Work-related self-identities are central to middle leaders' work. Their development takes place in social, policy and personal contexts. At the core of middle leaders' work-related identities lie values that guide how they interact with colleagues, students and senior management staff when trying to shape and implement departmental and school…

The changing face of midwifery practice and education in Australia is challenging the previously accepted notions of the birth experience, the options of care that are available for women and their families, and the role of the midwife in that experience. The role of the midwifery educator is also challenged by the move away from a predominantly…

The asymmetry in power relations that exist between physicians and patients also exist between teachers and students. Thus, the dimensions of student care are analogous to those of patient care. The interactions between teachers and students are analyzed using the framework of the principles of beneficence (non-maleficence), autonomy, and justice,…

Teaching is a critical consideration in investigations of primary school leadership and not just as an outcome variable. Factoring in instruction as an explanatory variable in scholarship on school leadership involves moving away from views of teaching as a monolithic or unitary practice. When it comes to leadership in primary schools, the subject…

In this article, the author claims that the steady corporatization of American higher education has threatened to relegate faculty governance, never strong, to the historical archive. In public institutions, faculty disempowerment has been codified by law--legislatures, the governor or county executive or their staff, or state boards of higher…

The value of recent theoretical perspectives in art education does not lie in providing comprehensive definitions that include all the artifacts and properties that "count" as visual culture, material culture, or mass arts. Instead, the value of articulating theoretical perspectives lies in mapping the terrain of cultural phenomena. In…

Changes in participant structures in classroom environments are often examined in terms of their effects on student learning. In this study, we proposed a way of examining participant structures in terms of power. According to Wertsch (1998) "the emergence of new cultural tools transforms power and authority" (p. 65). When researchers or teachers…

Exploring the experiences of African American students engaged in doctoral studies reveals disturbing realities. In this article, we use narrative inquiry to engage in a collaborative project between two White faculty members and three African American graduate students. Transgressive pedagogy provided a conceptual framework for both our initial…

Many school systems today find themselves in amazingly complex and puzzling environments. They are increasingly expected to turn direction quickly in response to changes in their environments, but they cannot change direction because they are bound by the arthritic bureaucratic designs of their systems, by old mental models of hierarchical power…

Student self-assessment is a popular practice for enhancing student empowerment in the assessment process. However, in recent times various writers have questioned whether the practice of student self-assessment automatically enhances student autonomy. Some writers have even warned that students' participation in the assessment process may…

This article offers a critical examination of the relations of power that exist in educational contexts in which the teacher is a member of an ethno-racial "minority". By interrogating the concept of the "minority teacher", this study explores some of the ways human beings become subjects and how individuals come to occupy…

Feminist therapy has revolutionized clinical practice and offered a model of empowerment for all therapy approaches. However, the long-assumed claim that feminist therapists are more likely to engage in power-sharing behaviors with their clients has not been supported by published quantitative research. In the current study, 42 female therapists…

The difficulty in communicating what is meant by the word "dialogue" is one that faces all those who use language. The word "dialogue" itself clearly carries with it notions of exchange, a verbal intercourse of thought. It also suggests balance and hints at a discursive to and fro among speakers. Consequently, the "dialogistic" suggests a…

This article draws on a reanalysis of findings from two separate qualitative studies that examined a possible relationship between school board members' and curriculum directors' conceptions of power and the way they made decisions (Mountford, 2001; Ylimaki, 2001, respectively). The findings from both studies were then compared to the extant…

History as a school subject in Hong Kong is often assumed to have been a vehicle for "colonialist" indoctrination under the British, and for "nationalist" indoctrination under the post-retrocession Chinese regime. This chapter challenges such assumptions by examining the ways in which history syllabuses have (or have not) dealt…