This report provides a detailed descriptive analysis of the principals who led Illinois public schools from 2001 through 2008. The authors begin with a brief historical review of the research literature on educational administration to provide a foundation for understanding the broader context for this study. Using state administrative records and…

When people dive into the varied texts of culture, print and non-print, and explore and critique them, they are doing much more than showing various persuasive appeals or advertising gimmicks to sway their audience; they are examining the purposes and values of capitalism, the economic system that produces a consumerocracy. People might even turn…

This article reports a study of one high school senior's process of academic bullshitting as she wrote an analytic essay interpreting Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing." The construct of bullshit has received little scholarly attention; although it is known as a common phenomenon in academic speech and writing, it has rarely been the subject…

This study examined how cultural values and family cultural capital were linked to adolescents' motivation and reading achievement using multilevel analyses on reading tests and questionnaire responses of 193,841 fifteen-year-olds in 41 countries. In countries that valued more rigid gender roles, girls had lower reading achievement than girls in…

Background: As the obesity epidemic expands to include younger Americans, there is greater need to understand youth experiences and to identify innovative strategies to promote physical activity in children and adolescents. Connecting children and families with nature-based activities is an example of a strategy that may promote physical activity…

In this article, the author describes how she created a universally accessible playground where children of all disabilities can play together. She created this project as a way to channel her grief after her son, Jonathan, died of spinal muscular atrophy. This playground, built in the author's hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut, led to the…

The author argues that the college textbook market provides a clear example of monopoly seeking as described by Tullock (1967, 1980). This behavior is also known as rent seeking. Because this market is important to students, this example of rent seeking will be of particular interest to them. (Contains 24 notes.)

Each year at the AAPT summer meeting there is an apparatus competition in which members of the physics community can share ideas for new or improved apparatus to aid in the teaching of physics. The 2006 competition at the summer meeting in Syracuse, NY, was the largest competition in quite a while and continued an upward trend in the number of…

The goal of this study was to investigate the structural heterogeneity of drinking games with respect to beverage type consumed, competitiveness, intoxication level, and game duration, as well as the motives for participation in different games and their relevance to intoxication level while playing. Participants were female students ( N = 162; M…

This paper explores some of the practical tensions associated with higher education internationalization through the introduction of an institutional case study. The case highlights the interplay between policy-makers and academics around the emergence of an "internationalization" agenda in a British university. It aims to illustrate…

The sounds that make up spoken words are heard in a series and must be mapped rapidly onto words in memory because their elements, unlike those of visual words, cannot simultaneously exist or persist in time. Although theories agree that the dynamics of spoken word recognition are important, they differ in how they treat the nature of the…

According to Weisbuch, many professors often view marketing and advertising as means to employ persuasion, not toward the good, but amorally, toward a commercial end that may be socially beneficial or harmful. Those in academe exist in a competitive environment, and while they are painfully aware of certain excesses and compromises that the…

Public colleges and universities today are more than institutions of academic study. They play a role in the economic and social life of their communities by engaging in partnerships aimed at enhancing their scope and brand image. This paper suggests these partnered activities do more than just manage costs and replace state support during…

"Research Universities and the Future of America" presents critically important strategies for ensuring that our nation's research universities contribute strongly to America's prosperity, security, and national goals. Widely considered the best in the world, our nation's research universities today confront significant financial…

This is the 2012 Yearbook of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA). This Yearbook contains the following papers: (1) Editors' Sidebar (George Perreault and Luana Zellner); (2) The Hour Glass Economy: The Social Justice Challenge for the 21st Century (Fenwick W. English); (3) Maintaining the Human Touch in…