In this article, we explore how students' agency relates to both highly structured and open-ended learning environments. This is done by analysing how students' understanding of tasks evolves through their activities in relation to the representations inscribed in two technology-rich learning environments. Based on the sociocultural approach to…

This book explores the construction of subjectivity and advances a theoretical account of the processes through which subjectivities are constituted in the context of a two-fold study of black subjectivity. The first three chapters are devoted to the deconstruction of the black subject construed by scientific psychology, and the remainder is…

A paradigmatic model of cultural ideology provides a context for understanding the relationship between decision-making and personal and cultural rationality. Cultural rules or heuristics exist which indicate that many decisions can be made on the basis of established strategy rather than continual analytical calculations. When an optimal solution…

Revision poses a curious problem for the theorist because it is as difficult to define as it is to direct. Not only does it imply and require re-vision, or re-seeing, but also the prior existence of a vision, a "seeing," encoded in text. The theoretical problem of revision is further exacerbated by the issues of discourse convention and…

The concept of place identity is a theoretical necessity for understanding the impact of the urban environment on the individual. Place identity refers to clusters of perceptions in the form of images, memories, facts, ideas, beliefs, values, and behavior tendencies relevant to the individual's existence in the physical world. These clusters are…

The following issues are addressed for a Marxist approach to Native American strategies for self-determination: (1) specifying the level of the nationalities question; (2) ethnicity and Marxism; (3) nation, class, and imperialism; (4) the theoretical significance of the transition between communal and noncommunal modes of production; and (5)…

Assesses the relationship between law-related education (LRE) and delinquency prevention. Reviews theories of delinquency and relates these to the content and practices of LRE. Reports results of a national evaluation of the effectiveness of LRE in promoting law-abiding behavior and the factors leading to it. (JDH)

Compares the theories and major points made by "Schooling in Capitalist America" (Bowles and Gintis, 1978) with "Schooling and Work in the Democratic State" (Carnoy and Levin, 1986). Concludes that Carnoy and Levin have improved on their predecessors' account of educational change and the complex functions that schools play. (JDH)

The articles in this issue explore the current parameters of household refuse analysis. An overview of garbage research studies is presented; research methodology, theories, and applications are examined. U.S. household refuse is compared to the discards of households in Mexico City. (RM)

A Marxian analysis of the form and content of children's Revolutionary War fiction shows how characteristics of these materials are related to the socioeconomic and historical milieu from which they come. Structural similarities between these novels and Western films reveal historically rooted bourgeois attitudes, social values, and ideologies.…

Daniel Bell's theories about post industrial society are critiqued, and their relevance for educational theorizing is questioned. Educational theorists should not uncritically accept ideas arising in other areas of the social sciences, but should establish their own structure based on philosophy, science, and humanism. (PP)

This article discusses Thorstein Veblen's views, which appeared in "The Higher Learning in America" in 1918, about the business-like posture being assumed by college administrators and the importance athletics programs were being given in the colleges. Questions are raised about whether contemporary athletics programs are truly…

Considers the mind of the epistemic psychologist, a constructivist knowledge creator within a scientific framework, guided by the social world of scientific institutions. Suggests that Piaget and Vygotsky shared respect for complexity of phenomena and were consistently developmental in their theories. A reconsideration of their common heritage…

This article proposes that the experience of people categorized as having intellectual disabilities is inadequately represented by disability theory premised on the socially constructed duality between disability and impairment. It argues that representation within the wide world of disability will only be achieved by thinking of disability on a…

Critically examines several perspectives from which the underclass is viewed and identifies policy prescriptions related to them. Conflicting perspectives correspond to assumptions about human nature characterized by Thomas Sowell as "constrained" and "unconstrained." Argues for an expanded federal role in helping the poor through employment…