Focusing on those elements of children's preferences which link gender to social structure, the present study analyzes children's letters to Santa Claus. Findings show boys' and girls' requests to be similar when aspects of the child's world are measured and quite different when qualities representing the adult social order are measured.…

The author argues that democracy as a political entity received its fundamental change through Rousseau, who proclaimed egalitarianism as the key element of political freedom. It is argued that Maoism takes the egalitarian principle to its ultimate conclusion: not only are all men considered equal, but they must act equal. (MJB)

Educator John Dewey believed that education should reflect and influence the structure of the society it serves. The school can free and develop individuals' capacities without respect to race, sex, or economic status, thus helping to insure a culturally plural society. (Author/GC)

Responds to an article by John Katsulas, Dale Herbeck, and Edward Panetta (same issue), noting that the article misrepresented the author's positions on fiat power and gaming. States that their approach to fiat power ignores some basic realities concerning social organization, and contains some important inconsistencies. (MM)

Analysis of data from Saudi Arabia indicates that, despite great departures from typical patterns of urbanization seen in the West, there is a strong association between urbanization and the division of labor as predicted by ecological theory. Contains 38 references. (Author/SV)

Surveyed 275 social workers concerning job satisfaction and burnout. Findings revealed that perceived lack of autonomy and influence of funding sources were major contributors to burnout, and perceived autonomy and bureaucratization were major contributors to job satisfaction. Results challenge assumption that bureaucracy is most efficient form of…

Reviews four articles on the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) project, which show how curriculum and school social structure are joined at the hip of the ATLAS design. The articles wrestle with the impact of the school's social structure on teachers' thinking and curriculum implementation, and vice versa, and…

Stern and Barley's article in this same "Administrative Science Quarterly" issue gives too much attention to work appearing in the core organization journals and not enough to findings reported in broader and more specialized social-science journals and the book literature. Surveying this broader domain suggests that organizational…

A loose group of individuals working on a task differs from an effective team on nine factors: clearly defined goals, priorities, roles and responsibilities, self-awareness, leadership, group dynamics, communications, content, and infrastructure. Ways to eliminate barriers and speed formation of effective teams could be based on those factors.…

Appreciation, respect and perhaps even friendship for Brian Simon are not immediately the best conditions for a critical and detached investigation of his legacy. So we would do best to take account of this subjective element from the outset, all the more so because Gary McCulloch and Ruth Watts, in a recent special issue of "History of…

Investigates how students' mathematical activities and understandings change as a function of their participation in different social configurations. Examines how the interplay between two social configurations--local investigations at a computer simulation and whole-class discussions--contributes to how 7th grade students learn probabilistic…

In the last years of the nineteenth century, educational psychologists created what they called a "science of education." Their aim was to make education a professional field, thereby freeing teachers and school administrators from political interference, and they believed they could do this by concentrating on studies that might…

Can adult educational research on learning and identity counter the individualising of neoliberal government policy that seeks to constrain educational "choices" to those that contribute to government economic agendas? This article notes the recent move within post-compulsory education research towards an engagement with Bourdieu because…

This paper deals with the discourses related to race and anti-racism in a social sciences textbook for grade 12 Ontario students that was published in 2002. It is argued that the complexities of race and anti-racism are not dealt with systematically and cohesively. The textbook does not adequately address the topics of race and racism within the…

This paper examines the issue of social structure and individual agency in language learning through the life histories of three young engineering graduates in Hong Kong. English is identified as an important form of cultural capital, which to a considerable extent determines the development of the three individuals, each of whom comes from a…