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.…

The authors provide a multicultural feminist analysis of picture books for children by looking at the illustrations and listening carefully to themes of oppression and resistance in 33 picture books that focus on characters that are on the powerless side of some powerless/powerful social dichotomy. The authors find many images that either depict…

In a world increasingly characterised by change, diversity and complexity, with educational institutions, like others, aspiring to become "learning organisations" and where the "knowledge economy" is apparently crucial, schools as workplaces for learning appear to remain peculiarly static. The majority exhibit physical,…

One of the most perplexing quandaries that has continually confronted proponents of democratic governance centers around the question of how to protect the right of the majority to govern while simultaneously protecting the fundamental rights of those who are, at least temporarily, in the minority (Martinson 1996, 163). The author of this paper…