Over 60 years of American anthropological and sociological research writings have erected a concept of culture that restricts its role in planned change models to one of active or tacit resistance to change. As an alternative, this paper suggests that the substitution of a contemporary, dynamic conceptualization of culture as developed by…

The Discussion Development Group (DDG) at Moray House College of Education, Scotland, is a resource center designed as an open learning system to provide inservice training, consultancy support, and resources on classroom discussion. A case study involving 17 teachers and recently conducted by the DDG explored features of process innovation and…

In this booklet two members of a Canadian educational development organization share their experiences during 1983 in trying to adapt the popular education they had experienced in Central America to the Canadian context. The guide is organized in five chapters. Chapter 1 defines popular education and describes its characteristics and the role of…

Consideration of the research agenda of the Center for Educational Policy and Management (CEPM) in Eugene (Oregon) is aided by placing it in the context of current issues in educational policy and management, and by identifying policy and management decisions that can benefit from CEPM's research agenda. Three decision-making domains are the foci…

Individual teachers with access to information of importance to administrators--either through expertise or through occupation of a central position-- can exert power over administrators and influence their actions, according to a recent study. The researchers developed a model of subordinate power over superordinates, generated two hypotheses…

Eight recommendations for superintendents' behavior toward school board members are developed in light of women's changing roles in society and in educational governance. The history of women's involvement in education, including their attempts and eventual success at gaining seats on school boards, is traced from the late 19th Century up to the…

The advantages of using an authentic group experience for teaching group leadership skills to social work undergraduates is the focus of this paper. The model presented integrates small group dynamics content within a human services course. Literature describing the use of experiential group membership in teaching group work is reviewed, and the…

Partnerships between universities and companies are historical facts that provide demonstrable benefits to both parties. However, there are contentious areas, most notably intellectual property, technology transfer, and licensing. The successful aspects must be reinforced and the contentious areas must be minimized. This article addresses both the…

The education literature has increasingly called for collaboration between teachers as a way to enhance the quality of teaching. In the TESOL field, content-based language teaching and English for Specific Purposes approaches are being more widely adopted. These developments call for increased collaboration between language teachers and colleagues…

The author presents a model for inservice teacher training entitled the Process Oriented In-Service Experience (POISE) and attempts to identify changes occurring in the process movement and dynamics of interaction as reflected in attitudes and behaviors of teachers participating in this modified, small-group, process learning experience under…

In this paper a broad perspective on the phenomenon of teaching and learning is presented. The complex dynamics of interaction between teacher, student, and educational researcher are explored. Conventional research in education is characterized as relying heavily on methods adopted from other types of research in such fields as agriculture and…

A year-long case study was made of an elementary school teacher and her first and second grade students in a classroom considered typical of a learning community, an environment that emphasizes collaborative planning between teacher and students. Three aspects of planning were found directly related to this sort of collaboration. First, the…

Recently, Indian people from the United States and Canada recommended coping-skills training for American Indians, to help in handling stress, becoming self-determined, being assertive, problem solving, and redesigning social roles and support systems. Some 30 tribal groups and agencies participated in a cultural adaptation of an assertive…

Qualitative methods were used to analyze the social environments--or webs of interaction--in reading groups of varying ability levels. Ethnographic observations were conducted for 15 to 30 hours in each of eight first and second grade classrooms with ability-divided reading groups. A code scheme was developed to categorize the quantity and quality…

This special edition of "Communication" brings together the work of nine leading scholars of small group communication. The following topics are discussed: (1) small group communication research in the 1980s; (2) unanswered questions in research on communication in the small group; (3) emerging trends in small group research; (4)…