Argues that composition is at risk of losing its "disciplinarity." Grounds this argument in Jacques Derrida's notion that whatever counts as the condition for achieving certain identity becomes the very condition of its failure. Argues that in a Derridean reading, composition will cease to be as it is now known. (RS)

Shares several writing program administrators' observations on selecting and changing course names, job titles, and program terminology. Considers the psychological and social dimensions that lend power to the act of naming. Draws generalizations about the developing discipline of composition. (RS)

Adult education is facing not just indifference, but also hostility. This thesis is examined under four headings: (1) an historical perspective; (2) with respect to the institutional setting; (3) in the context of international development strategy; and (4) in light of contemporary philosophical or value debates. (Author)

Discusses the state of English studies, focusing on the literary canon, literature and other disciplines, the function of theory, and the politics of literature. (MM)

Distinguishes between two meanings of literacy that have been conflated: the ability to read and write, and the broader concept of being educated. Presents three arguments: literacy is not social; literacy is not political; and the comprehension part of literacy is a relative matter, while the ability to decode is not. (RS)

The field of public administration is being assailed by the theory of rational voluntary action, ineffectual counterattacks to the theory, ongoing recalibration of politics and administration, and conflation and confusion of types of theories. Among 12 action items to advance the field are conceptual and operational definitions, goal-based…

Presents the Secretary's views on efforts to eliminate the United States Department of Education or reducing basic education programs. Contends that funding education should not be a partisan process subject to the uncertainties of budget-cutting politics. Emphasizes the necessity of investing in the education of children as a long-term investment…

Presents an interview with storyteller Isabel Allende. Discusses geography, politics, gender, and love, and the way perspective affects the storyteller's magic. (RS)

Max Weber has been unfairly pegged as a detached, impersonal scientist or a structural-functional analyst of bureaucratic design. Today, Weber is garnering respect for his attention to cultural and historical contexts, his "iron-cage" conceptions of bureaucracy, his creative meditations that move across all levels of analysis, his range…

Paper reviews a book of essays on interpretive approaches to educational policy making. The essays are categorized as mythological/practical, evolutionary/transformational, and normative/critical. Though the quality of the essays varies, the book is seen as useful as an introductory textbook for senior undergraduate courses in interpretive…

Presents and discusses some ideals and some ideas that should be considered by communication programs that want to persist through hard times. (SR)

Argues that form, in the Burkean sense, can operate in a body of conflict coverage to shape expectations for subsequent developments in the controversy covered. Focuses on a series of news reports concerning President Ronald Reagan's visit to the Bitburg war cemetery and reveals the exercise of progressive and repetitive form in the agonistic…

Project N.U.R.S.E. (Nurses Uniting Resources Supporting Education) is the process by which students at Drake University saved their nursing program. The project illustrated the use of power by a group of students to initiate change and show that the nurturing of political awareness and empowerment have a place in nursing education. (JOW)

Advocates the use of wide-area networking systems (WANS) by English departments to bring the whole world's public discourse into classrooms. Maintains English departments need people who speak the language of networking technology to understand how it can support or defeat pedagogical goals, and to garner computing resources. Offers a brief…

Uses an ideological analysis of the subfield of doctor-patient communication to argue that scholarly efforts in the field of communication are proscribed by a "McCarthyism of the Left." Maintains that political ideology determines what is reality and that old concerns and commitments have been jettisoned to live in the new order. (SR)