This study examines the relationship between student perceptions of university police and fear of crime through the utilization of a rational choice perspective. Over the last three decades, a plethora of research has explored fear of crime and factors related to its occurrence. However, a thorough review of the literature revealed a limited…

Despite the expansion of post-school education and incentives to participate in lifelong learning, institutions and labour markets continue to interlock in shaping life chances according to starting social position, family and private resources. The dominant view that the economic and social returns to public investment in adult learning are too…

In this article we present results from research on how education environments may influence the propensity of education participants to engage in corrupt practices. We approached this task with the help of a conceptual framework that draws on rational choice and routine activity theory, and on economic models of human behaviour. The framework…

In this article, deviant action is analyzed on the basis of ideas derived from Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory. Presumedly, self-control in interaction with opportunities can explain deviant action. This assumption is elaborated using the concept of high- and low-cost situations from rational choice theory. From this point of view,…

Despite an almost endless list of possible study programs and occupational opportunities, high school students frequently focus on pursuing a small number of well-known study programs. Students also often follow gender-typical paths and restrict their attention to study programs in which the majority of students consists of same-gendered people.…

In the early 1980's an education policy in Chile was formulated that encouraged the private sector to participate more strongly in the delivery of the educational service, with the purpose to achieve to have more students attending the education system and decentralize the education responsibility from the State. On the other hand, in the 1990's…

A large number of sociologists have adopted the notion of the embodied subject to escape the trappings of the rational choice theory in sociological analysis. From a phenomenological perspective, the notion of an embodied subject refers to a subject who is in unity with the world. In this paper, I will present my ethnographic study of a group of…

This study examined the temporal stability of employee preferences for rewards over seven monthly evaluations. Participants completed a ranking stimulus preference assessment monthly, and the latter six monthly assessments were compared to the initial assessment. Correlations of preferences from month to month ranged from r = -0.89 to 0.99.…

Privileging elite academic pedigrees in graduate admissions preserves racial and socioeconomic inequities that many institutions say they wish to reduce. To understand this preference, I integrate across perspectives on trust in rational choice, social capital, and social network theories, and use the resulting framework to interpret 68 interviews…

Although women are increasingly entering male-dominated careers, they remain strongly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations. While previous explanations emphasize the importance of individual preferences or family socialization, less is known about how the school context contributes to these…

Background/Context: Scarce research has been conducted examining why students choose to attend higher priced for-profit institutions over community colleges. The authors suggest that increased national concern over proprietary higher education warrants an in-depth comparative case study of the choice factors utilized by for-profit and community…

As more state legislatures join the debate on school-choice and parent-trigger legislation, their discussions draw attention to an evolving landscape outside school walls where parental action shapes educational opportunity. Parents wield their political, social, economic, and cultural capital to secure the best educational outcomes for their…

The purpose of this study is to identify how superintendents use political power, examine the characteristics used by superintendents to function politically, and to define the hidden knowledge of managing politically charged situations. Based on this informative literature and conducted research, I answered the following research questions: 1.…

One important hallmark of William Lowe Boyd's scholarship was his uncanny ability to identify and articulate changes in the key ideas that shape and reshape scholarly, professional, and public discussions of educational policy and politics. Whether one thinks about debates over centralization and decentralization of policy control, changes in…

In principle and practice, Michigan's public universities are committed to the sustained improvement of educational and economic opportunities in the state. However, their place in the state's general fund budget makes them especially vulnerable to reductions, when resources are low. The remarkable impact that higher education has on every person…