In order to curb school violence and increase academic achievement, many parents and politicians are calling for stricter disciplining in public schools. Before policy changes are made, however, it is important to better understand the relationship between school disorder, discipline, student behavior, and student achievement. Drawing on the school effects research tradition, deterrence theory, social psychological concepts of procedural justice and Emile Durkheim's formulation of moral authority, this dissertation: (1) examines the behavioral and academic consequences for students who attend school with disorderly climates; (2) empirically tests whether stricter school rules and punishment improve or worsen student misbehavior and academic achievement; (3) investigates how normative processes such as moral authority and procedural justice mediate this relationship; and (4) explores whether strict discipline differentially affects "at-risk" students. For the project, I employ multilevel analyses on data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (1988), a nationally representative, longitudinal survey compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics. As expected, students in disorderly schools tend to have higher misbehavior and lower achievement. Contextual effects are found for frequent disruptions and oppositional attitudes toward authority. For school discipline, the results indicate that effects are dependent on several factors including the particular outcome variable, the amount of disorder in the school, the perceived fairness and legitimacy of the system and the at-risk status of the student. The study provides evidence that stringent discipline can have some beneficial effects when it is perceived as moderate, meant to improve minor misbehavior, and directed towards mainstream students who generally believe in the legitimacy of the school system. Under others circumstances, such as if discipline is perceived as overly strict or applied to oppositional and at-risk students, discipline may actually be harmful. Particularly disconcerting is the lower likelihood of graduation found for at-risk students in high schools with stringent discipline. The goal is to construct rules and regulations that are seen as moderately strict but fair and which produce a school environment that is safe, orderly and generally conducive to learning. Suggested policy directions include refocusing on socialization, strengthening teacher authority and implementing procedures that bolster perceptions of fairness.

This sociological study of medical school culture employed a critical framework for analysis of ideological reproduction and social control. A literature review provided a social-historical context for the empirical findings that focused on student-faculty discourse at one college of medicine during the third-year Family and Community Medicine clerkship. Data collection consisted of audio recording and observation in both classroom and clinical settings. A depth hermeneutical analysis was used to answer three research questions. For question 1, "What is the macro medical social context within which ideologies are being reproduced and received in medical education?" a literature review on recent trends in health care delivery and medical education elucidated the social-historical conditions in which ideological and social control constructs are embedded today. The principal finding was that the U.S. health system is embroiled in a revolution, characterized by the frequently contradictory ideologies of medical advocacy and business allocation. For question 2, "What are the principal ideological and social control messages being reproduced in medical education?" a discursive analysis of faculty-student dialogue was structured around eight thematic elements. Findings revealed that medical education does not prepare students to think critically about social and environmental issues that cause 85% of illness in our society, with faculty dominance often acting as a major deterrent. The principal messages being reproduced extended from a therapeutic ideology that promotes the physician's definition/control of patient problems. Also found was a deeply conflictual relationship between managed and medical care. For question 3, "How does the meaning mobilized by these ideological messages in medical education serve to establish and sustain relations of domination and social control?" an interpretive process clarified how ideology and social control sustain relations of power that systematically confound and effectively eliminate social justice in health care. Because the right to define the patient's problem gives the physician extraordinary power, the drive to reach a differential diagnosis is extremely strong, and gaining diagnostic expertise is medical education's consuming focus. As a result, students leave medical school prepared for their professional social control role, while uncritically accepting the inequitable and illness-causing social, economic, and political ideologies of our time.

In this study, I investigated a university as an identity formation site. In particular, I analyzed the formation of social class identity and its relationship to social class reproduction. Social class reproduction theory, with identity formation and retention theories, were utilized to help explain the findings. The primary source of data for this qualitative study consisted of semi-structured interviews. In addition, I employed surveys and observational data collection techniques. The sample consisted of a group of 12 students from an upper-middle class background and 14 students from a lower-middle class background attending the same university. Data primarily consisted of the students' perceptions of their experiences during high school and while they were attending the university. The relative perceptions, expectations, and aspirations of the students' college experiences were discussed in light of social class reproduction theory. I found relatively few white male students from lower-middle class attending the university. The aspirations and expectations of the upper-middle class students were much higher than those of the lower-middle class students, even though the grade point average of the two groups was the same. Evidence suggested social class standing prior to enrollment, as well as experiences at the university, contributed to social class identity formation, aspirations, expectations, and potential professional outcomes after graduation. Old theories were challenged and new theories were proposed to inform the relationship between identity formation, aspirations, and outcomes in the university setting.

This is a case study of one state's community college presidents as an organized power network. I examine community college leadership as a function of group or class interests and social and institutional environments. Institutional leadership is not seen as the efforts of a single leader in a single institution. This case study uses a Delphi survey and content analysis to explore the general and specific transmission mechanisms of class interests, structural dependence, and power networks. The Delphi survey examined class formation and interests through identifying the consensus ideology held by community college presidents. Content analysis of the minutes of a statewide community college presidents' organization identified collective presidential concerns and actions. Content analysis of the minutes of local community college district governing boards identified institutional decision making related to collective presidential interests. Together, the Delphi survey and content analyses led to interpretations regarding statewide structural dependence on community college presidents and their operating as an organized power network, both micro-level social mechanisms involved in system reproduction. I have drawn the following conclusions about community college presidents and institutional decision making (1) Community college leadership can be understood as the result of group or class interests. (2) Community college presidents are powerful and dominant actors in the community college system. (3) Community college presidents can be shown to have organized into elite power networks. (4) Community college presidents in this case study occupy central positions that have local governing boards, the state board, affiliated associations, and top administrators, to a greater or lesser degree, in structurally dependent positions. (5) Community college presidents, as a collective, shape institutional decisions across individual community colleges. (6) Community college presidents, as educational leaders of "democracy's colleges," do not embrace democratic mechanisms.

This study attempts to demonstrate the uniqueness of the work of Gilberto Mendes (b. 1922) in the panorama of twentieth-century Brazilian music, through an examination of selected piano pieces. Even though Mendes is mainly known through his choral works, pieces specifically meant for the piano appear throughout his career, allowing the tracing of his evolution as a composer as well as to detect common characteristics that define his style. The list of works chosen includes two Preludios (1945, 1949), four pieces from Pequeno Album para Criancas (1947-1951), Sonatina Mozartiana (1951), two Pecas para Piano (1957-1958), Musica para Pianono 1 (1962), Blirium C-9 (1965), Vento Noroeste (1982), Il neige ... de nouveau! (1985), Um Estudo? Eisler e Webern Caminham nos Mares do Sul ... (1989), and estudo extudo eis tudo pois (1997). Even though the time span of these works allowed for a fascinating development of Mendes' style towards maturity, the pieces chosen for this study share many common traits such as pervasive use of musical quotation, free manipulation of form, and use of intensive repetition. The freedom and flexibility utilized by the composer when combining these elements make him a unique figure among Brazilian contemporary composers.

This dissertation uses multinomial logit modeling and data from High School and Beyond and Higher Education General Information Survey to examine factors which influence the choice of academic major for the baccalaureate degree. Specifically, I examine: (1) how familial characteristics affect individual selection of academic discipline; (2) race differences in the factors that affect selection of major; and (3) how institutional characteristics influence the choice of major. First, content of education is influenced by mothers more than fathers. Specifically, mothers' social psychological attributes have more effect on students' choice of major than fathers' social psychological attributes or either parent's socio-economic characteristics. Generally, mothers encourage children to pursue non-technical degree programs; fathers, when influential, encourage children to pursue technical degree programs. The exception to this pattern is mothers who occupy jobs with high occupational prestige: They encourage technical degree programs over non-technical degree programs. Second, race differences in the selection of academic major are inconsistent with race differences in the factors which influence the selection of that major. Most of the significant differences between racial groups occur between Asian-Americans and non-Asians; Asian-Americans are more likely to major in technical or health related programs. Contrarily, most of the difference in factors which influence the selection of a major occur in the academic preparation of Euro-Americans and non-Asian, non-whites. High school mathematics courses encourage technical majors for both groups but less strongly for other non-whites. More high school English courses encourage non-technical majors for other non-whites, but have no effect for whites. Third, attending a historically black college had non-normative effects. Generally, higher math test scores increase the likelihood of choosing a technical major relative to a liberal arts degree; higher English test scores increase the likelihood of choosing a liberal arts degree relative to a technical major. At historically black colleges, however, students with higher math scores are more likely to major in the liberal arts and students with higher English scores are more likely to major in technical programs.

This study tests hypotheses posed in a 1983 article regarding the Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business School (HBS). In this article, Van Maanen (1983) states that student-faculty and student-student relations in the two MBA programs differ due to their contrasting institutional and curricular characteristics. Subsequently, the Sloan School of Management adopted some of the same characteristics found at HBS. By adopting a cohort system, eliminating the master's thesis as a degree requirement, increasing its program size, and placing greater emphases on student in-class participation and faculty teaching quality relative to research production, the Sloan School has begun to resemble HBS structurally. Through interviews with MBA students, faculty members, and administrators as well as observations of classes and analysis of documents including course syllabi, this study attempts to determine whether the Sloan culture resembles that found in the literature on HBS. The results show that Sloan's culture looks more similar to that at HBS in some ways. Most importantly, the implementation of the cohort system has increased the sense of cohesiveness among students. In this manner, the Sloan culture has begun to resemble that at HBS. The more dramatic effects on student-faculty and student-student relations that are attributed to the HBS cohort, however, have not begun to appear at Sloan. Nor have the increased emphases on student in-class participation and faculty teaching quality had the same effects at Sloan as they have at HBS.

This dissertation explores the experiences of feminist academics in Mexican universities, particularly how they perceive themselves and their work in relation to the broader Mexican women's movement. My analysis is based on interviews with academic feminist professors in three different woman's studies programs in Mexican higher education institutions, as well as document analysis of curricula vitae, syllabi, and other programmatic materials from those academic units. I find that the social origins and institutional positions of these women yield a complex, variegated set of perspectives, pointing to the value of a post-structural reading of peoples' lived experiences. At the same time, I find patterns in terms of the pressures and directional push of professionalization, Western feminisms, and the new managerialism that yield important commonalities in the perspectives of feminist academics in Mexican universities. Overall, there is a clear sense of a division of labor in feminisms, with academic feminists playing an important but distanced role relative to grassroots community-based activists and women from the base. They appear as experts who generate ideas and influence public policy through scholarly activity.

College choice is a socially constructed process that shapes individuals' educational and occupational mobility, resulting in a reproduction of the existing societal class structure. The complexity of the college choice process is especially apparent among the veteran population where most prospective college students belong to lower socioeconomic statuses, participate in military and working class socialization, and are impacted by organizational habitus. A considerable number of veterans transition from the military each year, eligible for significant educational benefits, yet an examination of their college choices is absent from the current literature on institutional choice. In an attempt to gain insight regarding veterans' college choices, this study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) Do veterans intend to utilize their G.I. Bill benefits when they separate from the military and what factors influence their intentions? (2) What type of institutions do veterans plan to attend and what are the major factors that influence their choices? (3) What types of messages do veterans receive about attending higher education? A total of 30 enlisted veterans transitioning from one U.S. Army installation and 12 educational counselors, education officials, Veteran's Administration representatives, and Army officials were interviewed. The vast majority of veterans interviewed in this study stated an intention to enroll in a community college rather than a four-year institution. Veterans acknowledged two salient reasons for selecting to attend a community college: the perception of financial resources and ability to bank extra financial resources. The research data also indicates that veterans are heavily socialized regarding the value of higher education and institutional selection by military supervisors and education officials who encourage the development of practical skill, focus on the collection of miscellaneous credit hours for the promotion point system rather than actual degree attainment, and encourage community college attendance. Based on the research data, the following recommendations are made: (1) Educate veterans and education officials about the structure of the higher education system including types of degrees, how to utilize educational benefits, and outcome differences between community colleges and four-year institutions . (2) Refine the Army's current promotion system to emphasize and reward degree completion.

Feminist pedagogical aims and strategies have been discussed in a variety of articles and essays and in a few recent books. This thesis explores feminist discourse on pedagogies and attempts to reconstruct the development of these discourses historically. Early writings on feminist pedagogies were the product of the action-oriented feminism of the 1970s and focused on classroom practices, while recent works, rooted in the larger framework of poststructuralist feminism, engage in a complex theoretical dialogue with the philosophical narratives and counternarratives that oriented emancipatory pedagogies and problematized the boundaries between feminist and other emancipatory pedagogies. The thesis comprises an analysis of the historical and theoretical implications of the literature on feminist pedagogies, and an ethnographic part based on six interviews with Professors of Women's Studies at the University of Arizona, who were asked to discuss the meanings, possibilities and predicaments of feminist teaching in a large research University.