During their studies, Roma university students enter into a milieu different from their family environment and this can affect their identity. In our research, we used life story interviews (N 5 108) to study Roma university students who attended Roma College for Advanced Studies (RCAS). We were interested in how their identities were formed and…

Students, particularly those at academic risk, often experience feelings of alienation and lack a sense of belonging. This can make them reluctant to seek help. A sense of belonging and the willingness to seek help are therefore closely linked. Persistent socioeconomic disparities, inherited from apartheid, make this especially challenging for…

The major goals of this study are to identify dimensions of bureaucracy and alienation, to determine the relationship of these dimensions to second-order, or integrating, factors, and to determine the relationships between the integrating factors of bureaucratic structure and alienation. (Author)

Court decisions enlarging the rights of pupils are eroding legitimate adult authority in the schools. (Author)

This paper reports on a study intended to examine problems in student evaluation systems that may lead to manifestations of student disengagement from secondary school such as absenteeism, low effort, violence, or vandalism. A theoretical framework is provided by Dornbusch and Scott's theory of evaluation and authority in organizations, which…

A critical review of educational and social psychological literature was undertaken in order to clarify the impact of schools' control orientation on student learning and on the teacher-student relationship. The propositions argued are (a) a strong control orientation is incompatible with helping students become responsible young adults, (b) the…

A summary is presented of a study to determine the impact of school authority systems on student disengagement from high school. Student disengagement is defined as the extent to which students refrain from participating in activities offered as part of the school program, tasks of scholarship and citizenship, and extracurricular activities. The…

This report details the findings of a study to determine the impact of school authority systems on student disengagement from high school. The study, guided by Dornbusch and Scott's theory of evaluation and authority, examined the impact of four types of incompatibilities in the system for the evaluation of student performance on three forms of…