This article explores contextual factors that influenced teacher leadership behavior during the evolution of a dual language education program for elementary English-language learners. Teachers' narratives provide evidence of the relative strength of school leadership streams, that is, relationships, moral purpose, and commitment to action.…

Language is commonly positioned as an economic resource. Recent debates have argued that policy interpretations of language as economic resource can potentially undermine language positioning and reduce understanding of the cognitive, cultural and social benefits of language learning. In monolingual policy contexts, such a positioning means that…

Teacher-led initiatives built upon relationships, moral purpose, and a commitment to act have the potential to bring about change in twenty-first century schools. In order to implement and sustain change, teachers must collaborate with diverse colleagues and members of the school community. Intergroup communication across cultural and linguistic…

This article presents the design, implementation and outcomes of AlpConnectar, a Swiss project that exploits technologies for digitally-supported language exchange (LE) in primary schools. Launched in 2013, the project involves three Swiss cantons where different languages are spoken (namely German, French and Italian) and respectively taught as…

Purpose: The purpose of this self-reflective paper is to focus on practical efforts to combat inequality and foster intercultural dialogue in education. It introduces "knowledge alliances", a type of social practice open for education technologies. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is structured in a theoretical and an empirical…

Virtual environments are more and more used in primary schools. One of the most interesting potentialities of these environments is to foster cross-national applications. Yet, this specific feature is not fully exploited. This paper presents a successful virtual learning environment for primary education involving two European countries and…