The relationship between life history, gender, and the discourse of modernization was examined from the perspective of a researcher with extensive experience performing evaluations about modernization within human services in Denmark. Three stories about site-based management in two human service institutionsa youth center and a boarding school…

Issues of gender and mentoring are explored through several theoretical lenses--similarity-attraction paradigm, power dependence, social exchange, biological, and psychological theories--to provide a more comprehensive view of mentoring from a gender-based perspective. Issues related to gender and mentoring presented in past mentoring research and…

A study was conducted to examine the applicability of social comparison and social exchange theories to the family unit. One part of that study concentrated on the effect of the belief that one's parents favored or did not facor oneself over the sibling. College students (N=216) from two-child families were asked to indicate their perception of…

A study of how principals in effective schools set norms for teacher behavior, student achievement, and educational goals used data from six elementary schools in Tennessee that achieved scores on standardized reading tests substantially higher than scores predicted on the basis of the students' socioeconomic levels. Four primary norm-setting…

The author raises questions in analyses of educational policy issues and suggests possible answers to them. The questions concern the nature of changes in the educational system from a given proposed policy change, the magnitude of such change, and the length of time needed to secure the anticipated magnitude of change. Competency-based education…

The construct Interpersonal Orientation (IO) refers to the degree to which a person is responsive to the interpersonal aspects of his relationships with other people. A self-report measure of IO was devised whose construct validity was supported by correlational data. Two experiments were conducted to assess the potential usefulness of IO in…

This paper takes a step toward the construction of a general social theory. As the author points out, such a theory must deal with the interplay of social organizations, social movements and social institutions, and the interaction between them and individuals. The author hints that a theory of choice and exchange may some day meet these…

Examines social factors that lead to the development of learned helplessness in elderly persons in the health care setting, including stereotyping elderly by health care professionals, effects of unequal interpersonal exchange, and behaviors associated with sick and healer roles. Discusses programatic and educational prophylaxis and solutions to…

Extends earlier work on aging as a process of exchange by focusing on the issue of exchange rates and how they are negotiated. Access to power resources declines with age, placing the old person in the position of negotiating from weakness. (Author)

This book explores the relationship between adult education and social change and argues that it is vital for all adult educators to continuously engage radical theory in their teaching, reassess radical adult education's doubting and abandonment of the Marxist tradition in favor of postmodernism and radical pluralism, and seek to reinject the…

This article examines health promotion and disease prevention from the perspective of social cognitive theory. This theory posits a multifaceted causal structure in which self-efficacy beliefs operate together with goals, outcome expectations, and perceived environmental impediments and facilitators in the regulation of human motivation, behavior,…

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of the use of contingent faculty on undergraduate education. This study presents three research questions: (1) To what degree do contingent faculty members engage students in good practices less frequently than their tenured and tenure-track counterparts?; (2) What effect does the proportion of…

Designed for high school economics students as a public service project of the American Fletcher National Bank, the booklet examines the fundamentals of the profit system in attempts to dispel common misconceptions held by students. A comparison is made between newspaper carriers and big business entrepreneurs by considering the risks made in…

A model of internal principle for integrating past research findings on adult altruism postulates that although individuals' shared beliefs result in significant group effects, there remains a significant portion of variation due to a subject's "factor" or unique internal rule. To examine the influence of both the level (degree or amount) and the…

Psychologists have recently given considerable attention to the study of relationship and friendship development, but the contributing social processes have not been examined in relation to each other over time. To examine the effects of disclosure, similarity, equity, and social exchange on satisfaction with a relationship and liking for one's…