Trickle-down economics is a fallacious metaphor that hurts working people and the civic commons. In this paper, we discuss the role and impact metaphors have in economics education. We explore the stickiness of "truthy" but ultimately false metaphors and offer economics educators alternative metaphors to displace this problematic…

Using the autoethnographic case study method, this article examines how my positionality as a foreign-born faculty member intersects with the institutional rhetoric of diversity and inclusion present in many predominantly White institutions. My vignettes show that foreign-born faculty, although contributing to the representation of diversity…

This paper explores Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) teaching and curriculum development across disciplines, based on a case study of a newly established Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) programme at the School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University, UK. It illustrates how different academic values and goals influence styles of teaching…

In 1900, London infant school head teacher and Froebelian, Lucy R. Latter, travelled to southern India to introduce kindergarten pedagogy to schools in Mysore. A hundred years later Froebelians continue to implement projects in very different environments from kindergarten's European roots, including Soweto, South Africa and Kolkata, India. This…

The article explores the ways in which concerns of history, in terms of content, concepts and methodology, find space or do not find space within textbooks used for teaching languages. These may be more important as sites of "knowledge" than social science books, because the latter are often regarded as insignificant within the formal…

There has been a rapid global expansion of English instruction in the early grades in public school curricula. Particularly in so-called developing countries, the increase of and its shift from exclusively private to public education is linked to the idea that acquiring English promotes personal, social, and economic development. The author takes…

This article make a case for the importance of background knowledge in children's comprehension. It suggests that differences in background knowledge may account for differences in understanding text for low- and middle-income children. It then describes strategies for building background knowledge in the age of common core standards.

This article explores parents' use of private tutoring services for their primary school children in Sydney, Australia's largest city. Using Bernstein's theories of invisible and visible pedagogies, we look, through the eyes of a small group of middle-class Chinese-background interviewees, at the tensions between certain pedagogic forms associated…

In undertaking a critical discourse analysis of the professed aims and objectives of one of the most influential curricula in the teaching of thinking, this article foregrounds issues of power and ideology latent in curricular discourses of rationality. Specifically, it documents the subtle but powerful ways in which political and class…

There is a distinct class difference in the way that children are taught school behavior. Teachers in affluent schools use more implicit teaching techniques while teachers of low-income children are more explicit in their teaching of behavior. This stems largely from the alignment of the home culture of middle class children to school behavior and…

This article examines how students from the "loser" sections of the middle class dealt with the game of secondary schooling in a "good" state school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It engages with Bourdieu's theory of social practice and, in particular, with its concepts of game, habitus and cultural capital. It argues…

According to a 2002 study by the U.S. Department of Education, the percentage of "traditional students" on college campuses is declining. Students increasingly are delaying enrollment, attending college part time, working full time, financially independent, and single parents. In this paper, we explore the extent to which sociologists are adapting…

As a teacher with more than 30 years experience at the middle school, secondary, and college level, primarily in English studies, Patterson (the first author) decided a few years ago to reexamine his practices and instructional methods. He wondered what would be the effects on him and his students when he would begin to utilize ideas emanating…

Background: This article examines the emergence of the middle and working classes in America and describes key characteristics of these cultures as they manifest themselves today. It then explores the effects of social class on our conceptions of democracy. Purpose: To help educators understand the relationship between social action strategies and…

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high-stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working-class school and a…