Gail Burrill is a Mathematics Specialist in the Program in Mathematics Education at Michigan State University. She previously served as secondary teacher and department chair. She was President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and is currently President of the International Association for Statistical Education. She is a Fellow…

Educators' persistent disciplining of a small group of students positions them as "frequent flyers." This identity prevents educators from developing an understanding that could enable them to reengage these students. Using the methodology of interpretive biography positioned within narrative inquiry and using a Gestalt-based analysis,…

This article analyzes the crystallized learning disposition formed in secondary schools and its persistent influence on the transition between educational sectors and the workplace. Using interview data from eight adults who graduated from a prestigious university in Korea, this study reveals that "exam-inclined self-direction," a manner…

Habitus dislocation is a much debatable term. By presenting life-histories of working-class adolescents, this article argues (i) that not all upwardly mobile working-class adolescents experience habitus dislocation and, (ii) that habitus dislocation has its roots in the self-initiated ruptures that face some of those who want to be upwardly mobile…

Youth organizing work benefits young people in myriad ways, equipping them with the skills and dispositions to organize around the systemic inequities and policy decisions that threaten their communities. The findings from this life histories study in the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) reveal that the organization's collectivist leadership model…

The ideal-typical distinction of normal/choice biography has been adopted by many youth researchers over the last 17 years as a means of approaching how vocational adolescents take decisions in a context in which life transitions are reversible and unsafe. In this article, we aim to show that this distinction is overestimated, by focusing on a…

This study was concerned with an examination of the heteropatriarchy as it was performed by six self-identified heterosexual male English teachers and two high school administrators in the United States and Canada. These educators explained their efforts regarding their own thinking about identity and curriculum and their attempts to teach a…

A lack of esteem for teachers and the teaching profession is a central tenet underpinning policy reforms put forward by the 2010 UK Government White Paper "The Importance of Teaching". This article argues that the policy problem and solutions presented in the White Paper lack awareness of the historical and social positioning of…

This article explores the concept of "cleverness" as it is employed by Tanzanian youth to improve their likelihood of succeeding in school. It analyzes the Swahili term "ujanja," which combines cleverness, opportunism, and deception, while it also illustrates an educational anthropologist's ongoing process of familiarization…

This article reports on some of the findings of a wider, life history study on the factors affecting the career decisions of 40 female secondary school teachers in England. By using life history interviews, it was possible to gain rich and nuanced insights into the complexity of factors influencing women's career decisions. While acknowledging the…

In 1914 opportunities for working-class women's sports participation were limited and peripheral, but the 1980s, policy reforms resulted in the then Sports Council identifying women as a "target group". Subsequently the notion that barriers to women's participation are issues to be identified and resolved has become commonplace in…

This paper focuses on teachers of secondary level religious education in England, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway. It presents a study of the teachers' perceptions of and responses to the diversity within their classes, in relation to their professional role and their personal and professional biographies. The study employed…

Relatively little is known about veteran teachers' professional lives and especially of veteran teachers who have failed to secure promoted teaching positions. This is a weakness in our understanding of teachers' lives given the social and policy changes which have taken place in teaching over recent decades. Through a series of 10 semi-structured…

In addition to cognitive research on school leaders' problem solving, this study focuses on the situated and personal nature of problem framing by combining insights from cognitive research on problem solving and sense-making theory. The study reports the results of a case study of two school leaders solving problems in their daily context by…

Background/Context: Over the past decade, a growing chorus of educational stakeholders has called for the recruitment of more Black men into the American teaching profession, casting these men as ideal surrogate father figures for Black youth who may lack adult male role models in their families or communities. Although a small body of scholarly…