This paper reports preliminary findings from a research project in progress which is based on a comparative case study of four elementary schools involved in site-based decision making legitimized by labor/management agreements. The study examines several issues: (1) how teachers exercise power in response to opportunities for affecting…

A study compared perceptions about male and female managers who used either an authoritative or participative leadership style. Participants were 102 undergraduate students from a small midwestern college, aged 17 to 60 with a mean age of 22 years. They evaluated a manager after reading a description of the behavior of a division manager in an…

This paper examines some prominent criticisms of higher education and contends that systems theory is a means of understanding the nature of the problems by taking into account the complexity of interconnections among several factors. Problems discussed include: (1) inflated grades awarded to today's university students do not reflect their true…

The paper adds to the ongoing debate over whether education in multicultural societies should be provided in the native tongue of the children in the classrooms. Material is presented from two grassroots level village studies carried out in Senegal and Sri Lanka as a source of insiders' perceptions and desires. Comparative data from diverse…

The extent to which school-based management actually altered influence relations between a district office and schools and between principals and teachers is examined in this report. Five innovative initiatives implemented in the Dade County Public Schools--peer evaluation, different teacher roles, block scheduling, school-within-a-school, and…

Recent research casts doubt on the commonly held notions that administrators affect student learning through instructional leadership and that changing administrators will improve school performance. To help construct a model for examining the process of leader succession that specifies a number of major school process and outcome variables…

Basic values in higher education and the way that values are made operational are discussed in an article and three responses to the article. Conflicts among values in American higher education and the structures of accommodation are also addressed. In addition to valuing liberal arts studies, professional education, and research, competence in…

A series of four workshops for community administrators and public agency program directors in rural Stevens County, Washington, was intended to introduce and support the idea of networks among rural agencies and to increase community development skills in communication, problem solving, community organization, and group process. Trainers designed…

The curriculum guide for grade 9 civics instruction for students of English as a second language (ESOL) contains, in outline form, civics behavioral objectives and instructional units. Units of instruction cover American symbols, politicians, colonial Americans, principles of government, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,…

A formative inquiry into the institutional dimension of educational leadership is presented. Based on the thesis that individual educational leadership is a myth derived from misconceptions about social institutions and from the failure of the institution of education to value intellect, the paper demonstrates that these shortcomings stem from the…

The changing role relationships that occurred between the faculty and administrators of a university that implemented a decentralized management process over a 5-year period are discussed. The university changed from being highly centralized toward a shared and layered administrative approach. Five changes were instituted: an extensive committee…

The presence of whites at traditionally black public colleges and universities (TBPCUs) is examined for six periods: the pre-Civil War period, 1837-1859; the period of the educational missionary, 1860-1885; the period of reaction to white control, 1886-1916; the decade of the great philanthropists, 1917-1927; the era of the Bureau of Education,…

This paper suggests that the upcoming transfer of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, offers a unique opportunity to observe how changing configurations in the political environment influence mass media. The article investigates how the Hong Kong press, which spans the entire left-center-right ideological…

The intent of women's studies, the academic arm of the women's movement, is to create critical space where the debate over power and the production of knowledge can occur through the argument that the exclusion of women from the knowledge base brings into question that which has passed for wisdom. A survey was designed to provide a descriptive…

A study is presented to determine (1) where people influential in public university governance believe various typical decisions are being made and (2) where they believe those decisions should be made. The kinds of issues that bring about most disagreement as to proper authority in governance and administration are identified. Centralization of…