Most school administrations rely on one of two main forms of social control to ensure teacher conformity with organizational goals. The first, feedback and socialization, depends on teachers' attitudinal and behavioral conformity, commitment, and personal involvement in maintaining high standards. The second, programming and sanctions, depends on…

Investigates developmental changes in conformity to parents and peers and relations between parent and peer conformity. Children in grades 3, 6, 9, and 11 or 12 responded to hypothetical situations. (Author/SS)

Discusses how school leaders are increasingly torn between pressures for conformity and for diversity, arguing that pressure toward conformity undermines schools' ability to respond to diversity and suggesting that school leaders challenge the confines of sameness while exploring conceptions of leadership that value differences. Four strategies…

Proponents of school uniforms claim many beneficial advantages: improved academic performance, student safety, discipline, and school morale. Opponents say uniform policies violate the First Amendment and will not dramatically improve student performance. School leaders must juggle two conflicting ideals of justice: a student's right to freedom of…

Resistance to endorsing peer-sponsored misbehavior, judgments of the wrongness of such behavior, and attitudes toward self, mother, father, peers, and adults were measured for 174 children in four grades. The results support Bronfenbrenner's findings that American children resist more under the parent and less under the peer than under the neutral…

Western impressions of Japanese education are examined. Various aspects of Japanese art education--e.g., government control, a centralized school system, and standardized curriculum--and Japanese attitudes toward conformity are discussed. (RM)

Comments on how traditional education promotes conformity and stifles creativity, on the history of humans' relationship with nature, on depleted energy capital, and on solar power and other alternate energy resources. Includes a poem on youth, flowers, and learning. (MH)

Argues that in order to increase student action against racism, antiracist educators should look to lessons from the Holocaust and adopt measures aimed specifically at preventing bystander behavior and conformity to group pressure. Discusses research related to both phenomena and identifies implications for moral education. (DSK)

Examines arguments for and against compulsory education in Great Britain. Arguments for include education for individual growth, government-sponsored child protection, the promotion of national socioeconomic growth, and ideological conformity. Arguments against are the inhibition of individual growth and the infringement of parents' and children's…

Our culture enforces compliance and obedience in all its institutions and at every level. These institutions systematically discourage independent thought or unconventional action. Schools can play an important role in educating strong, independent thinkers. Teachers should act to reward creative disobedience and to discourage conformity. (JN)

Giving tests and assigning grades are stated to be important aspects of teachers' responsibility for facilitating student learning. Opposition to testing is discussed, objections are criticized, and beneficial consequences of evaluation are listed. It is maintained that tests do not cause cheating, or excessive discouragement, competition, or…

Chubb and Moe model education on the economic system. The rules governing the economic system, concerned with distributing goods and services, differ from those governing the educational system, concerned with developing and disseminating knowledge and information. Controlled choice recognizes the complementary relationship of freedom and…

The authors discuss "evaluation paranoia" as a fact of life for students and educators. By grades or job evaluations, both are pressured into conformity through fear of the evaluator. Suggested is a new conception of evaluation, based on self-appraisal and mutual goal setting, to promote honesty and personal growth. (SJL)

Warns that methods of molding "good students" (e.g., teacher-dominated decision making, lack of student participation/response, and solitary classwork) ensure conformity, docility, passivity, and dependence. Recommends coaching, rather than lecturing, for skill development; Socratic dialogue; environments that reduce fear of failure; and learning…

The rhetoric of American public education abounds with admonitions to adapt instruction to individual differences and to "humanize" the educational process. However, in practice, especially below the collegiate level, students are guided toward conformity with subjective standards, and those who do not fit are perceived as having deficits to…