding the influence exerted by parents on the decision-making process in two selected…

The Delphi process provides a technique for scientific inquiry within the context of group interactions by generating information and seeking a consensus through a series of interactive probes. In a study of the effects of power on the allocation of resources in the organizational setting of public elementary schools, the Delphi technique was used…

A study examines the dynamics of cultural pluralism and language in the ethnic mobilization, and resulting dissolution, of the USSR. It first examines ethnic composition, dominant nationalities, language groups without separate nationalities, patterns of ethnic populations within nationalities, and the influence of this multiculturalism on…

This paper explores the dynamic nature of the power relationship within social research, concentrating on the production and reproduction of a text of the field and focusing on the processes of recording, writing, and reading. It draws on ethnographic research conducted in a United Kingdom office of an international firm of chartered accountants…

Relationships among campus psychological climate, gender ratios, and incidence of sexual harassment were investigated to determine whether harassment within an institution could be related to the psychological climate of individual departments and to the gender ratios of women to men students, faculty, and full professors. Gender harassment, such…

A conceptual framework is presented for discussing teacher autonomy in a historical perspective against the background of a profound decentralization in the Swedish educational system introduced in the early 1980s. The way teachers use a broadened space of action cannot be fully understood unless a distinction is made between private and…

Beginning with a review of traditional perspectives on educational leadership, the link between effective principals and school effectiveness, and the bases of social power, this document goes on to report on a 1986-87 study conducted to determine how the types of power used by principals relate to school effectiveness. Subjects were…

The internal politics of colleges and the influence of a current emphasis on efficiency on the traditional independence of the academician are analyzed. It is suggested that the academician does not work in the same differentiated, and therefore interdependent, way as someone in industry or a bureaucracy. Academic activity is segmented, which…

The literature concerning the work experience of faculty members, administrators, and clerical and support staff is reviewed. The experience of these employee groups is examined in relation to: the characteristics of their work and work environment, the extent of their autonomy and power, and their relationship to their institution. In addition,…