This paper asks whether the institutional hierarchies defined by "golden triangle", other Russell Group, other pre-1992 and post-1992 universities in England, and by ancient, old and new universities in Scotland, have become weaker since the 1990s. Using indicators constructed from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data for…

Using "The Matrix" film series as an inspiration, aspiration and model, this article integrates horizontal and vertical models of literacy. My goal is to create a new matrix for media literacy, aligning the best of analogue depth models for meaning making with the rapid scrolling, clicking and moving through the read-write web. To…

Variations in educational policy outcomes have always been perceived as policy failures, and they are often associated with policymakers insensitivity to what is happening down at the grass roots level, and with implementers' inefficiency and non-compliance. Based on institutional theory, the nested layers theory in particular, and the Four…

Academic work has become increasingly fragmented. The horizontal fragmentation of the profession into disciplinary tribes has been accompanied by the increasing participation of student affairs and educational development professionals located outside the academic units but are actively engaged in academic work, such as supporting teaching and…

Introduction: This is a study of hierarchical navigation; how users browse a taxonomy-based interface to an organizational repository to locate information resources. The study is part of a project to develop a taxonomy for an library and information science department to organize resources and support user browsing in a digital repository.…

This study seeks to address the question "How do school and district leaders and teachers become aware of, take steps to comprehend, and form opinions about state policies?" These "first impression processes" represent significant parts of the processes by which district administrators, school administrators, and teachers make…

This paper draws on the technical, elite and political interpretations of the purpose of management, to identify demands for particular forms of educational knowledge in the management studies curriculum. The varied character of this knowledge is discussed using Bernsteinian concepts of verticality, grammaticality, classification and framing, and…

In an earlier issue of "ETR&D," the editors provided an hierarchical framework of components to support learning and instruction. That hierarchy included information objects, knowledge objects, learning objects, instructional objects, courses, programs and ongoing efforts, with each subsequent component building on the former…

The study applies situated learning and communities of practice concepts to an ethnographic study of volunteer farm work. In contrast to a traditional conceptualization of education "for" leisure, participation in farm work activities is understood as a form of education taking place "in" a leisure context. Analysis reveals…

Is the focusing of visual attention object-based, space-based, both, or neither? Attentional focusing latencies in hierarchically structured compound-letter objects were examined, orthogonally manipulating global size (larger vs. smaller) and organizational complexity (two-level structure vs. three-level structure). In a dynamic focusing task,…

This paper examines the nature of the leadership crisis in Malaysia's public universities. Our main concern is about the leadership at the top levels of university management, and the administrative hierarchy as perceived by both outsiders and insiders. Critics have lamented that Malaysia lacks people with international stature to lead its public…

This concurrent, mixed-methods case study analyzed perceptions of current and preferred organizational culture within a rural, multi-campus community college district. This phenomenon was examined by analyzing and comparing data collected by surveying all full-time employees utilizing the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and…

Interval estimation of intraclass correlation coefficients in hierarchical designs is discussed within a latent variable modeling framework. A method accomplishing this aim is outlined, which is applicable in two-level studies where participants (or generally lower-order units) are clustered within higher-order units. The procedure can also be…

Kazakhstan's higher education system is based on the Soviet governance structure, limited academic freedom and no autonomy from the state. In such a system faculties are contract employees delivering predesigned courses with no incentive to bring new ideas and methods. But employers and the general public are concerned with the mismatch between…

To meet the increasingly complex challenges associated with school leadership and reform (York-Barr & Duke, 2004; Whitaker, 1996; Hertling, 2001), researchers and practitioners have begun to push schools to move away from traditional, hierarchical leadership models and towards more "distributed" ones (Elmore, 1995; Spillane,…