Foucauldian critical studies are cornucopian in illustrating how policy as discourse normalizes and yields human beings into made subjects in modern societies. However, Foucault's own slide from the 'terminal stage of discourse' pays little attention to the linguistic elements, and thus weakens the theory's potency in explaining the reality.…

Using positioning theory as a framework, this study examined two adult learners' participatory opportunities in small group interactions when they were learning English as a second language in an American university. The study finds that control over access to participatory opportunities mainly lies in how learners manage to position themselves…

Participation in collaborative learning environments has demonstrated significant learning advantages due to opportunities for group members to contribute to shared problem-solving processes, shared goals, and co-elaboration of knowledge. Furthermore, research has shown that higher levels of social perceptiveness are positively correlated with…

In recent years a host of scholars have considered the contributions of various critical and post-structural perspectives to the study of college student development. This body of work has drawn on critical race theory, intersectionality, and queer theory, among others, to advance more power-conscious approaches to student development. Critical…

In most societies, some social identity groups hold a disproportionate amount of social, cultural, and economic power, while other groups hold little. In contemporary U.S. society, examples of this power are evident around issues of ability/disability, with able-bodied individuals wielding social dominance and people with disabilities experiencing…

Public relations educators are frequently challenged by students' flawed perceptions of public relations. Two contrasting case studies are presented in this paper to illustrate how socially-oriented paradigms may be applied to a real-client project to deliver a transformative learning experience. A discourse-analytic approach is applied within the…

Collegiate secret societies, as distinguished from Greek-letter fraternal organizations, enjoyed prominence within many American campus communities from the early nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century (Baird, 1879; Hitchcock, 1863; Slosson, 1910; Veysey, 1965). The establishment of these elite groups preceded the maturation of…

An overwhelming majority of college students feel that diversity is important. Students want to explore diversity and need to be guided in ways that help them negotiate what often feels like a social and emotional minefield. While many staff and faculty share a belief that diversity education does not require specific training beyond either a…

Network structures have strong effects on the frequency and terms of negotiated exchanges, shaping who exchanges with whom and who fares better or worse. In this study we ask how exchange patterns of commitment and inequality are affected when negotiated exchanges are combined with reciprocal exchanges in more complex relationships of…

In the Grutter and Gratz Supreme Court decision, proponents of affirmative action claimed that a critical mass of minority students could effectively counter racial marginalization often experienced by students of color due to their racial status. On some campuses, Asian Americans as a pan-ethnic population enjoy a critical mass in undergraduate…

Teaching is always challenging, and for some teachers who are feminists, teaching journalism is difficult. The tenets of good journalism--objectivity and neutrality--are often antithetical to their feminist values. Educators face the dilemma of how to incorporate feminist sensibilities into teaching journalism--a profession that strives for…

Hypotheses linking positional power in bargaining networks to evaluations of self and others were supported: (1) persons in central exchange network positions evaluate themselves as feeling more pleasant and more exhilarated; and (2) central persons impute lower status and higher positive evaluations to peripheral positions. (Author)

Uses the concept of oppression to teach about gender, race, and class in an introductory social psychology course. Discusses the intersections between them and suggests how issues about oppression can be integrated into the classroom. Directs course toward White, middle-class students who lack a comprehension of societal oppression. (Author/NL)

The view of education as a liberating, enlightening, individuating process and educational approaches to support this goal are examined. According to Ivan Illich (1970), the social relations within the educational encounter have corresponded closely to the social relations of dominance, subordination, and motivation in the economic sphere. He…