February 11, 1999

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Reports to the President

A compilation of annual reports for the 1985-1986 academic year, including a report from the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as reports from the academic and administrative units of the Institute. The reports outline the year's goals, accomplishments, honors and awards, and future plans

The Neoliberal Educational “Imaginary” as experienced by a group of Primary School Headteachers

In this thesis I undertake a critical policy analysis in which I place education reform in the UK within the context of a changing social structure, transformed since the advent of neoliberalism in the 1970s, and examine the implications of reform on the role of primary school Headteachers. In particular, I situate my analysis within increased promotion of global economic competition and policy supported by neoliberal ideology in which the prevailing government seeks to retain legitimacy by claiming to institute reforms to improve education, whilst simultaneously reducing direct funding which is, in fact, destabilising it. Neoliberalism is a distinct political ideology that has flourished in the Western world over the last four decades and is based on theories of the free market; underpinned by economic efficiency, bureaucracy, rationality and measurable performativity. I look in detail at how the leadership of schools has changed, as a direct result of the implementation of new managerial instruments, and how resistance to these changes has been largely futile. Lacanian thinking would suggest that ideology which assumes education is a physical state that is inherently part of a democratic process, inextricably linked to politics, positively transformational and measurable, is in fact imaginary (Lacan, 2006). Our imaginary “order is embedded in the material word” and woven into the reality around us (Harari, 2012, p.127). It is within this ‘imaginary’ conceptualisation that my research is positioned. I present, and analyse, empirical data gathered from a number of primary school Headteachers from a range of contexts that outlines their lived experience as they attempt to navigate the, what could be described as, strongly surreal or ‘Kafkaesque’ (Löwy,1997) educational ‘imaginary’, as it is currently configured and, explore the efficacy of a forum that is used to support them as they therefore attempt the untenable. The significant issue of school context as an effect of how a school performs in testing regimes is substantial. It is clear that context greatly impacts on the extent to which Headteachers must shift their beliefs and practice to satisfy performative expectations. I conclude with an acknowledgement that to attempt to rationalise the educational ‘hyperreal’ without an appreciation of power and manipulation is impossible and, that the role of primary school Headteachers may only be plausible with the scaffold of forums such as the one examined within this research

DIY Queer Feminist (Sub)cultural Resistance in the UK

This thesis examines the role of music, power and DIY (sub)culture involved in resistance to hegemonic discourses of gender, sexuality and feminism (re)circulated within dominant society and culture. In particular, attention is focused upon young peoples' experiences within riot gml and contemporary queer feminist music (sub )cultures situated within the fabric of social change and protest cultures of contemporary Britain. A critical interdisciplinary approach and set of qualitative methodologies were employed to understand music as collective social action that incorporated (i) oral histories of British riot gml, (ii) an auto/ethnography of DIY queer feminist (sub)culturallife, and (iii) case studies of queer and feminist amateur music-makers. I argue that music provides participants with a set of vital spatial, emotional and sonic resources to provoke radical political imaginaries, identities, communities and life-courses into being. In the context of a neo-liberal post-feminist consumer society, the creation of DIY queer feminist music (sub )culture attempts to resist the disarticulation of feminism and the dominant regulation of gender and sexual diversities. These social practices offer critical insights into the continuities of the (sub)cultural resistance of girls, young women and queers throughout modem history and demands the recognition of (sub)cultural resistance as crucial to British feminism within the wider transformations of protest and activism in contemporary society

The re-appearing act of leadership: an exploration of leadership practice through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory

The notion of reappearing responds to a prominent article by Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003a) who argued for the disappearance of leadership, predominantly due to their failure to look for the practices. This research focuses on this ontological orientation and undertakes a theoretical and empirical exploration of leadership practice in a Russian organisation, and provides three main contributions for the emerging field of leadership-as-practice. Firstly, I develop a framework primarily based on cultural-historical activity theory and critical realism that conceptualises leadership practice by placing agents’ actions and interactions within the context of their relationships, objectives, experiences, material and non-material artefacts and wider organisational processes and structures; work that has not yet been undertaken in the field. Secondly, I provide a methodological guidance for future qualitative research design that connects ethnographically informed approaches to fieldwork with critical realist Grounded Theory techniques for data analysis process. Thirdly, drawing on the findings from my empirical research, I suggest how leadership practice is enacted within the day-to-day interactions and activities and how it affects the very context of its appearance. I conclude with suggestions for future research that draws on these contributions, as well as making recommendations for leadership development practice

Southern Accent September 2008 - April 2009

Southern Adventist University\u27s newspaper, Southern Accent, for the academic year of 2008-2009.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/southern_accent/1086/thumbnail.jp

Casco Bay Weekly : 2 June 1994

https://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1994/1022/thumbnail.jp

Bowdoin Orient v.120, no.14-25 (1991-1991)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-1990s/1002/thumbnail.jp