With the growing number of online course opportunities in higher education, it is necessary to gain an understanding of the benefits of fostering social presence in those courses for adult learners. Ensuring that adult learners are provided with an online learning community that fosters social presence and promotes students' autonomy, competence,…

Adopting Bourdieu's (1986, 1977) concepts of habitus, field, and capital as a framework, I reflect on my multiple fluid identities as I study, teach, and live within two socially, culturally, and politically distinct places (Iraq and the United States). I examine my privileged and/or marginalized self throughout my journey and the way this…

The experiences of international students along the lines of race and ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and nationality are virtually unknown. This study utilizes experience-centered narrative inquiry to explore the experiences of Black gay international students, and how they are racialized and sexualized in American higher education. Using a Queer…

Talcott Parsons is often identified as the "master" of mid-twentieth-century social theory. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, his writings were hardly any longer discussed, but mostly neglected. "The American University" is Parsons's last monograph published during his lifetime. On the basis of extensive archival research, this…

Globalization has become one of the most recurrent concepts in social and political sciences. More often than not, however, the concept is handled without much of a properly articulated theory capable of explaining its historical origin and expansion. For education researchers attempting to elucidate how global changes and processes affect their…

Despite being a decade into the 21st century, sociological theory continues to be taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in nearly every program in the United States as if it were still 1970. 40 years ago, it made sense to dichotomize theory into two courses--"classical" and "contemporary"--because the latter of the two…

Today, millions of students cross geographic, cultural, and educational borders for their higher education. Trends of international student mobility are significant to universities, educators, business leaders, and governments to increase revenue and campus diversity in the global marketplace. As such, it is vital to examine recent trends in…

The aim of my critical literature review is to identify studies where students are engaged as partners in teaching in higher education and to analyze how tutors and tutees benefit from peer teaching. Thirty studies were included for review. Thirteen countries are represented and two thirds of the studies conducted in the United States of America…

This paper explores some of the unresolved tensions in higher education systems and the contradiction between widening participation and the consolidation of social position. It shows how concepts of capital derived from Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam provide a powerful basis for critique, but risk a deficit view of students from less privileged…

The objective of this research is to ground the reputation construct in theory and to explore the formation of reputation through beliefs about the university and attitude toward the university. Additionally, it will allow for analysis of the consequences of reputation, specifically behavioral intentions, which has received limited attention in…

This dissertation explores the nature, applicability and usefulness of social contract theory, and the resulting compact between higher education and society as a way to understand the growth and development of higher education in the United States. The goal is accomplished with an in-depth look at two different universities in the state of…

The article reports the results of a 2008 national survey of political theorists concerning what and how they teach. The results are based on 1,086 responses from professors at accredited, four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The responses include information about which thinkers are currently being taught, the status of…

This study was designed to explore the impact of service-learning on graduate physical education teacher education students. Social-Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986; 1999) served as the framework to examine graduate student's experiences in a service-learning program. Participants were graduate students (N =16) enrolled in a curriculum and…

This monograph examines the philanthropic contributions of individuals through the existing literature and proposes future philanthropic and fundraising research that can help fill the theoretical void in the literature, thereby improving future research and fundraising in higher education. It covers the major approaches, topics, and theories…

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorization of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of…