Interchange 

About: Interchange is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Philosophy of education & Higher education. It has an ISSN identifier of 0826-4805. Over the lifetime, 1489 publications have been published receiving 18813 citations. The journal is also known as: Interchange (Dordrecht).

Dropouts from higher education: An interdisciplinary review and synthesis

Abstract: The dropout process from higher education is examined from a variety of operational definitions and intellectual perspectives. A methodological analysis, critique, and synthesis of the empirical literature suggest that a more rigorous interdisciplinary approach must be attempted. A model based on Durkheim's theory of suicide provides a fruitful vehicle for summarizing a large proportion of current research, and focusing future attention on the interaction between student attributes (i.e., dispositions, interests, attitudes, and skills) and the influences, expectations, and demands imposed by various sources in the university environment. Both the academic and social systems of the university are regarded as important frameworks from which the dropout process must be examined. An empirical analysis operationalizing the variables in the model will be presented in the sequel to this paper.

Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research: Between a Rock and a Soft Place.

Abstract: In this paper, I attempt to reconceptualize validity within the context of openly ideological research.~ The usefulness of this reconceptualization is tested by applying it to examples from three explicitly value-based research programs: feminist research, neo-Marxist critical ethnography, and Freirian "empowering" research. 2 Finally, validity issues within research committed to a more equitable social order are discussed.

Dropouts from higher education: Toward an empirical model

Abstract: Longitudinal data gathered from all 683 first-year students in the College of the University of Chicago in 1965 are used to test the utility of a theoretical model in explaining the undergraduate dropout process. The model as operationalized represents a synthesis and extension of concepts pertinent to balance theory, Durkheim's theory of suicide, and recent work on college dropouts. It regards the decision to leave a particular social system as the result of a complex social process that includes family and previous educational background, academic potential, normative congruence, friendship support, intellectual development, grade performance, social integration, satisfaction, and institutional commitment. Multiple regression analysis is used to assess the independent contribution of each of these factors in the explanation of important outcomes in this process. Although social integration, satisfaction, and institutional commitment can be explained primarily on the basis of the intrinsic rewards associated with interpersonal relationships and intellectual development, the short-run dropout decision is largely influenced by extrinsic performance criteria among the men but less so for the women. Over a four-year period, however, formal academic performance is clearly the dominant factor in accounting for attrition among both sexes. The implications of these findings for institutional policies are discussed.

The Hidden Curriculum and the Nature of Conflict.

Abstract: There has been, so far, little examination of how the treatment of conflict in the school curriculum can lead to political quiescence and the acceptance by students of a perspective on social and intellectual conflict that acts to maintain the existing distribution of power and rationality in a society. This paper examines two areas—social studies and science—to indicate how an unrealistic and basically consensus-oriented perspective is taught through a “hidden curriculum” in schools. The argument centers around the fundamental place that forms of conflict have had in science and the social world and on the necessity of such conflict. The paper suggests that a greater emphasis in the school curriculum upon the ideal norms of science, e.g., organized skepticism, and on the uses of conflict could counterbalance the tacit assumptions being taught.