Mathematics education needs a better appreciation of the dominant power structures in the educational field: Bourdieu's theory of capital provides a good starting point. We argue from Bourdieu's perspective that school mathematics provides capital that is finely tuned to generationally reproduce the social structures that serve to keep the…

This dissertation reports on a study investigating the identity of first-year university students as writers. The longitudinal project explored how students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds construct their identities as undergraduates and as academic writers in their first year. The research was qualitative and interpretative, and used…

Noting that since democratization of communication is part of the broad social process, and that any given form of democratic communication is the result of a dialectical tension between the social factors tending toward concentration of social power and contrary factors tending toward redistribution of that power, this paper argues that it is…

To clarify "power" and "authority," the authors review the concepts' history, examine contemporary concepts of social control, identify four authority modes (based on social relations and controls), derive four power resources from these modes, discuss persuasion and exchange as social control mechanisms, and demarcate…

Presents a multivariate model for explaining cross-cultural variation in sexual stratification as implied in Collins's theory. Tested the model with subsample of societies (N=74) from the standard cross-cultural sample. Results were inconsistent with Collins's theory. Kinship and family variables were better predictors than economic and political…

A general theoretical framework, group conflict analysis, can be applied to the study of cultural plurality in higher education. Basically, the conflict perspective views society as a conglomerate of interest groups competing for dominance in and of society. Once a group gains dominance it will monopolize resources in an attempt to maintain and…

Examines the possibility that parent-child relationships contain horizontal qualities paralleling comparable qualities in child-peer relationships. Argues that these qualities allow children to experience and practice horizontal skills later used with peers. Focuses on reciprocity and shared power, especially in parent-child play and control…

This paper analyses an extensive corpus of texts from the German media and existing studies of German perspectives on Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia in order to demonstrate that there are two idealised culture cognitive models (ICCMs) that function as overarching categories for Europe: the ICCM west (the members of the European…

Four models are developed to provide a conceptual basis for a curvilinear relation between intelligence and an individual's influence over group members. The models deal with influence and percentile placement in intelligence, comprehension by potential followers, vulnerability to rival intellects, and correlation between mean group IQ and the…

Using Amitai Etzioni's (1961) sociological model as a basis for analysis, the paper examines the relationship between central student characters and their chief reference group or significant other(s) in the schools as portrayed in three films: "If" (1969), "Child's Play" (1972), and "Educating Rita" (1983). Two…

A theoretical framework for mapping school political life is developed which distinguishes elite, bureaucratic, coalitional, and participant types of school political organizations. The framework provides tools for analyzing and comparing patterns of political behavior within and across school political behavior settings. Definitions and…