Explores why Office of Educational Research and Improvement and educational research in general has low status and remote connection to educational reform. Educators should reexamine assumption that such research is sole domain of experts, give increased attention to Wirth's democratic sociotechnical model, emphasize development of values uniting…

Examines the possibility of negotiating ethical issues productively in the postmodern classroom. Reviews Iris Marion Young's refutation of distributive ethics and Young's alternative system based on group difference. Describes recent work on classroom ethics relying on distributive language. Suggests ways of extending this work in light of Young's…

Today's curriculum frames, based on the Tyler/Taylor rationale, competency-based instruction, or Madeline Hunter's model, are not constructed to welcome paradox and eclecticism, indeterminacy, self-organization, or satire and play. Postmodernism demands a fundamental questioning of old ways and an exploration of new values. Copy-model and…

Describes the influence of ethnography on current writing research. Outlines the debates within the field of ethnography and considers the relevance of those debates to composition theory. Argues for more experimental ethnographic texts. (HB)

Argues that the heterogeneity of morals and aesthetics in contemporary pluralistic cultures, and the consequent concentration on individual self-interests, is a threat to democratic ways of life. Discusses people's problems appreciating the values of democratic forms of life and accessing public life under the condition of postmodern mass…

The great works of Western civilization, long held up to college students as models of human achievement, are rapidly being replaced by trivia and by multicultural and poststructural studies. With the growth of postmodern studies has come a decline in broad-based core requirements. This paper recommends rooting postmodernism out of the university…

Delineates small-scale contract-research principles predicated on an understanding of social justice and of research purposes, epistemological issues, and possibilities for ethical and political action. Principles embrace improvement, knowledge and learning, changed belief systems, collaboration and consultation, openness to other communities,…

Professor Willower complains about the "fog" encountered in postmodernist literature and the author's two articles in "Journal of School Leadership." On closer examination, this miasma is simply the mildew on Willower's Cartesian glasses. Educational administration continues to substitute management and business fads for any…

Discussion of the professional education of information workers argues the importance of core skills development but also reaffirms the value of library history. Examines the historical dynamics of the birth of the profession, alongside the modern library, in order to gain a critical perspective on contemporary postmodern libraries. (Contains 25…

Discusses how Afrocentricity entered the picture in the western world. Afrocentricity seeks to obliterate the mental, physical, cultural, and economic dislocation of African people by thrusting Africans as centered, healthy human beings in the context of African thought. Examines Eurocentric approaches (dialectical materialism, structuralism, and…

Reviews the debate over teachers' exercise of power and authority. Argues the need to recognize the different forms in which teachers exercise power and students achieve real agency. Analyzes the means by which pedagogical work is "capitalized." (NH)

Discusses Mindy Faber's autobiographical video as an allegory of contradictory interpretations of female hysteria as both a theater of femininity and feminist revolt. Provides an analysis of the resonance between student responses to "Delirium" (her auto/biographical video about her mother's long battle with mental illness) and…

Reviews stereotypes of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) in television news. Investigates the significance to image-making of stereotypes, visual deconstruction and reconstruction, close-up shots and spectator positioning, as well as news recycling and repetition. Argues that such strategies reify a mediated collective memory of HRC which is…

Using a case example, provides an overview of postmodern therapies in family counseling. Focuses on solution-focused therapy and narrative therapy; presents an example of a solution-focused interview and a narrative interview. Emphasizes that different views lead to different therapeutic goals and practices. (RJM)

Argues that in an art world dominated by critical theory the contribution of painting to society and education is not firmly established. Reviews challenges from critical theory to painting and constructs an alternative relationship between them. Articulates how concepts in critical theory are informed and extended by painting. (DSK)