Search

The superintendency offers the most powerful and prestigious positions in K–12 public school systems. Few superintendents of these systems in the United States are women, although the majority of teachers are women and many women have leadership positions in schools. There are also increasing numbers of women in administrative preparation programs at institutions of higher education. This study of 27 highly qualified women in top-level administrative positions in public education was designed to find out what it is like to be a woman aspiring to the executive leadership position. Research questions included: Why are there so few women superintendents when so many are qualified? What are the routes to the superintendency? What is the context of educational administration in the public school? What kinds of leaders are women who aspire to the superintendency? The research was also informed by a femininst advocacy of social change to discover how and under what conditions a more equitable distribution of superintendencies is likely to occur. A feminist poststructural framework provided the theoretical basis for the analysis of the data.

A catalog of the American art in the collection includes work by John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Frederick Remington, and others.

This book presents an ethnopoetic translation and an interpretation of an evening of story­telling which took place in rural Afghanistan in 1975. Three years before the Marxist coup, two Muslim elders from Herat province were asked by a Marxist subgovernor to spend an evening telling traditional stories to an American woman. The storytellers wittily integrated themes of sense and nonsense, gender and sexuality, religion and public and private social control in thirteen recorded stories, here translated in full. In interpreting texts, Margaret A. Mills argues for a rhetorical sophistication among adept traditional performers which enables them to mount performances of traditional materials which are highly, and in this case slyly, sensitive to the political and social identities of self and audience. Such identities are in part negotiated and constructed via the performances. Noting that Afghan culture has traditionally posited noninstitutional religious authority against central government institutions, Mills points out certain ironies and tensions which recur as the stories unfold in the presence of the government bureaucrat. Using this evening of stories as an example, the author asserts that the creation of narrative meaning makes use of both intertextual and interpersonal relationships. This extended performance suggests Afghan perspectives on the integration of narrative and social critique, of religious authority and private ethics, of the real and the fantastic, the serious and the ludicrous, which challenge common western notions about genres of literary production (written and oral) and social interaction.

The Chinese-American Composite Wing combined Chinese and American pilots, crew, and ground personnel into integrated squadrons

Maxfield Parrish left a legacy of magnificent paintings, but he is best appreciated in the context of his own life and times. This book provides that context with an overview of the era in which American illustrative art flourished. When Parrish first arrived on the publishing scene in the 1890s, "mass media" meant print media. From Arthurian legends to American fables like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, stories were avidly read by a literate population. New printing technology made color illustrations possible, a liberating element for artists and a delight for readers. Part lively Parrish biography and part lucid historical analysis, this book offers a treasure trove of illustrations from classic children's literature by Parrish and his contemporaries, accompanied by excerpts from the stories.