Institutional Structure Factors Research Articles

Experiencing Calculus Through Computational Labs: Our Department’s Cultural Drift Toward Modernizing Mathematics Instruction

Our traditional model of calculus instruction at a large public research university emphasized factual knowledge and procedural fluency with few realistic applications, leaving a chasm between classroom mathematics and disciplinary practice. Amid an ongoing effort by our department to improve undergraduate learning outcomes, we replaced recitations in Calculus II with computational team labs to bridge this divide. Interview, classroom observation, survey, and gradebook data suggest that the labs facilitated a rich learning experience while student grade outcomes were unchanged. Student engagement, however, was inhibited by institutional structural factors, whose remedy requires a shift in departmental culture concerning the purpose of mathematics instruction.

The reasoning behind the envisioned educational trajectories of young people from Finnish and immigrant origins

ABSTRACT Transitions from one level of education system to another and from education to work are structured by socio-economic and institutional structure factors, while at the same time they are appropriated by individuals in their biographical constructions. Patterns to career trajectories are also dependent on social class, immigrant origin and level of academic achievement. This paper elaborates the ways young people are envisioning their post-comprehensive trajectories in Finland. Based on an analysis of qualitative interview data (n = 113) with immigrant- and Finnish-origin youths in the final year of their comprehensive education (ninth grade), patterns of envisioned educational trajectories are identified and the reasoning behind them recognised. The analysis introduces six possible envisioned educational trajectories, based on combinations of envisioned educational choices and occupational destinations. They portray the multiple relational aspects and intertwining processes of the decision-making processes, but also underline the nature of them as self-made reasonings of skills, stress, friends, life management and aspirations. Study guidance and counselling should support the decision-making processes as a part of the holistic life-design process.

Regionally Distinct Post-Socialist Leaders: Evidence from Leadership Trait Analysis

Leaders are often noted to be instrumental in transitional political processes. Yet, most studies in the field bypass them, focusing instead on such factors as institutional setup, level of political culture, geopolitical location, diffusion of ideas and other factors. Even when highlighted, leaders are thought to be acting under the constraint of these arguably more defining factors and therefore relegated to a secondary role. Part of the problem is thought to be difficult to treat individuals as a measurable variable other than being shaped by aforementioned institutional-structural factors. Through a methodological borrowing this study determines that the leadership patterns across the region do vary in a substantial way. More importantly, the variation is determined independent of the overarching institutional-structural factors. The profiling of leadership patterns is followed by discussion of implications such exogenously determined leadership patterns may have on the study of transitional processes.

‘I Know What Freedom and Responsibility Mean Now’

This article analyses narratives of autonomous adulthood among Korean international students at an American state university. I categorize student narratives in terms of the number of activities associated with achieving adulthood markers and the efficacy of individual agency. A broad perspective considers a wide variety of activities to contribute to autonomous adulthood and valourizes individual agency. A narrow perspective focuses on activities tailored to one’s career, and downplays individual agency compared to larger institutional-structural factors. I examine these narratives among three groups of international students, depending on their time of arrival: pre-college migrants who moved to the USA during middle or high school, college-migrants who arrived during the first or second year of undergraduate college and post-college migrants who came for advanced degrees (e.g., MA, PhD). The finding suggests that students negotiate agency and structure differently depending on their past and current experiences in the sending and receiving countries.

Discerning the Good

This study addresses normativity in the practice of collaborative decision-making in Dutch Catholic school management teams. ‘Discernment’ is used as a heuristic to describe the process and content of collaborative decision-making. With regard to the process, discernment is marked by four distinctive aspects: reflection; trust; welcoming of diversity; and enactment of decisions. As for the content, discernment in schools requires different modes of reasoning, notably reasoning based on a vision of good education. In addition, this study investigates perceived impediments and conditions for improvement with regard to the practice of collaborative decision-making. The data suggest that the process aspect of welcoming diversity is dominant, whereas trust is almost absent. Reflection and enactment manifest to a moderate degree in decision-making. As for the content of decision-making, reasons referring to (formal) vision, reasons of care, instrumental reasons and reasons of control are dominant in school management teams. Within the reasons of vision, notions referring to the purpose of education are nearly absent; whereas references to (core) values that are abstract (not referring to patterned practices) are dominant. Impediments are experienced as related primarily to institutional, school-bound and team-bound cultural factors, as well as to institutional structural factors. Contrarily, conditions for improvement are experienced as related to team-bound cultural factors and material factors, and are thus found primarily within the direct span of control of the school management team.

Before Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, and Gendered Party Leadership Contests

Given that most national executives have been men, it is a commonplace to observe that access to executive power is gendered. Men have historically served as heads of government, and few women have been presidents or prime ministers. Women's numbers are increasing, however, as is research focusing on women who have achieved national executive leadership (e.g., Jalalzai 2013; Murray 2010). Such research has emphasized women's individual resources and credentials, family background, and political experience as factors contributing to their political success; research focusing on the strategic and institutional structural factors that contribute to this success has been rare.

Factors That Affect Motivation Among Adult Learners

Motivation is an internal force that energizes the individual for action and determines the direction of that action. Antecedent conditions (e.g. attitudes toward the subject, concern for academic excellence), and methodological or course design conditions (classroom variety, instructional activities, direct feedback) are variables that influence student motivation. This research presents the results of a survey (N=563) that examined the influence of personal, teacher behavior, and institutional-structural factors on adult students at the second largest private university in California. The results indicate that teacher behaviors are among those rated by students as having the most influence on their motivation to succeed.

An Estimate of the Level and Determinants of Illicit Drug Use among Unauthorized Latino Immigrant Arrestees in California

Although justifications for a more restrictive U.S. immigration policy have increasingly relied on linking socially unacceptable behaviors such as welfare participation and illicit drug use with illegal entry, very few immigration impact studies separate respondents by foreign-born legal status. Applying a legal status prediction equation to 1994–1996 CALDUF data, this paper (1) estimates the relative level of illicit drug use (IU) among unauthorized Latino immigrant arrestees (ULIAs) in California and (2) investigates how individual-demographic and institutional-structural factors influence IU. ULIAs were underrepresented, with a smaller proportion testing positive for IU and having experienced or desired drug treatment. Regression results suggest (1) ULIA status had an independent negative effect on IU; and (2) higher earnings may have decreased, and public assistance recipiency and the percent of one's income obtained illegally may have increased, the likelihood of IU. We conclude by discussing implications for various policy instruments.

Role Diversity of City Managers

Classification of administrative decisions as routine, adaptive, and innovative provides the framework for identification of the multiple roles played by city managers. Actual discretion accorded managers by their city councils or by the charter is rated for each category within the adaptive and innovative decision classes in ten cities studied. Such rating of discretion provides more precise descriptions of role behavior than the more customary general description of tasks. The political context for the various ranges of role behavior is then examined for style of politics and institutional-structural factors. Political style may be monopolistic or competitive; institutional-structural factors include popular election of the mayor as opposed to council choice of the mayor, independence of any departments of government from manager control, and ward election of councilmen as opposed to election at large. A positive relationship was found between limitations in range of discretion accorded city managers and popular election of the mayor in all cities with this electoral feature. Restrictions of managers' roles were attributed to conflicting role expectations of the managers and the elected mayors. This finding is in accord with the common-sense opposition of proponents of council-manager government to popular election of the mayor. Gladys M. Kammerer is professor of political science and director of the Public Administration Clearing Service, University of Florida, Gainesville.