The philosophy of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who views the individual and society as contributors to a dynamic, ambiguous process, is applicable to educational philosophy. Merleau-Ponty's concern with free men and their relationship to the world centers on his concept of self, others, intersubjectivity, and morality. The self's contact…

Blacks, Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians, Hispanics, and other minority groups have managed to survive many consequences of racial/ethnic bias and discrimination in the United States. However, certain theoretical models that social scientists apply to studies of social problems reflect majority group biases that tend to perpetuate discrimination…

Deficiency theories of racial inequality are basically inadequate in explaining observed racial differences between groups. Nonetheless, throughout the history of our country, both political leaders and prominent educators have propounded the notion that the inferior social status of blacks is due to some inherent deficiency in their make-up.…

A shortage of a qualified and skilled workforce exists to meet the demands of the geospatial industry (NASA, 2002). Solving today's workforce issues requires new and innovative methods and techniques for this high growth, high technology industry. One tool to support workforce development is a competency model which can be used to build a…

This paper uses constructivist theory as a framework to examine a transition in the supervisory relationship between teachers and administrators. The study examined a central New York school district attempting to shift responsibility for professional growth from administrators to teachers, with a focus on the meaning ascribed to new roles and…

The school leader's behaviors are inspired by theories, and theories are intrinsic to practice. This paper provides an overview of an emerging perspective in educational administration, critical theory. The paper first highlights the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and the Frankfurt School. It then discusses critical theory…

Metaphoric analysis of family systems theory illustrates how metaphors and alternatives to those metaphors identify what a psychological theory has highlighted and obscured about the phenomena at its focus and how it has structured that phenomena. The most commonly used metaphors in family systems theory are the metaphors of system (system…

Two studies investigated the validity of the Cultivation Hypothesis, which holds that the more people view television the more they will see the world as mean and violent. Specifically, the study examined whether three psychological variables affected the relationship. The variables are (1) Magic Window, the degree to which a person believes…

This paper presents a practice-based theory of administrative, supervisory, and organizational decision-making, which views the organizational decision-making process as a social enterprise. It also describes how to facilitate organizational change by promoting faculty involvement and shows how to increase the potential success of reform efforts.…

This paper has three purposes. First, it places in scientific perspective the growing acceptance in educational administration research of alternative methods to empiricism by an explication of chaos theory and its assumptions. Second, it demonstrates that chaos theory provides a scientific basis for investigation of complex qualitative variables…

This paper attempts to trace a line of theory development in technical communication from Dwight Stevenson's 1977 call for "instrumental effectiveness" in theoretical inquiries, based upon careful inductive research methods, to later examples of more speculative and inadequately documented theories about what constitutes the field's…

Since possible predictor variables of marital adjustment are too numerous for a complete analysis in any one study, determination of the relative importance of such predictors is needed for theory development. In order to examine the importance of socioeconomic rewards, family development characteristics, and religiosity as predictors of marital…

Research results show a skepticism among Polish youth concerning the possibility of implementing the accepted socialist values in political practice and denote a steady erosion of socialism's image. Youth organizations are many and varied, but it appears that most join because of the opportunity to meet friends, not because of political…

The ways in which principal belief systems develop in relation to superintendent role expectations for principals are described in this paper. Methodology included a literature review and participant observation during a 6-month field study to generate grounded theory. Findings indicate that superintendents' communication of role expectations to…

A comparison of mainstream and feminist theories to explain women's attainment of education in developed and emerging countries as it relates to individual achievement and life chances is presented. The questions of access to schooling and the years of education attained have become two critical indicators of women's progress. Mainstream theories…