'How can we apprehend homophobia "as more" than we currently know?' This paper attempts a conceptual intervention to rethink current approaches to homophobia in schools. It draws on ideas from feminist philosopher Todd around attention and openness to uncertainty. It also employs queer theoretical notions of subjectless antihomophobia…

World culture theory (WCT) offers an explanatory framework for macro-level comparative analyses of systems of mass education, including their structures, accompanying policies and their curricular and pedagogical practices. WCT has contributed to broader efforts to overcome methodological nationalism in comparative research. In this paper, we…

This paper examines how international, large-scale skills assessments (ILSAs) engage with the broader societies they seek to serve and improve. It looks particularly at the discursive work that is done by different interest groups and the media through which the findings become part of public conversations and are translated into usable form in…

We apply Durkheim's social transitional theory to explain the variation of anomie in 30 nations in the world. Combining data from two sources--the 1995 "World Values Survey and the United Nations University's World Income Inequality Database" or WIID--we test the hypothesis that rapid sociopolitical change at the structural level disrupts social…

In this article I highlight recent (published after 2000) cross-cultural studies on the role of autonomous academic motivation and autonomy support in students' cognitive and psychological development. The self-determination theory (SDT) thesis of a universal beneficial role of autonomous motivation is supported by numerous empirical results from…

Although happiness as a state of mind may be universal, its meaning takes culture-specific forms. Drawing on the concept of folk theories, this study attempted to uncover lay beliefs about the nature of happiness in Germany and South Africa. To that end, 57 German and 44 black South African students wrote free-format essays in response to the…

Status construction theory (SCT) has established a set of sufficient conditions for the formation of status characteristics that define informal hierarchies. However, while it has proven successful in explaining the development of status-laden personal characteristics in the laboratory, relatively less attention has been devoted to its predictions…

Geographers are increasingly grappling with the theoretical and practical implications of integrating an ethics of reciprocity into undergraduate learning and teaching. This paper draws on the unexpected experiences of a third-year human geography research methods fieldtrip to examine the process of balancing undergraduate student learning and…

Emphasizing the developmental need for positive peer relationships, in this study the authors tested a social-contextual view of the mechanisms and processes by which early adolescents' achievement and peer relationships may be promoted simultaneously. Meta-analysis was used to review 148 independent studies comparing the relative effectiveness of…

Praised for its clarity and accessibility, this fully updated edition of "Critical Social Theories" presents a comprehensive analysis of leading social and cultural theories today. Diverse perspectives are addressed from feminism and cultural studies to postmodernism and critical theory. Written accessibly for students and faculty, the second…

This paper analyzes the relationship between students' motivations and their intention to participate in study abroad programs using a model based on expectancy theory. We surveyed U.S., Chinese and French business students who studied in their home countries. Results suggest that certain motivations are common among students from the three…

Purpose: The present paper seeks to analyze the role of social networks in the process of career exploration, including its main effect on search intensity, and moderation effect on the linkage between search intensity and job search confidence. Design/methodology/approach: It is a longitudinal design with 239 USA and 165 Chinese graduating…