A hermeneutic phenomenology of graduate education students' understandings of instructor power in a higher education classroom

Higher education is a distribution center of knowledge and economic, social, and cultural power (Cervero & Wilson, 2001). A critical approach to understanding a higher education classroom begins with recognizing the instructor's position of power and authority (Tisdell, Hanley, & Taylor, 2000). The power instructors wield exists mostly unquestioned, allowing for teaching practices that reproduce the existing societal patterns of inequity in the classroom (Brookfield, 2000). ^ The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore students' experiences with the power of their instructors in a higher education classroom. A hermeneutic phenomenological study intertwines the interpretations of both the participants and the researcher about a lived experience to uncover layers of meaning because the meanings of lived experiences are usually not readily apparent (van Manen, 1990). Fifteen participants were selected using criterion, convenience, and snowball sampling. The primary data gathering method were semi-structured interviews guided by an interview protocol (Creswell, 2003). Data were interpreted using thematic reflection (van Manen, 1990). ^ Three themes emerged from data interpretation: (a) structuring of instructor-student relationships, (b) connecting power to instructor personality, and (c) learning to navigate the terrains of higher education. How interpersonal relationships were structured in a higher education classroom shaped how students perceived power in that higher education classroom. Positive relationships were described using the metaphor of family and a perceived ethic of caring and nurturing by the instructor. As participants were consistently exposed to exercises of instructor power in a higher education classroom, they attributed those exercises of power to particular instructor traits rather than systemic exercises of power. As participants progressed from undergraduate to graduate studies, they perceived the benefits of expertise in content or knowledge development as secondary to expertise in successfully navigating the social, cultural, political, and interpersonal terrains of higher education. Ultimately, participants expressed that higher education is not about what you know; it is about learning how to play the game. Implications for teaching in higher education and considerations for future research conclude the study.^

Gender Benders: Shakespeare's Rosalind and Woolf's Orlando

English Renaissance playwright, William Shakespeare and twentieth century modernist author, Virginia Woolf’s works, “As You Like It” (1599) and “Orlando” (1928), respectively posit a vision of gender that transcends the physical sex of the body. The play’s heroine, Rosalind, and the novel’s protagonist, Orlando, each challenge the stability of the binary categories of male and female, demonstrating how gender is not absolute but rather a constantly adapting and evolving construct. This thesis traces the development of Rosalind and Orlando by analyzing and comparing both protagonists’ journeys towards concordia discors, considering how gender transformation plays a pivotal role in helping both figures transcend prescribed gender roles and restraints placed upon them by family and society. Both Rosalind and Orlando mount challenges to prescribed gender norms during periods when conservative gender roles were strictly enforced. By doing so, each character positions themselves as pivotal and progressive representations of gender performance for their time.

S Corporations Can Benefit Many Closely-Held Hospitality Firms

In his discussion - S Corporations Can Benefit Many Closely-Held Hospitality Firms - by John M. Tarras, Assistant Professor, School of Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management at Michigan State University, Assistant Professor Tarras initially offers: “Organization as an S corporation has many advantages for hospitality firms since passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The author discusses those advantages and lists the disadvantages as well.” In the opening paragraphs Tarras alludes to the relationship between hospitality firms, S corporations, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and then defines what an S corporation is. “An S corporation is a form of business entity that combines many of the tax advantages of partnerships with the legal attributes of a corporation, including limited liability for its shareholders. Its name is obtained from a subchapter of the Internal Revenue Code. Except for tax purposes, the S corporation is treated in the same manner as any regular corporation. Like a partnership, income and losses for an S corporation are generally passed through directly to shareholders for inclusion on their individual returns. An S corporation thus avoids the double tax problem facing regular corporations.” There are certain criteria to be met and caveats to be avoided in qualifying for S corporation status. Tarras lists and cites these for you. “Due to the complicated nature of S corporations, the election may be inadvertently terminated if the eligibility requirements are violated,” Tarras expands and cites. As the article suggests at the outset, there are advantages and disadvantages to S corporation status; the author outlines some examples for you. “Traditionally, the S corporation has been used by hospitality firms wishing to avoid the "double tax" problem of a regular corporation,” Tarras informs you. “Regular corporations are taxed once at the corporate level, and again at the shareholder level when income is distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends.” Tarras advises you as to why an S corporation is an advantage in this situation. “Since the S corporation generally is not subject to any corporate taxes, it generally makes no difference whether distributions to shareholders of S corporations are characterized as compensation or dividends,” thus the double tax is avoided. This is just one such positive illustration. Assistant Professor Tarras wants you to know: “Perhaps the most important reason to consider the S corporation has to do with the downward revision of tax rates for both individuals and corporations.” He highlights a case study for you. Some of the disadvantages of S corporation affiliation are the caveats alluded to earlier. They include, “the limitation of an S corporation of 35 shareholders,” Tarras cites. “Also, there are limits as to who may own stock in an S corporation.” These are but two of the limitations of an S corporation. Tarras closes with a further glimpse of the down-sides of an S corporation.

The Travel Industry: What's in a Name?

The travel and tourism industry is enormous in both size and importance. There can be little doubt that the field is striving to accommodate the diversity of opinion concerning what the industry is and how it can be improved and enlarged even further. Resistance to critiquing long-held beliefs about the industry may inhibit its future. Deconstruction, a postmodern method of analysis, is proposed as one tool with which to engage in reflection upon what the industry is and where it may be headed.

Would a Restaurant Menu Item by Any Other Name Taste as Sweet?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of words on a restaurant menu, and to evaluate the impact that they have on the selection of menu items. The research comprised two distinct parts. First, four focus groups were held examining responses to five menus, each with the same menu items but using different wording. The results from the focus group analysis were used to develop a survey which was more widely distributed. From the focus group it was revealed that the occasion and participants in the dining experience influence the wording for menu item selection. Respondents discussed the mystique of the menu and confirmed a desire for menu items that would not normally be prepared at home. It was also of interest the "mouthwatering" effect that the words haw on potential customers and what a strong persuader these words were. The survey reinforced the focus group research in many ways, also stressing the positive effect of descriptive words such as "Tender'; "Golden" and "Natural" to the choice of menu items. The research has identified the importance of the choice and use of words in the design of a menu that operations management need to be aware of

"You can trust me": An examination of trust -in -the -brand advertising appeals

Using trust-in-the-brand appeals in advertising has been a very common practice However, research has yet to examine the effectiveness of such appeals. Can the use of trust appeals in advertising enhance a product's trustworthiness and help the advertiser gain consumers' trust? Might such appeals lead to more favorable attitudes toward the advertised brand? Given the absence of research that speaks to these questions, this dissertation attempts to fill this void by exploring persuasion outcomes of using trust appeals. Specifically, this research aims to assess whether the use of trust appeals affects persuasion; explicate how such appeals may work; anticipate when an ad containing trust appeals may be more or less effective; and finally conduct and report the results of preliminary empirical tests. ^ A conceptual model is offered in the dissertation describing how trust appeals may affect persuasion outcomes. It is proposed that using trust advertising appeals will result in more trust-related thinking, enhance the perceived trustworthiness of the advertised brand, and finally lead to more favorable brand attitudes and trial intentions. This dissertation also examines the differential effectiveness of alternative trust appeals. Elaborate trust appeals that provide substantiation for trust are expected to perform better than simple trust appeals. An implicit elaborate trust appeal is anticipated to outperform an explicit elaborate appeal. ^ Two experiments were conducted. Including a trust appeal in an ad enhanced the perceived trustworthiness of the advertised brand which, in turn, led to more favorable brand attitudes and greater trial intentions compared to a similar ad without the trust appeal. The results also support the proposed mediating role of perceived trust. The empirical test speaking to the hypothesized differential effect of alternative trust appeals provides support for marketing practitioners' efforts in seeking the most effective use of such appeals. Evidence was obtained in the second study demonstrating that an elaborate trust appeal worked more effectively than a simple trust appeal. Contrary to the expectation, this persuasion advantage held regardless of whether the elaborate appeal was in an explicit form or an implicit form. ^

Israel, You Rascals

Mark Steel started doing stand-up in 1982 in England, around the circuit of bizarre gigs, going on after jugglers and escapologists and people that banged nails into their ear. Then came the Comedy Store and Jongleurs and getting bottled off at The Tunnel, and then a regular slot on Radio 4′s Loose Ends, where he met Joseph Heller, Christopher Lee and Gary Glitter. He did 4 series of ‘The Mark Steel Solution’, one for Radio 5 and the others on Radio 4, and a radio series about cricket, which provoked a whole page of fury in the Daily Express. He presented three series of a sports programme called ‘Extra Time’ which he was very proud of, especially as it went out on Tuesday nights on Radio 5 to possibly no listeners whatsoever. Then there was four series of the lectures on Radio 4, a book called ‘It’s Not a Runner Bean’, another one called ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’, and 3 television series of the lectures on BBC 4 and BBC 2. He has done weekly columns in Socialist Worker, the Guardian and the Independent. He has written a book called ‘Vive le Revolution’, and has been on various panel shows like Have I Got News For You and QI, and on Room 101, and on Question Time he says that he “got very confused when I insulted a member of the Tory shadow cabinet, and afterwards he said I was splendid and invited me for a drink.” And he’s spoken at lots of demonstrations and union meetings and protests, and appeared at quite a few benefits. This essay originally appeared on his website: http://marksteelinfo.com/blog/.

Investigation of Escape and Negative Student Behaviors Related to Florida State High Stakes Test Preparation in Miami-Dade County Public High Schools, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a relationship between pressure to perform on state mandated, high-stakes tests and the rate of student escape behavior defined as the number of school suspensions and absences. The state assigned grade of a school was used as a surrogate measure of pressure with the assumption that pressure increased as the school grade decreased. Student attendance and suspension data were gathered from all 33 of the regular public high schools in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The research questions were: Is the number of suspensions highest in the third quarter, when most FCAT preparation takes place for each of the 3 school years 2007-08 through 2009-10? How accurately does the high school’s grade predict the number of suspensions and number of absences during each of the 4 school years 2005-06 through 2008-09? The research questions were answered using repeated measures analysis of variance for research question #1 and non-linear multiple regression for research question #2. No significant difference could be found between the numbers of suspensions in each of the grading periods nor was there a relationship between the number of suspensions and school grade. A statistically significant relationship was found between student attendance and school grade. When plotted, this relationship was found to be quadratic in nature and formed a loose inverted U for each of the four years during which data were collected. This indicated that students in very high and very low performing schools had low levels of absences while those in the midlevel of the distribution of school performance (C schools) had the greatest rates of absence. Identifying a relationship between the pressures associated with high stakes testing and student escape behavior suggests that it might be useful for building administrators to reevaluate test preparation activities and procedures being used in their building and to include anxiety reducing strategies. As a relationship was found, it sets the foundation for future studies to identify whether testing related activities are impacting some students emotionally and are causing unintended consequences of testing mandates.