This paper critically examines the array of policy approaches that have been adopted in the field of special needs education in Scotland over recent years. These are characterized in the following ways: (1) supporting or changing the child--an individualized approach; (2) making schools inclusive for all--a systems approach; (3) challenging the…

As teachers, researchers, caregivers, and people who take care of young children, we are often in conversation with children. These conversations are complex, filled with child and adult interactions. Further, both the child and the adult hold various levels of power, and work as a group within the interaction. As an artist and early childhood…

This article discusses how a radical approach to teacher education encourages both pre-service teachers and high school students to embrace a paradoxical model of leadership. A project that positions high school students as teachers and learners in an undergraduate secondary teacher certification course challenges pre-service teachers to learn to…

This paper represents part of an ethnographic study conducted in a small college town in the northern United States. Based on Fairclough's conceptualization of language as a site of social meaning construction and power struggle, I conduct critical discourse analyses on data collected at broad, mid, and micro level contexts. I demonstrate how…

This study examines the post-observation interactions between six English as a Second Language (ESL) student teachers and their university tutors during their teaching practicum in Hong Kong. Data consist of interviews with university tutors, transcriptions of recorded conferences and stimulated recall interviews with student teachers. Case…

In a study of how decisions were made in 24 restructuring schools (Kirby and Bogotch 1993), teachers claimed to have considerable decision authority. Teachers in most of the schools, however, reported that decision making was based on existing knowledge of the internal group. The Kirby and Bogotch (1993) model, developed from that study, links two…

Members of the academic and intellectual community are often faced with the dilemma of finding themselves inured to the lives of the individuals for whom they profess advocacy. Drawing on the real-life experiences of children and families in need, this paper places social-service agencies, professionals, and services within their historical and…

Is the work of democracy too hard for schools to implement? This paper presents findings of a study that examined the dialectical relationship between the espoused values of democracy in schools and the actual practice of equity and inclusion in site-based decision making. Specifically, it examines the lived experience of the people inside schools…

Ethnographers have traditionally encountered problems in conducting qualitative research in elite settings. The powerful, in this case, the administrative and political elite in the United Kingdom, have considerable constitutional, legal, and cultural resources that enable them to deflect or channel any research in which they are the objects of…

A survey investigated the extent to which mid-level managers in community colleges used influence tactics. Survey respondents (N=208) reported on a variety of influence behaviors, categorized into nine influence dimensions (rational, consultation, inspiration, ingratiation, legitimating, exchange, coalition, personal, and pressure). Analysis of…

Community college administrators have the unenviable role of attempting to stimulate change in an organizational structure that focuses on control and the acquisition of power to maintain control. The theme of control runs through management theory, suggesting that the ability to exercise control over situations and events enables one to fulfill…

Suggesting that the celebration of care rather than the rejection of power is an attitude that can embrace positive actions of both genders, this paper examines some key writings of the "men's movement" to see if self-proclaimed post-patriarchal men are likewise willing to accept the identity and substance of women in their new…

One of the most sensitive issues in K-12 education today is that of professional negotiations between administration and teachers. This paper describes the effects of mediation training on negotiation talks between teachers and management. Teams of representatives from a teachers' union and a board of education participated in a 1-week mediation…

Increasingly, educational leaders have adopted human-resource approaches in school administration. The approach has facilitated the development of transformational leadership. This paper explores in detail the nature of leadership associated with a human-resources approach toward educational administration. The paper describes the theoretical…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined changing governance structures in the educational systems of several European countries. The reforms have developed new modalities for the content, standards, administration, and control of education. Special attention is given to the relation between the reforms in authority structures and the…