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…

This paper synthesizes two perspectives on essentialism: cognitive and social. The cognitive essentialist perspective argues that our bias to appeal to the psychological belief that categories have innate essences enables us to make inferences about social categories such as race, caste, and gender. The social essentialist perspective argues that…

Although most speech communication writers view coercion as negative, coercion is a legitimate form of influence used as often in open societies--and more often within organizations--as persuasion. Where coercion is the influence means of habit or choice, a clear conception of its nature will increase its effectiveness; and a clear conception will…

The aim of this paper is to expand the conceptualization of social capital to guide investigations of the construct in educational settings. Based on fieldwork in six U.S. high schools, the authors present a framework for studying the effects of school-based forms of social capital on adolescents' academic development. The study identified six…

This paper focuses on investigating the purposive design of learning environments to counter the erosion of social capital in communities and schools in contemporary society. Can schools intentionally replenish stocks of social capital by creating normative systems conducive to the optimal academic and social development of students, and by…