The pedagogical principle "learning by research" guides the current curriculum in agricultural high schools in Brazil. A problematization of the principle shows how (1) it feeds into current neoliberal and corporate agendas in the education sector, and (2) it associates mathematical formalism and abstraction as necessary conditions for…

In this paper, we analyze two episodes from an inquiry-based didactical research; the complete analysis of our research data is still ongoing. By taking into consideration various developments from the history of the geometry of space-time, our general aim is to explore high school students' conceptions about measurement of length and time in…

The authors of the book argue that a fundamentally complex problem--how to assess the knowledge of a child--cannot be reduced to a simple test score. "Beyond Testing" describes seven forms of assessment that are more effective than standardized test results: (1) student self-assessments, (2) direct teacher observations of students and…

Aaron Koh contributed to a collection of multi-site global ethnographic articles published here (2014, Vol. 12, No. 2) that present class reproduction as operationalised in elite education. While the collection adds to the current international critique of meritocracy, a close look at Koh's contribution reveals that critical ethnography can lose…

This article examines how the actors of a Chilean public high school navigated the political scenario produced when its students decided to occupy their school to protest a national Educational Reform. Using ethnographic data and interviews with high school students, it proposes to understand this process in the context of a figured world directly…

This paper examines an event in a US secondary classroom where a Muslim student was disciplined for reading lesbian erotica in class. While many students read and exchanged erotica in the school, this student in particular was targeted for a disciplinary hearing. I explore this as an affective event, a moment of sensation and excess, to think…

This article examines student perceptions of religious Released Time Educational (RTE) programming. Through interviews and surveys, we found that students made little distinction between public school attendance and RTE attendance and that many believed their RTE program to be part of their school. Moreover, many students found it to be a…

American and global history curriculum frameworks for high schools across the 50 states generally present the topic of the Cold War from the Western political perspective and contain material about the impact of the US-Soviet ideological rivalry on American society. This article argues that since the Cold War impacted the lives of people in the…

This article explores the interaction between popular culture, community-based education, and the establishment of a critically literate debate community, using the case of City Debate as one example of how critical literacy is embedded and taught through curriculum. Debate has historically been conceptualized as a structurally rigid space for…

Young people may face conflicting and confusing messages about what it means to respond well in relation to homophobia and transphobia. Consequently, we ask--What might it mean to respond well to homophobia and transphobia? This strategy, inspired by Anika Thiem and Judith Butler, is recognition of the ambivalent conditions which structure…

This essay draws on the voices of both literary critics and adolescent readers, resulting in a contextualization of critical theory exploring Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis." Satrapi's graphic novel has been praised for its complex composition and story-telling ability. But although it is both a recommended and contested text for an…

For countries to remain competitive in the global economy, it is important to cultivate the next generation of native mathematicians. However, this goal has been increasingly challenging in the United States where, despite the tremendous increase in university enrollment during recent decades, the number of students studying mathematics has…

Despite growing attention to the importance of grit and other character traits for achievement, developing them in students rarely finds its way into secondary school curricula. Authors Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman investigate the exceptions, telling the stories of five high schools with a national reputation for infusing rigorous…

In this paper we present a mobile application for self-assessment. The work describes the main features of the application and focuses on its acceptance by students and the increase on their learning, through its usage in real testing settings. The application supports the retrieval of questions based on a number of criteria and it was evaluated…

This paper explores New Zealand (NZ) physics teachers' and physics educators' views about Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Perspectives of physics teachers nationally indicated that in general, teachers considered themselves not well-prepared in some content areas including electronics, modern physics, and atomic and nuclear physics. This may be…