The purpose of this workshop paper is to understand the ways that women and men who work in the field of composition-rhetoric studies can more fully understand and articulate ways to enable women writing students to use more fully the new kinds of technology that proliferate in the digital realm. The material is based on the author's twenty-six…

Discusses Taylor's value-added approach to information and combines it with a social theory--Gidden's structuration approach--to develop a theoretical approach that will be a useful basis for research. Topics addressed include the conceptual structure of the value-added approach and the structuration approach, information use environments, and…

Physiocratic idealism and capitalistic industrialism were the ideological theories from which the U.S. Constitution took its primary form. The Bill of Rights was added to insure that those who implemented the Constitution would abide by underlying natural values that promote life, spiritness, and growth. The framers of the Constitution saw a group…

This paper investigates certain dimensions of the term "political economy" with specific reference to its application in analyzing educational organizations. The first section reviews classical and modern formulations of political economy to show how modern political economists operate within a received paradigm embodying five basic…

This essay demonstrates how social cartography--the writing and reading of maps addressing questions of location in the social milieu--may enhance social research and move it forward in its struggles to distance itself from the positivistic restraints of modernism. Social cartography suggests an opening of dialogue among diverse social players,…

World systems theory and feminist scholarship each have a great deal to offer the other, but the connections between the two have not often been recognized. The potential contributions from world systems theory include: (1) its understanding of history, (2) its understanding of what that history comprises, and (3) how it employs Marxist historical…

By focusing on concepts of power, culture, and ideology in light of new socio-cultural and anthropological interpretations with regard to their use in international, intercultural, and cross-cultural communication research, an outline for the framework of a more hermeneutic-interpretive approach to the study of communication and socio-cultural…

A multiparadigm perspective of educational administration is offered in this paper, which offers a conceptualization of administration as a heuristic device for considering multiple views of education. The first section describes the work of Sirotnik and Oakes (1986) whose "critical inquiry" multipardigm approach comprises three paradigms:…

There may be a link between the systems movement and the women's movement. The systems approach allows an observer to identify important relationships and behavior within a system. This approach recognizes that observers of a system will be taking differing and subjective views of the system, depending on their own perspectives. Among the various…

This paper argues that the amorality evident among U.S. citizens may be the result of individuals and society's inability to understand the relationship between the public and private life of the citizen and the role and function of ethics in that relationship. The argument has three premises. First, U.S. citizens have developed a sort of cultural…

Theories for explaining intercultural mistrust--the mistrust of Whites by Blacks--and intracultural mistrust--the mistrust of Blacks by Blacks--are the focus of this paper. Three basic claims are made: (1) mistrust is a derivative rather than a primary construct; (2) both intercultural and intracultural mistrust are related to structural aspects…

David Bleich, in his analysis of Toni Morrison's "Beloved," is representative of theorists and practitioners who misrepresent feminism and women's issues. In his essay, "Reading from Inside the Outside of One's Community," Bleich converts a book about the strength and dignity of an African-American woman into a male-bashing…

The practice of student evaluation of college faculty is discussed in terms of the literature on social ritual. The following arguments that critics have raised are considered: student ratings of professors are neither scientific nor objective; feedback needed by professors to improve the quality of their work and data needed by administrators to…

What is meant by saying that reality is socially constructed or that writing is a social process must be thought about carefully. Advocates of a social constructivist view of writing have been able to challenge dominant cognitivist and expressionist paradigms surprisingly quickly. However, such a swift victory needs to be examined. When tested in…

Sociologically, the implications of the concept of interdependence are contrary to the explicit aims of education. Interdependence implies that if changes are brought about in one social institution, then the functional interdependence of society may be destroyed. Education is seen as a means to reinforce the status quo. The aims of adult…