Social Capital: Relationship Between Social Capital and Teacher Job Satisfaction Within a Learning Organization

This dissertation was designed to study the relationship between Social Capital and teacher Job Satisfaction for 11 selected North Carolina Middle Schools. This study uses the learning organizational theory and social capital theory as theoretical constructs for studying the complex relationships between school as a Learning Organization (LO), Social Capital (SC), and teacher Job Satisfaction (JS). SC encompasses the interactive-interpersonal relationships and the values that are placed on those relationships whose collaborative efforts provide collective leverage to obtain an agreed-upon task. SC, according to Subramaniam and Youndt (2005), is intrinsically tied to Human Capital (HC), which is the individual knowledge, skills, experience, and/or expertise an individual utilizes within the organizational framework. Teachers, school administrators, and school support staff possess individual knowledge and skill for the positions for which they were hired. The researcher used the SC constructs to form a conceptual bridge between the LO concept and JS among teachers. As a first step in examining the validity of this model, the researcher used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to examine the fit between Bowen\u27s 12 LO dimensions and their theorized manifest indicators, as operationalized in Bowen\u27s Student Success Profile-Learning Organization (Bowen, Rose, & Ware, 2006). This analysis yielded the conclusion that an acceptable degree of fit existed between the observed and theorized relationships between the LO dimensions and their manifest indicators. The researcher then used CFA to examine the theorized versus observed relationships between the scored LO dimensions (justified on the basis of the initial CFA) and the 3 SC constructs. Upon confirming that an acceptable degree of fit existed between the theorized and observed LO-SC relationships, the researcher proceeded to determine the degree to which the 3 SC constructs accounted for the variance in teacher JS using ordinary least squares multiple regression. This resulted in the finding that 2 of the 3 SC constructs (viz., Cognitive Social Capital and Relational Social Capital) accounted for significant portions of the variance in teacher JS, combining to account for 10.8% of JS variance

Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature

This volume is first major volume of articles devoted to the topic of prayer and poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls since Liturgical Perspectives was published over a decade ago. This volume includes discussion of new insights, and findings of other leaders in this field that reflect the state of research on specific prayers and poetic texts. Contributors include the most notable researchers in the field: G. Brooke, E. Chazon, J. Collins, D. Falk, E. Tov, H. Najman, M. Boda, D. Dimant, L. DiTommaso, I. Frölich, J. Newman, C. Newsom, J. VanderKam, J. Zilm, M. Abegg, P. Flint, C. Korting, R. Kratz, R. Kugler, A. Lange, M. Pajunen, É. Puech, A. Reinhartz, S. W. Crawford

Prayer and Identity in Varying Contexts: The Case of the Words of the Luminaries

This article examines the ways in which a single liturgical text, the Words of the Luminaries, would be read by two diachronically and ideologically different audiences: the implied audience of the pre-Qumranic author and the actual audience of the Yaḥad community at Qumran, which preserved this text. The text’s first person plural rhetorical stance invites the implied audience to identify with its “we, Israel” voice and with the fundamental beliefs, ideas, and values encoded in the “we” discourse. These major ideological themes conjoined with the pan-Israelite rhetorical stance convey messages about identity and ideology that are dissonant with the Yaḥad’s deterministic, dualistic ideology and sectarian identity as the elect “Congregation of God.” Nonetheless, the common past, foundational narratives, and shared values, especially regarding the Torah, would facilitate the Yaḥad’s reception of this originally non-Qumranic text and enable it to be read through the lens of the Yaḥad’s sectarian identity.</jats:p