Education Commons^™

People's Reporter Feb. 10-25 2015, Vol. 28, No.3 Obituary Pravinaben Patel, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

Pravinaben was known as ‘giver’. When my father had to go to site, she would give food for both, himself and his driver. During monsoon, postman came to her asking for umbrella, if their footwear gave way, my mom would give him chappals or shoes. Whenever, a poor woman in the vicinity delivered a baby, she would make baby’s clothes, quilt and go to meet her even without knowing her personally. She taught ‘juvenile delinquents’ at remand home to cook, embroider, write and read. In spite of being in an extremely hierarchical eco-system of public sector, she treated everybody equally …

Meta-Analysis Of Type I Error Rates For Detecting Differential Item Functioning With Logistic Regression And Mantel-Haenszel In Monte Carlo Studies, Eva Van De Water Ph. D.

Eva Van De Water

Differential item functioning (DIF) occurs when individuals from different groups who have equal levels of a latent trait fail to earn commensurate scores on a testing instrument. Type I error occurs when DIF-detection methods result in unbiased items being excluded from the test while a Type II error occurs when biased items remain on the test after DIF-detection methods have been employed. Both errors create potential issues of injustice amongst examinees and can result in costly and protracted legal action. The purpose of this research was to evaluate two methods for detecting DIF: logistic regression (LR) and Mantel-Haenszel (MH).

To …

Why Western Australian Secondary Teachers Resign, Tony Fetherston, Geoff Lummis

Tony Fetherston

In recent years, Western Australian school have faced a significant increase in the number of secondary school teacher resignations. By analysing qualitative data gathered from interviews of 11 recently resigned secondary teachers, and three senior level administrators, the researchers sought to begin to understand the reasons behind a teacher attrition rate that has increased markedly since 2003. By placing the teachers’ experiences within a framework of critical social theory, the paper outlines how collisions with power and the negative discourse encountered by teachers established their subsequent pathway to resignation. In outlining these pathways, we have provided an anthology of their …

University Leaders' Use Of Episodic Power To Support Faculty Community Engagement, Kerryann O'Meara, Andrew Lounder

Benjamin L. Harwood

This study explores faculty perceptions of the actions taken by organizational leaders to support the faculty's community engagement. We draw upon Lawrence's (2008) theory of power and agency in organizations to name these strategic actions as episodic power and consider how and why each act taken by organizational leaders mattered to these community-engaged faculty.

Women Power Connect Obituary Mrinal Gore: Vibhuti Patel, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

On 17th July 2012, Mrinal Gore passed away. With her demise, an era of women freedom fighters with feminist sensitivities in praxis is over. Inspired by Quit India Movement under leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, 14 year old young girl Mrinal became active in the freedom movement. Drawn to political and social causes, she gave up a promising career in medicine in order to organise the poorest and most powerless. She married her comrade, Shri Keshav Gore and when he died at a young age in 1958, she founded Keshav Gore Smarak Bhavan which provided democratic platform to progressive forces for …

The Limits Of University Autonomy: Power And Politics At The Universidad Nacional Autónoma De México, Imanol Ordorika

Imanol Ordorika

The nature and extent of institutional autonomy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) has been a matter of contention between academics, policy makers and university members for many years. Opinions about governmental influence over the university in Mexico range from absolute autonomy to absolute control. Few of them, however, are founded on research on university-government relations. Most studies of univer- sity autonomy in Mexico are based on classical definitions and pluralist political perspectives that limit a thorough understanding of this relation between the University and the government in the context of an authoritarian State. This article provides an …