Summarizes postmodernism as an alternative to the perspective grounding four "traditional postulates" in communication: that communication is characterized by symbolic behavior, is an interactive process, has a fidelity characteristic, and has encoding as one of its components. Describes some specific questions postmodern works raise…

Responds to topics addressed in several essays in the same journal issue. Argues that the concern of these essays is not with method but with an engaged scholarship concerned about the whole rather than some aggrieved part and that they form a bridge between a modernist past and a postmodern condition. (SR)

The prevailing world view is shifting from positivism to postmodernism. A postmodern perspective on evidence-based nursing suggests that evidence for nursing decisions should be derived from research, patient and nurse values, reflection, intuition, and tacit knowledge. (SK)

Claims that environmental education in a postmodern world will have to be sensitive to the ill-defined nature of emerging key concepts such as biodiversity and sustainability. (Author/CCM)

Reviews the work of Joe L. Kincheloe, who extends postmodern political theory into the realm of cognitive theory when writing about children, intelligence, or workers. For Kincheloe, teaching, researching, and social justice are so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. (SLD)

The author acknowledges the value of postmodernist thought in opening up a new understanding of the educational process, but finds that postmodernism raises difficulties when one attempts to deal with the differences and interactions between cultures. He argues that the comparative studies should be based on a balance between relativism and…

Counters Fenwick English's supportive treatment of postmodernism in this issue. Criticizes key concepts of postmodern-postconstructuralist thought, namely rejection of the metaphysics of presence and metanarratives and emphasis on textualism and deconstruction. Finds postmodernism seriously flawed, with little to offer educational administration.…

Encourages visionary questions relating to information technology and education. Describes the context of postmodernist change and discusses two contrasting visions of how education could change, paternalism and libertarianism. Concludes that teachers, learners, and communities need to articulate their own visions of education to ensure a…

Reviews three books that examine intersections of educational philosophy and research with the postpositivist landscape. The books present challenges for comparative education related to ethically examining the desire to know "the other," welcoming the new and diverse, employing dynamic concepts in analyses, and adopting a decentered…

Continues the discussion of postmodernism, constructivism, and multiculturalism presented in several recent publications of the "Journal of Mental Health Counseling." Besides providing an analysis of the junctures and distinctions among these three major conceptual forces, discusses their implications for mental health counseling practice.…

Notes the need to attend to the blurring of the category of childhood implicit in debates about topics such as children's interests and rights and criminalization of children. Outlines factors underlying a shift in the condition of contemporary childhood and children's social experiences. Argues the need to identify how children create and…

Deciphers calls for clarity surrounding postmodern theory in education, examining Constas' 1998 article, "Deciphering Postmodern Educational Research." Highlights three problems with Constas' attempts to decipher postmodernism: attempts to enlighten postmodernism, lack of attention to the body of work on postmodernism and educational research, and…

Explores one individual's experiences as a teacher, reader, and researcher in terms of current knowledge about postmodernity. Using the term postmodern research landscape, the paper explains how commonplaces of interactions among readers, teachers, and researchers coemerge with ongoing senses of sociospatial identity, shaping the contexts in which…

Discussion of the relationship between libraries and culture focuses on elements of language and discourse associated with cultural conditions and their implications for librarianship. The conflict between modern and postmodern cultural conditions and thought is examined in a number of library and information science texts. (LRW)

Explores the postmodern critique of dominant conceptions of the self in adult education: psychological/humanistic and sociological/critical. Identifies valuable aspects of the critique, for example, showing how individuals participate in their own subjugation with adult educators as accomplices. (SK)