Despite the very extensive literature on dropout from higher education, much remains unknown about the nature of the dropout process. In large measure, the failure of past research to delineate more clearly the multiple characteristics of dropout can be traced to two major shortcomings; namely, inadequate attention given to questions of definition and to the development of theoretical models that seek to explain, not simply to describe, the processes that bring individuals to leave institutions of higher education.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1170024.pdf

Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research

In the midst of discussions about improving education, teacher education, equity, and diversity, little has been done to make pedagogy a central area of investigation. This article attempts to challenge notions about the intersection of culture and teaching that rely solely on microanalytic or macroanalytic perspectives. Rather, the article attempts to build on the work done in both of these areas and proposes a culturally relevant theory of education. By raising questions about the location of the researcher in pedagogical research, the article attempts to explicate the theoretical framework of the author in the nexus of collaborative and reflexive research. The pedagogical practices of eight exemplary teachers of African-American students serve as the investigative “site.” Their practices and reflections on those practices provide a way to define and recognize culturally relevant pedagogy.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1163320.pdf

Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.

Democracy and education.

We examine how social capital dimensions of networks affect the transfer of knowledge between network members. We distinguish among three common network types: intracorporate networks, strategic alliances, and industrial districts. Using a social capital framework, we identify structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions for the three network types. We then link these social capital dimensions to the conditions that facilitate knowledge transfer. In doing so, we propose a set of conditions that promote knowledge transfer for the different network types.

Social Capital, Networks, and Knowledge Transfer

This paper presents a dynamic, firm-level study of the role of network resources in determining alliance formation. Such resources inhere not so much within the firm but reside in the interfirm networks in which firms are placed. Data from extensive fieldwork show that by influencing the extent to which firms have access to information about potential partners, such resources are an important catalyst for new alliances, especially because alliances entail considerable hazards. This study also assesses the importance of firms’ capabilities with alliance formation and material resources as determinants of their alliance decisions. I test this dynamic framework and its hypotheses about the role of time-varying network resources and firm capabilities with comprehensive longitudinal multi-industry data on the formation of strategic alliances by a panel of firms between 1970 and 1989. The results confirm field observations that accumulated network resources arising from firm participation in the network of accumulated prior alliances are influential in firms’ decisions to enter into new alliances. This study highlights the importance of network resources that firms derive from their embeddedness in networks for explaining their strategic behavior. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Network location and learning: the influence of network resources and firm capabilities on alliance formation

espanolHarvard y el criterio del merito. En 1934, al presentar su candidatura a la presidencia de Harvard, James Bryant Conant propuso abandonar los entonces habituales procedimientos de seleccion : la universidad, cuya mision consistia en identificar a la futura elite del pais y capacitarla, debia asignar mayor importancia al merito intelectual como unico criterio para contratar a los docentes y seleccionar a los estudiantes. Conant habia elaborado un programa de becas nacionales destinadas a corregir las desigualdades economicas y garantizar la igualdad de oportunidades ; su programa diferia diametralmente del acceso generalizado a los estudios superiores, incompatible con su elitismo y su muy jerarquizada vision del mundo social. Paralelamente, intentaba tranquilizar a las autoridades de Harvard garantizando, en gran medida, la continuidad del modo tradicional de contratacion. Conant desarrolla esta misma logica en el articulo que en 1938 publica en el Harper's Magazine ; en el invoca la democracia jeffersoniana, muy escrupulosa en cuanto a una redistribucion de privilegios que haga justicia a "la aristocracia natural basada en el merito", y se declara hostil al igualitarismo "jacksoniano". Al mismo tiempo, procura justificar la pre sencia de los hijos de las clases dominantes en los establecimientos prestigiosos. La igualdad de oportunidades y la movilidad social ascendente deben preservar de la conciencia de clase, que la radicalizacion de las divisiones sociales y la aparicion de una aristocracia hereditaria del dinero pueden llegar a engendrar. Unicamente la tercera via de un radicalismo especificamente estadounidense, partidario de la fluidez social, evitara los males provocados por el "feudalismo industrial" que reina en Europa, sin poner en tela de juicio el principio de la libre empresa. francaisHarvard et le critere du merite. Des sa nomination a la presidence de Harvard en 1934, James Bryant Conant invita a rompre avec les procedures de selection alors en usage : l'universite, dont la mission consistait a identifier et a former la future elite du pays, devait s'attacher davantage au seul merite intellectuel dans le recrutement de ses enseignants et de ses etudiants. Conant comptait sur son programme de bourses nationales pour corriger les inegalites economiques et assurer l'egalite des chances - et non un acces generalise au superieur qui ne pouvait s'accorder avec son elitisme et sa vision tres hierarchisee du monde social. Parallelement, il veillait a tranquilliser les diverses autorites de Harvard en garantissant la perpetuation, dans une tres large mesure, du mode de recrutement traditionnel. C'est cette meme logique qui structure l'article qu'il publie en 1938 dans le Harper's Magazine : il s'y reclame de la democratie jeffersonienne, soucieuse d'une redistribution des privileges qui rende justice a « l'aristocratie naturelle fondee sur le merite » et se dit hostile a l'egalitarisme « jacksonien », tout en s'employant a justifier le maintien dans les etablissements prestigieux des enfants des classes dominantes. Egalite des chances et mobilite sociale accrue doivent remedier a la conscience de classe que risquent d'engendrer le durcissement des divisions sociales et l'apparition d'une aristocratie hereditaire de l'argent : seule la troisieme voie d'un radicalisme specifiquement americain attache a la fluidite sociale previendra les maux engendres par le « feodalisme industriel » qui sevit en Europe, sans remettre en cause le principe de la libre entreprise. EnglishHarvard and the ideology meritocracy. The new president of Harvard, James Bryant Conant, wasted no time in calling for (at the time) bold changes in the university admission policy : he believed that access to higher education should be based on ability rather than inherited privilege. His program of National Scholarships was therefore designed to enable brilliant, however poor, students to obtain their education in the best institutions. Yet, his vision of both the educational system and the larger society was deeply hierarchical. While promoting the ideal of equality of opportunity, he thus claimed that less young people should attend college. At the same time, he was careful to assure Harvard's various constituencies that the vast majority of students would still be selected through traditional processes. In a 1938 Harper's Magazine article, he identified himself with the Jeffersonian tradition of universal schooling and its emphasis on the importance of the equality of opportunity, which would entail a large-scale redistribution of privilege to the advantage of a "natural aristocracy of talent and virtue" but opposed the "Jacksonian Democracy" which he deemed much too egalitarian. Again, his position prevented him from going too far and he was careful to explain why Harvard and like institutions had to admit the sons of the privileged. He believed that the emergence of a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and the hardening of class-lines would soon produce class consciousness, a danger to America which only a "more equitable distribution of opportunity" (generating increased social mobility) could turn back. In a highly contro- versial 1943 Atlantic article, which displeased Harvard's most loyal supporters, Conant advocated the confiscation of all property once a generation : the third choice, which was embodied by the indigenous American radical and his concern with social fluidity, was the antidote to the European "industrial feudalism" and would preserve the existing capitalist order and free enterprise. DeutschHarvard und das Verdienstkriterium. Gleich nach seiner Ernennung zum Prasidenten von Harvard im Jahr 1934 lud James Bryant Conant dazu ein, mit den damals gebrauchlichen Auswahlprozeduren zu brechen : Die mit dem. Auftrag versehene Universitat, die zukunftige Elite des Landes zu entdecken und auszubilden, solle bei der Rekrutierung seiner Lehrenden und Lernenden sehr viel mehr als bisher allein das intellektuelle Verdienst in den Mittelpunkt riicken. Conant verlies sich dabei ganz auf sein Programm nationaler Stipendien zur Ausgleichung okonomischer Ungleichheiten und zur Sicherstellung der Chancengleichheit, und liefi die Moglichkeit eines allgemeinen Zutritts zum Hochschulstudium, die ihm als mit seiner elitistischen Haltung und streng hierarchischen Sicht der sozialen Welt unvertraglich erschienen ware, aufier Betracht. Parallel dazu achtete er darauf, die verschiedenen Harvardinstanzen durch die Garantie einer weitgehenden Beibehaltung des uberlieferten Rekrutierungsmodells zu beruhigen. Von eben diesen selben Uberlegungen geht der 1938 von ihm im Harper's Magazine veroffentlichte Artikel aus : Er bekennt sich darin zum Modell der Jeffersonschen Demokratie, die darauf achte, die Privilegien gemas einer Gerechtigkeit gegenuber der "auf dem Verdienst begrimdeten naturlichen Aristokratie" zu verteilen. Und grenzt sich in Form einer ausfuhrlich dargelegten Rechtfertigung der Beibehaltung der Kinder der dominierenden Klassen in den Eliteschulen vom Egalitarismus Jacksonscher Pragung ab. Chancengleichheit und verstarkte soziale Mobilitat sollen einem Klassenbewustsein Einhalt gebieten, das eine Verhartung der sozialen Teilungen und das Aufkommen einer auf Geld fusenden Erbaristokratie zur Folge hatte. Allein der dritte Weg eines typisch amerikanischen, die soziale Beweglichkeit betonenden Radikalismus sei imstande, das Ubel des in Europa um sich greifenden "industriellen Feudalismus" aufzuhalten, ohne das Prinzip der freien Marktwirtschaft zu gefahrden.

Harvard et le critère du mérite

be brought to bear on assertions about realizable means to ends, even though sociologists rarely introduce that consid eration in debates over social ends. Thus, no one can demonstrate that zero popula tion growth in itself is desirable, but one can surely bring evidence to bear on the allegation that the birth rate would decline if income tax deductions for dependents were eliminated. Generalizing, some arguments about ends can be resolved by focusing on possible means, and sociolo gists who wish to promote some social end hardly deserve a hearing unless they stipu late realizable means to that end. Of course, a choice among alternative means is a value judgment, and for that reason alone no theory or line of research can resolve all ideological disputes in sociol ogy; but requiring the protagonists to make testable claims about realizable means to proposed ends would promote theories that have policy implications. Putting the matter in the broadest context, some sociologists are weary of studying the world as it is, while purists monoton ously inform us that science cannot deal with the ought to be. I advocate still an other brand of sociology, the sociology of the possible. REFERENCES

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27702368.pdf

The Sociology of Education: Perils and Possibilities.

This paper presents an Index of Societal Well-Being based on nine domains that represent essential components of a healthy, well-functioning society: the Economy, Education, Health, the Polity, the Environment, Social Capital, Mental Health and Subjective Well-Being, Crime and Incarceration, and Mobility andOpportunity. The paper describes the placement of 20 wealthy democracies on this index and on the domains that compose it. It then presents preliminary analyses of the relationships between the political and economic structure of these countries and their Societal Well-Being Index scores. Ideal-typical examples of three economic models--social democratic, coordinated, and liberal market--are identified. Societal well-being scores of countries adhering to the social democratic model rank relatively high, while societies adhering to the liberal market economy model tend to rank at the lower end of the index, with coordinated market economies performing slightly better. There is also a strong relationship between combined strength of unions and left-wing parties, on the one hand, and overall societal well-being, on the other. As a society with a weak left that is also the purest expression of the liberal market economy model, the low ranking of theUnited Stateson the Societal Well-Being Index follows the general pattern.

/pdf/outlier-nation-american-exceptionalism-and-the-quality-of-z15stkkkzn.pdf

Jerome Karabel

Papers

Harvard et le critère du mérite

The Sociology of Education: Perils and Possibilities.

Outlier Nation? American Exceptionalism and the Quality of Life in the United States