Patricia Bizzell argues that inquiry into ethics and English studies is paralyzed by the view that "the imposition of ideological agendas...[is]...morally questionable," yet "our moral sensibility motivates us to promote particular ethic positions." The field is caught in this dilemma because its postmodern skepticism forces it…

This book reviews recent developments in the study and theory of leadership and explores new applications. It examines the questions that structuration theory raises for leadership, explores the theory of charisma and critical theory as posing new challenges to the understanding of leadership, and describes the uses of postmodernist theory for a…

The issue of agency bedevils contemporary composition theorists and practitioners. In theory, scholars such as Lester Faigley, James Berlin, and Patricia Bizzell have critiqued the foundation priority of thought to language, yet their emphasis on language has cast disturbing doubts on the origins of an individual's thoughts. In practice, the…

This book challenges the dominant vision of adult education and the modernist principles underlying contemporary adult education practice. It reviews the emergence of technical rationality as a driving force behind adult education today and examines the critique of the empiricist-analytical tradition of science, considering science as an ideology.…

The essays in this volume, written between 1984 and 1989, represent an extended reflection on the crisis of sustainability now looming before the modern world, and what this portends for the theory and practice of education. The essays in Part I were written to clarify the concept and implications of sustainability. Essays in Part II were written…

In the area of male sex roles, the mystery novel is far ahead of society in general and thus presents the academic with a wealth of new male role models that demand inclusion in the postmodern canon. For a class at Jacksonville University ("Contemporary Detective Fiction") the classical male detective of "The Big Sleep" or…

This paper advocates the use of cognitive maps by researchers in comparative education. Cognitive maps are defined as "visual imageries depicting on the two dimensional surface of a screen or paper the researcher's perceived application, allocation, or appropriation of social space by social groups at a given time and in a given place." The use of…

A recent trend in composition studies has been a call for the "feminization" of composition pedagogy. Collaborative learning pedagogues have sought to reconstruct the classroom as a site of social cooperation, connectedness, and nurturance and have re-envisioned composition as an act of understanding rather than of agonistics.…

There has been much debate in composition studies about authority in the postmodern writing classroom. A redefinition of "authority" for the postmodern writing classroom necessitates a careful analysis of all those sets of relations which factor into the teacher-student relationship, and an awareness that authority is contingent,…

A visually literate person's lexicon for interpreting visual statements, without regard to medium, could include an eclectic array of possibilities. Some definitions and demonstrations of the various approaches are presented. The premodern, or connoisseur's approach, is characterized by a central concern with the assessment of quality, and such…

This paper presents findings of a critical ethnography that examined the relationship between gender and the definition of power, and its use in the politicized role of the superintendent. Based on Stewart Clegg's (1988) conceptualization of power relationships as "circuits of power," the ethnography was conducted in a larger metropolitan area…

Honors education is not immune from the current controversy concerning the role of the literary canon. Indeed, the problem seems especially crucial for honors programs, for their curriculums are often multi-disciplinary in their approaches to culture and history. The solution may lie in what Linda Hutcheon calls the "poetics of the…

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how Constructivism in education has failed to address criticisms by re-directing or misdirecting the focus of the debate over whether or not Constructivism is able to give support to a viable theory of instruction. In response, support is given to Constructivism by drawing on rational, moral, and…

This paper examines the history of the early childhood education curriculum in the United States in order to construct a contemporary postmodern curriculum understanding for young children. The paper examines: how curriculum is defined for young children; historical influences in the early childhood curriculum; and the contemporary postmodern…

This paper offers an overview of current debates on moral development and education, focusing on the relationship between empirical and theoretical research and raising four issues that are central to current research: (1) demarcation of the moral domain; (2) the gap between "is" and "ought," between facts and values; (3) moral…