Administrators must abandon transactional (control-oriented) and instructional leadership modes and use facilitative power to make second-order changes in their schools. Transformational leadership provides the proper focus by helping staff members develop and maintain a collaborative, professional school culture; fostering teacher development;…

Introduces a series of articles exploring the nature of discourse practices and power in the writing classroom. Until recently, student writers being initiated into academic discourse were expected to disregard their own experience. These articles challenge the established authority of teacher and text, encouraging student discussion within and…

Continuing an earlier historical review of educational needs assessment (ENA) in the United States, this article considers certain criticisms of ENA in light of basic assumptions about the process; the relationship between ENA theories and practices; and their impact on schools and students. ENA's role in educational planning and renewal is also…

The Supreme Court's Missouri v Jenkins decision changed the role of school administrators as well as their ability to set priorities and control implementation. By sanctioning court-ordered taxation, it also involved legislators in the partnership, although the courts are clearly senior partners in the relationship. (SK)

Boston University and the Chelsea School System (Massachusetts), which the university took over a year ago, have had a difficult first year marked by substantial administrative changes and bad feelings among the university, community, and previous district administration. The debate over the university's direct management style is expected to…

A national survey of 235 directors of programs offering Bachelors of Social Work found that sources of personal, structural, and institutional power were important predictors of power for middle managers in academic settings. Results also direct their programs and manage departmental resources. (Author/MSE)

Challenges ways in which a positivist view of science has led to hegemonic discourse on writing to learn science and highlights contradictions in this discourse. Argues for pedagogy that draws on critical, feminist, and hegemonic pedagogies and incorporates affective, creative, critical, cognitive, and diverse language practices set within…

The article to which this essay responds advises risky practices that trouble traditional distinctions between science and not-science (things not scientific in nature), particularly its argument to politicize science as a way to organize teaching. Raises questions about science as a regime of truth in a place where such questions carry much…

Compares national higher education quality assessment systems in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, focusing particularly on the balance between internal and external societal needs in the systems' design and organization. Results indicate that systems are highly adjusted to each country's specific governance strategies, resulting in very…

To investigate how nonnative-English-speaking students at a U.S. college respond to institutional and professorial control, this article examined the power relations in a paired English-for-academic-purposes/psychology course. The study included rights analysis of the data. Rights analysis examines how power is exercised and resisted in various…

Over a decade ago New Jersey granted significant financial and operating autonomy to its state colleges. A look back to 1986, when the legislation was being implemented, identifies elements that enabled the successful transfer of responsibilities from the state to the campus. These included three categories of specific autonomies: cash management,…

Reports on an ethnographic study of parents' evenings at British secondary schools as seen from the perspectives of all involved. Collects data from in-depth interviews with staff, parents, and students, and by observation. Indicates that meetings are unique interactional events that create problematic interface between the power bases of home and…

Indigenous languages are being displaced at an alarming rate. The ramifications of language loss to the speakers' culture and to the wider culture, and its connection to issues of repression and acculturation are discussed. Reversing language shift is the practice of social justice and requires collaboration between indigenous communities and…

Discusses implications of achievement goal theory on the achievement motivation of African American students in predominantly white schools. Studies suggest that schools which emphasize task goals are more conducive to black students' academic success than schools that emphasize ego goals. Notes seven dimensions of school culture that provide a…

School effectiveness and school effectiveness researchers have increasingly sought to establish synergy between their respective fields, but differing organizational change perspectives have produced an irresolvable methodological and theoretical divide. Incorporating the "power" concept provides a bridge between structural and cultural analysis…