The Imprint of Business Norms on American Education By Dameon V ...

relationship which permits one to carry out one’s own will even against resistance and regardless of the basis on which this opportunity rests” (p. 117). In addition, he stated that the concept of power is sociologically amorphous. I offer that power is not formless, but it is made to appear so, thus conceptualizing an aspect of power. Another definition of power: “Power is equated with potency, or an actor’s general ability to produce successful performances” (Wrong, 1999, p. 163). This concept of power takes into account human energies (Wrong, 1979). This is a dispositional term, referring to capacity. I agree, and therefore I adopt Wrong’s (1979) basic definition: “Power is the capacity of some persons to produce intended and foreseen effects on others” (p. 2). It is this term (capacity) that allows one to see power in schools as a thing that is possessed by something external.

American sociologist C. Wright Mills (1956) advanced a concept of a social power as a structure determining individual and group relations. This view focuses on a particular power source that exists in what Mills conceived as the “power elite” within American society. Though I do not address his concept of the “power elite,” what Mills and I have in common is an aim to reveal the source and organization of power.

I accomplish this by considering the visible aspects of what power is and its conflicting paradigms. Theoretical perspectives that are concerned with external agencies (in education) speak of issues of power, control and power, and the exertion of power on individuals and/or institutions. Rarely does one get a typology of what power looks like (its visible traits) from the capitalist perspective; rather, there is a general presumption of who exerts power (i.e., the power elite). To help visualize the traits of power exerted by businesses in schools, I consider economist Kenneth Galbraith’s typology of power examined in his seminal work The Anatomy of Power (1983).² Doing this allows me to exclaim, “Voilà! There is power—that is power exerted in schools.”

The third thing I do is focus on the student’s acquisition and perceptions of knowledge: critical thinking. I mentioned earlier that I am building upon the work of Bernstein (1996) where he demonstrated