To be more effective instructional leaders, principals must be granted four conditions: sufficient autonomy, responsibility for operating their buildings, authority commensurate with their responsibility, and central office and board support. This path will pay dividends in school climate, staff morale, student achievement, and community…

In samples of 42 elementary and 45 secondary schools, effects of administrative control mechanisms (supervision, routinization, and participation) on teacher role ambiguity were examined. Multiple control mechanisms are likely to coexist, reinforcing, offsetting, or mediating each other's effects on ambiguity. (SK)

Examines the overlay of maintaining a high degree of professional knowledge and autonomy with the additive and generative stages of professional development for midmanagement student affairs staff. Discusses rethinking professional autonomy and describes a focus group on professionalism in student affairs. (ABL)

Textbooks cannot define curriculum. In a curriculum vacuum, textbooks have made content coverage an end in itself, made didactic treatment of fact-level information the standard teaching method, and overwhelmed learners with too much information. Textbook content is indifferent to educational goals, is unselective, ignores instructional pace,…

Presents a scale to measure teacher sense of work autonomy with evidence for its score replicability. Results of replicability analyses (cross validation and validity generalization) involving 156 Israeli elementary school teachers and 650 Israeli elementary and secondary school teachers suggest four areas of functioning pertinent to teachers'…

Argues conventional academic freedom in higher education is a state of regulated autonomy wherein faculty freedom in teaching and research is necessary to discharge of normal functions, but exercised within boundaries controlled by government, and management. Market competition extends the terrain of this regulated autonomy, while highlighting…

Examines articles in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling (JMHC) as an indicator of mental-health counselors' professional identity development. Content analysis of the first 15 volumes reveals a decline in the percentage of research articles published over this 15-year period, suggesting that the field has matured. (RJM)

A survey of 502 nurse practitioners found that more than half had written research proposals or participated in research projects recently; nearly 50% wrote their own job descriptions; 93% belonged to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners; and maintaining certification was the motivation for some professional behaviors. (Contains 29…

Van Allen (1996) supports a paradigm shift in how Americans think about education, from a view of school as hierarchy to school as continuum. While the relationship between elementary and secondary education is not always visible, teachers can model cooperative learning for students by working as a team across grade levels to solve problem,…

The article explores the issue of teacher autonomy in relation to its potential for freedom or control. It examines the concept of empowerment as applied to education, arguing that, although it is traditionally cast as a means of achieving autonomy, an alternative approach sees empowerment as part of the disciplinary apparatus of late modern…

This article discusses recurrent themes in the literature about teaching in developed countries: the intensification of work, increased central control, diminished professional autonomy, and fears about the deskilling of teachers. Labour Process theory is used to consider how we might understand the ways in which teachers' work and professionalism…

This paper explores differences between traditions in relation to teaching and learning. As a relative newcomer from the Anglo/American curriculum tradition, I seek to highlight the ways in which Central and Northern European tradition of Didaktik has offered a new dimension and fresh insights to the notion of reflective practice. In particular,…

Great teachers, with the right policy supports, are the ideal agents of meaningful and sustainable change in the most challenged schools. Accomplished and effective teachers help students learn at high levels. They also spread their expertise throughout the school on behalf of all students. This report lays out compelling evidence about the…

Given the need to compete for sponsored research funding, do university faculty believe they retain the freedom to research what is of most interest to them? The higher education literature frequently asserts that faculty research agendas are being subjugated to the demands of sponsors. An alternate perspective, from the science studies…

What is the scope of First Amendment free expression rights of public school employees and students? Following a long period with no Supreme Court rulings pertaining to public employee or student speech, the Court since 2006 has delivered significant opinions in this regard. These decisions continue the trend of narrowing the circumstances under…