The purpose of this study is to understand the experience of mothers who lost a child to suicide, and how they have learned to cope with their devastating loss. The study is grounded in transformative learning (TL) theory; the study design combined narrative inquiry and the first author's autoethnographic experience. Data collection consisted of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the possible benefits of approaching sustainability-related teaching cases from the perspective of problem-posing (PP) instead of problem-solving (PS). Design/methodology/approach: A document analysis methodology (Silverman, 2011) was used to analyze sustainability teaching case study abstracts and…

This paper examines Chinese (n = 11) and Spanish (n = 11) student teachers' learning-to-teach experiences during the teaching practicum or placement period through the lenses of transformative learning theory and third space construct. We traced student teachers' transformative learning experiences through observation, interviews, reflective…

Metaphors are powerful windows to gain insight into EFL teachers' professional identity constructions. This study examined 33 Chinese EFL student teachers' (STs) self-generated metaphors about teaching before and after their student teaching. Before their teaching practicum experience, they were: (a) optimistic, but had naïve perceptions about…

This work-in progress research design focuses on the development process of a "Training Perspectives Questionnaire" to investigate how trainers and consultants conceive training and to promote awareness about themselves as trainers. The study was developed within the project "Soft Skills: Aware, Competent and Competitive", led…

In this paper, we present findings from an eighteen-month research project conducted in a remote community school in Western Australia. The data from this project includes documentation pertaining to the practices of educators engaging with Aboriginal Elders and children on Country. The aim of the project was to document the transformative…

Teacher identity has been recognised as critical to the practice and development of teachers. However, there remains a paucity of scholarship capturing the voice of pre-service teachers' meaning making of their own development as teachers during initial teacher education. This paper sets out to explore seven pre-service teachers' meaning making of…

Early childhood educators are regularly confronted by dominant discourses (e.g. ensuring children are prepared for school) and the politics and pedagogy that are embedded in their practice and early childhood contexts. These discourses impact on ways of thinking and engaging with others, and professional behaviour, as well as shaping curriculum…

Frantz Fanon's analysis of colonial experience has widely influenced educational theory and practice. Yet, despite much focus on the gendered and sexed dynamics of racialization processes, and their applications to the dynamics in particular of teaching and learning, surprisingly little attention has been given to how these intersect both with…

This study travels 'down the rabbit hole' of story, with its unique approach to the phenomenon of professional learning. It employs narrative inquiry to examine the perspectives of fourteen educators in one independent Australian school during its pilot teacher growth intervention. Extended literary metaphor and known literary characters operate…

This pilot study interviews three Business English language teachers before and after using EAQUALS' European profiling grid. The findings suggested that the EPG allowed the teachers to reflect on their profession as it helped develop a deeper consideration of the skills required to be a practitioner. It also found that perceptions about the ESL…

The Conceptions about the teaching profession affect professional performance, and metaphors are a tool to identify them. In this qualitative study metaphors are used to gain insight into conceptions held by pre-service teachers, and their development during Initial Teacher Training in the Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education. A total of 247…

This article presents findings from a research study wherein participants demonstrated the use of similes, metaphors, and analogies, termed "conceptual metaphors," in response to disorienting dilemmas instigated by breast cancer. In this qualitative case study of 18 breast cancer survivors, conceptual metaphors were used in three…

Adult educators are often part-time workers or volunteers and, as such, they must simultaneously negotiate multiple professional identities. This negotiation process may trigger conflict among professional identities, which can provide an opportunity for transformational learning. In this case study, the authors explore this conflict and learning…

In this paper, I examine the textmaking potentials of the popular cultural resources of professional wrestling, including its modes of textual expression, as performed by Kyle, a boy in the middle years of elementary school. Kyle remixed wrestling, and its performative affordances, style and textmaking potentials across time and space. Using a…