During the decades around the beginning of the twentieth century, public universities in the United States commonly employed a "certificate system" to establish eligibility for undergraduate admittance. "Certification" meant that between 1877 and 1931 representatives of the University of Wisconsin inspected high schools and had…

Over the past decade, many schools have adopted zero-tolerance policies as a means to curtail negative student behavior. Such policies persist although "there is as yet little evidence that the strategies typically associated with zero tolerance contribute to improved student behavior or overall school safety." School suspension and…

In society, expertise bestows directive power--the authority to tell others what to do and how to do it, or simply to do it for them. In a school system that still operates on an authoritarian model, the author's expertise as a writer and teacher gives her directive prerogative when responding to student writing. Traditionally, teachers have used…

The purpose of the current study is to determine to what extent the following four variables explain K-8 students' SBS success levels; these variables being attendance to private SBS preperation courses, multidimensional perfectionism, parental attitude types, and test anxiety. SBS is a nationwide, high stake, high school placement test taken by…

The authors contend that zero tolerance discipline policies are inconsistent with adolescent developmental needs for authoritative, as distinguished from authoritarian, discipline. Previous research has applied the notion of authoritative parenting to teaching styles in classrooms, and a similar model of authoritative discipline can guide…

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating…

Science and religion both describe the way things are, and both refer to the source of authority behind 'truth'. Personal beliefs about science and religion can affect attitudes towards science and the learning of science. This paper reports the results of two exploratory studies: a qualitative study and a quantitative survey study on the…

In this study, perceived parenting styles and parental involvement were examined to determine if they predicted student motivation. The two views of motivation examined included achievement goal theory and self-determination theory. Algebra I students (N = 140) in a Southeast Texas public high school completed self-report surveys. Multivariate…

This paper advances a cross-contextual understanding of authoritative socialization, a concept developed by family researchers. Using data from the High School Effectiveness Study, I use multilevel modeling to test the effect of high school socialization style on student disengagement from 10th to 12th grades, controlling for both the…

Background: Teachers play a critical role in promoting interactions between students and engaging them in the learning process. This study builds on a study by Hertz-Lazarowitz and Shachar (1990) who found that during cooperative learning teachers' verbal behaviours were more helpful to and encouraging of their students' efforts while during…

In this paper the authors focus on one early-career teacher, co-author Natalie Gibson, whose initial teaching experiences were mediated by educational settings shaped by these different and often conflicting traditions. Their study of Natalie's early-career trajectory is concerned with understanding her effort to develop a conception of…