Educating for democracy, seen within a liberal democratic framework, requires that students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to recognize injustice and work effectively to oppose it. Stitzlein's notion of dissent is examined in conjunction with Kahne and Westheimer's argument for teaching democratic capacities by actively…

Psychological reactance theory (PRT) is largely understudied in the classroom context. In this experiment, we manipulated instructors' use of clarity and forceful language as antecedents of psychological reactance and examined student communication outcomes (i.e., instructional dissent and challenge behavior) as ways in which students restore…

Instructors do not always meet students' expectations. Instead, they may be perceived as engaging in misbehaviors or unfair teaching practices that ultimately lead to student dissatisfaction. When this happens, students have a variety of options including dissenting rhetorically. Though much is known about why students dissent, in the current…

In this opinion piece, the author writes that England is now well on the way to having the most totalitarian as well as one of the most inefficiently managed schools system in Europe. He states that in the much maligned 1960s, people came from all over the world to learn from what was being achieved in the best of England's publicly-funded,…

Alienation between the U.S. military and society has grown in recent decades. Such alienation is unhealthy, as it threatens both sufficient civilian control of the military and the long-standing ideal of the "citizen soldier." Nowhere is this issue more predominant than at many major universities, which began turning their backs on the military…

For the first time in the history of collective action, the offline world has experienced a virtually organized and enacted union strike. While this was the first publicly noticed political action in a virtual world, others have been going on for several years now. As virtual worlds continue to grow in popularity, this type of protest of action…

This exploratory case study focused on youth and resistance that was aided by the use of technology. The combination of resistance and technology expanded a multidimensional framework and leads to new insight into transformative resistance. This study examined the framework of transformative resistance based on Solorzano and Delgado Bernal's…

This dissertation provides insight into students' and alumnae's experiences during the transition and legal proceedings as their former college for women transitioned to coeducation. Previous research on the transition of single-sex colleges to coeducation has primarily examined the process from an organizational perspective. This study focuses on…

The study examined the transformation of Mercer University from a small liberal arts school into a comprehensive institution. The purpose of the study was to explore the historical transformation of Mercer University and the role of leadership throughout the process. The qualitative study was a historical case study of Mercer University based on…

"Books Not Bombs: Teaching Peace Since the Dawn of the Republic" is an important work relevant to peace scholars, practitioners, and students. This incisive book offers an exciting and comprehensive historical analysis of the origins and development of peace education from the creation of the New Republic at the end of the Eighteenth Century to…

A study of adolescents living in red and blue counties during the 2006 midterm elections shows a striking pattern of Democratic youth thriving in political expression and debate when exposed to Republican ideological climates. Democratic adolescents were more likely to talk with parents and friends about politics, disagree openly, test opinions,…

During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans created the functional equivalent of earlier state religious establishments. Supported by mandatory taxation, purportedly inclusive, and vested with messianic promise, public schooling, like the earlier established churches, was touted as a bulwark of the Republic and as an essential agent of moral and…

Extending research on instructional dissent beyond student reports, this study examined the potential for students' expressed dissent to have deleterious effects on faculty members. Instructors (N = 113) completed surveys about students' instructional dissent regarding their classes and reported their own burnout, commitment,…

Some parents and caregivers, frustrated by low academic performance of their local school, emphasis on testing, or the content of the curriculum, have worked independently or formed parent groups to speak out and demand improvements. Parents and families enact solutions such as opting out of tests, developing alternative curricula, invoking parent…

Locating post-16 professionalism explores the ways in which teachers in the UK and the USA engaged in digitally mediated communication incidentally narrate their professional selves during extended exchanges about the process of post-qualification registration. Drawing on a theoretical framework derived from participatory democracy, the study is…