This is a case study of how old institutionalism tenets of values, and goals shaped Antioch College, the College's Board of Trustees, administrators, faculty and alumni influence the transformational expansion process that changed Antioch from a liberal arts college to a national university. The case study also examines how the pressures of new institutionalism forces of legitimacy and homogeneity directed and influenced Antioch's organizational structuring. Institutional theory is the framework for this study. Selznick's (1949, 1957) old institutional theory, new institutionalism, beginning with Meyer (1977), and the reconciliation of old and new institutionalism (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996) provide the theoretical lens through which the analysis of Antioch College's expansion is studied. Contributions from this study include a better understanding of how institutional theory affects the decisions, and the outcomes, made by key institutional stakeholders in organizational expansion and restructuring. It also demonstrates the advantages of using old and new institutional theories jointly when analyzing organizational motives that include expansion. Finally, this study provides institutional leaders at colleges and universities who are considering organizational expansion items to consider prior to making the decision to expand their institution.

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Culture has been recognized to play an important role in the formation of parental beliefs, but the question still remains of whether beliefs are maintained or revised over time, and how. The present study examined how proximal influences impacted parental beliefs in an immigrant sample of parents, the thesis being that distal influences have more to do with the formation of parental beliefs while proximal influences have more to do with maintaining or revising them. Effects of the proximal influences of education, occupation status, information networks, and parental agreement about childrearing, on parental beliefs of Mexican-origin fathers and mothers around cultural values of familism/respeto, simpatía, and individualism were tested longitudinally. The research questions were two-fold in nature, looking at within-time effects of the proximal influences on parental beliefs; as well as over-time effects of proximal influences on change in parental beliefs. The within-time questions were answered using hierarchical regression analyses while the over-time questions were answered using repeated measures MANCOVAs. Overall, the beliefs of parents in this study were seen to not change significantly over the course of the three years that they were assessed, and so the study did not yield the results expected in terms of the effects of proximal influences on parental beliefs. However, information networks and fathers' occupation status did emerge as promising proximal influences on parental beliefs, and the results also revealed maternal beliefs to be more responsive to the proximal influences of education, fathers' occupation status, information networks, and parental agreement about childrearing, than paternal beliefs.

Since Plato's time, there have been attempts to show that the generally altruistic way of life is superior to the totally selfish way of life. Drawing upon the conclusions of philosophers and social psychologists, I argue that it is better to have a fairly moral character than a totally selfish one. I first argue that it is possible to have genuinely altruistic motivations (rather than disguised selfish motivations). I then show that both the altruistic and the selfish way of life are genuine choices for rational beings. Next I argue that the nature of values is such that they require reinforcement from others in order for us to verify that what we believe to be values are indeed values. I further argue that values are unattainable for the totally selfish person. Subsequently, I point out that values are necessary for an agent to have a meaningful life, and very likely necessary for a human to be able to have a sense of self. Since most people desire to have a meaningful life and a sense of self, I argue that the benefits possible to the fairly moral person outweigh the benefits possible to the totally selfish one, even if the latter can disguise her selfishness completely.

Cognitive-developmental theory claims that moral reasoning ordinarily progresses through distinct stages, and that such development can be stimulated by discussion with others, especially discussions involving exposure to higher-stage reasoning. The concern of this study was the social/contextual factors that interact with cognitive processes involved in the development of moral reasoning. Two types of such factors were studied: namely, sociometric status and intensity of moral education program. The first of these could be studied because the participants were residents of a facility for young offenders (a total institution), characterized by an obvious and rigid hierarchical peer status system within the culture. The second factor could be studied because the participants were drawn from three residential units within the larger center, which varied significantly in terms of their program activities (specifically, unit meetings), and hence their moral climates. A total of 101 young offenders served as participants. They were assessed for moral reasoning, their perceptions of moral and institutional climate, and also through behavioral ratings - all at the pretest and at the 1-month posttest. The three levels of program were reflected in the institutional and moral climate measures. As well, better climates were associated with improvements in behavior and lesser climates with reductions in prosocial behavior. It was concluded that moral climate represents a valid measure of the factors which predict behavior within and following release from institutional settings. In order to study the effects of peer status, 40 participants served as target subjects who engaged in moral dilemma discussions with one other subject, each day for 3 consecutive days. According to cognitive-developmental theory, a dyadic intervention such as the one used here would be expected to stimulate the moral reasoning competence of the participant who is lower in that ability. However, the dyads were formed in such a way that some of the high stage participants (who would be expected to have an influence on their partner) were of significantly lower peer status. It was found that both exposure to higher-stage reasoning and higher peer status were necessary but not sufficient elements within this developmental process, consistent with the Piagetian notions regarding peer interaction and disequilibration.

Many of today's children find themselves with an unprecedented amount of freedom to choose what sort of life to pursue. A corollary of this freedom however is the burden of sorting through the many options which life offers. Without some guidance in wading through this values-minefield, some children simply become stuck, unable to choose or to choose well. What is a good life? What sorts of goods in life ought we to pursue? These questions motivate the present project but they are not ones which I attempt to answer. Instead, I examine the kinds of tools that could help students to answer such questions in a thoughtful, intelligent and caring way. In order to live a good life, we need to choose well regarding what is valuable. In this thesis I argue that such a process, choosing well about what is valuable, is the result of wisdom. Wisdom is that set of characteristics which allows us to live well. This thesis is the development and justification of this conception of wisdom. It explores how wisdom is related to three key concepts: knowledge, value and morality. I do not argue that this is the only way to think about wisdom. However, it is a way of thinking about wisdom which could usefully and justifiably find a place in the educational system of a liberal democratic state. This thesis is an attempt to understand how educators can teach for the most important goal in life: how to live well.

Family is still the most importan priority for students. The main values are: carier at work, or wish to have good friends, satisfaction at work, good salary and foundation of „yourself“. All these values are connected with the choice of profession and work, creation of family and birth of children, foundation of life style. The life together, not married is almost the same as to live in marriage, but later marriage becomes importan form of life. Children take a lot of place in future plans, they are making family valuable and stationary. To grow up the children is responsible economical action. The family could be and has to be created on the equalitarian basius. But still the points of view to the roles in the family are not the same. Homosexual marriages, the ability to adopt and to grow up the children for them is valued sceptically. These points of view to the family open abilities to identify student’s idealo f family and conflicting rules.

Nowadays Lithuanian society outlieves essential social and economic changes, whish influense each person‘s live influencing the young generation. During the social alteration it is available to note valuable conflicts and the view at the existing valuables are changing. Today‘s youth is deeply stuck into conformosm and adoring of status symbols. Young people understand their responsibilities, work and intelligence in different ways and have an awry scale of valuables. Each person creates his or her own model of valuable orientation where are particular valuables dominated. The valuables of each induvidual are as a hierarchically organized system, whish more or less changes in his or her life.

The Orientation of Values in Condition of Globalization.

The primary goal of the Army is country defense. To reach that goal the Army must prepare soldiers – country defenders. The world is changing its face nowadays – the Army so on: country defenders are transforming into expeditionary warriors. According to such situation most of scholars pays attention to economical or public organizations and its employees values and very little to men of the armed forces, especially conscripts valuable orientations. The thesis focuses on conscripts that are serving in Lithuanian armed forces. Company of the Honor Guard was chosen as a research unit. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the dynamics of conscripts’ valuable orientations during the serving period: identify and explore values that influence soldiers‘maturity, civic attitude, understanding of the professional ethics, explore conscripts‘valuable orientations during the period of serving in the ranks, rate the influence of commanders to dynamics of the conscripts‘valuable orientations. In part one of the study the short review of research literature is presented. In part two special adopted questionnaire was prepared, that was filled by 68 conscripts and 14 commanders (officers and non-commissioned officers). In part three the data of research is represented and analyzed too. After separate findings were systematized, research showed that valuable orientations of conscripts are greatly changing during the period of serving. These orientations become far more similar to... [to full text]