Principal Barbara Farmer
greets children at Houserville Elementary School
in College Township. Farmer, who is principal at both Houserville and
Lemont elementary schools, is one of seven female principals who
oversee the 11 elementary schools in the State College Area
School District, near University Park.
Photo: Annemarie Mountz
By Paul Blaum
Public Information
Even
though two-thirds of public school administrators are men, women who apply for
administrative posts may have a better chance of getting an interview than male
applicants, researchers say.
"Previous data indicate that female aspirants to school principal and superintendent have been hurt by gender discrimination based on the perception that women are subjective and illogical," said Susan Bon Reis, assistant professor of education. "This seems to be confirmed by 1996 U.S. Department of Education figures showing that, while women comprised 75 percent of the teachers, they only numbered 35 percent of the principals. Nevertheless, in our study using hypothetical job applicants, female administrator candidates were evaluated significantly higher than male administrator candidates."
Reis conducted her research along with I. Phillip Young, professor of educational administration at The Ohio State University; and James C. Jury, former superintendent of the Christian County (Kentucky) School District and now professor of educational administration at The Citadel. The researchers worked with a random sample of 150 high school principals, male and female, with an average of 18 years of teaching experience and 12 years of administrative experience.
"We asked the principals to evaluate resumes and reference letters of hypothetical male and female applicants for the position of assistant high school principal," Reis said. "These candidates were weighed on the basis of communication skill, overall school contribution, disciplinary ability, personal warmth and growth potential."
Contrary to expectations, the 150 principals were noticeably more favorable toward the female candidates, Reis said.
"It could be that, because of the current three-to-one disparity between male and female principals, women are being deliberately courted to fill an existing void in public school administration."
Furthermore, female administrators are starting to be perceived as better administrators than men in terms of dependability, flexibility and collaborativeness. In a 1997 survey, teachers and peer administrators actually rated female administrators superior to male administrators.
A second explanation may be the fear of legal entanglements. A third reason is demographics.
"In education, women are simply moving into administrative positions in larger numbers. This bodes well for women in other professions less traditionally open to women," said Reis.
"In short, findings from this study do not support past research, which suggests that gender preference is preventing female applicants from at least attaining an interview for administrative roles," she said. "Instead, they point to improved odds for women who want to advance into school administrative positions."
By Paul A. Blaum
Public Information
A rude awakening is in store for business professionals who assume that all intellectual property loses copyright protection once it goes on line.
"The globalization of every form of commerce, symbolized by The Business Web, has created a digital wonderland where intellectual property flows more freely than ever," said Ralph A. Oliva, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets in The Smeal College of Business Administration. "Intellectual property can range from a new discovery in industrial technology to an original opera or screenplay."
Globalization and the dizzying pace of technological change have at the same time made copyrighting tougher to enforce, more difficult to manage and ever more important, according to Oliva.
"The ease of data transfer across networks worldwide increases the odds that online users can infringe on another person's copyright," said research assistant Sharda Prabakar.
According to Oliva, there are many more ways works can be misappropriated, so maintaining the proper balance between authors' and society's rights puts legal protection in flux.
"In addition, the Web has grown with its own culture, often hostile to intellectual property rights, which generally favors the idea that posted information should be 'free' to everyone," Oliva said.
Finally, different cultural and even religious systems present obstacles to copyrighting on a global level.
"In many Asian cultures, for instance, intellectual property is considered to be free, like the air. Its value comes from using it to create products and services that people buy -- but not in the creation of the intellectual property itself," Prabakar said.
Despite this, the long arm of copyright law is still there, and business managers should be wary of it. Managers often need to be reminded that simply being posted on the Web doesn't automatically place intellectual property in the public domain, Oliva said.
In nine countries around the world, larger classes are associated with better math scores among eighth-graders. Only in the U.S. do small classes perform slightly better in math, according to a researcher.
"The perception in the U.S. is that small classes are better," said Suet-ling Pong, associate professor of education and sociology. "There is some evidence, in previous studies, that small classes for K-3 are beneficial. For eighth-grade math classes, we found that small is marginally better in the U.S., but we do not know why this differs from other countries."
Pong and Aaron Pallas of Michigan State University looked at the data for eighth-graders in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.
Math students in the United States in classes of six to 18 students do better than those in classes of 19 to 29. This finding occurs after adjusting for the average socioeconomic status of the students in the same classroom.
"Our international study is at the preliminary stage. More research needs to be done to determine why the U.S. is the only country out of the 10 we examined where small classes do better in math," said Pong.