Once teaching-learning events are conceptualized as inter-discursive encounters, it becomes clear that mathematics classroom talk is rife with invisible pitfalls. There are many types of unacknowledged discursive gaps, some of them necessary for learning and some potentially harmful. Such gaps may exist also between the teacher's intentions and…

This study investigates how students and teachers perceive learning outcomes when employing an inquiry-based learning approach, and how this relates to two conflicting perspectives on teaching and learning in the Norwegian curriculum. The informants are strategically chosen from among Norwegian elementary schools that use the 'students as…

This paper explores students' resistance when they were expected by their teacher to start learning mathematics through investigations, a pedagogy that emphasizes an active and agentic approach to learning in contrast to the traditional transmission-based teaching to which they were accustomed. This resistance is investigated from the perspectives…

Research shows that teachers and educators struggle to act when conflict appears in the classroom. This article argues that (political) conflict should not be avoided or eradicated. Teachers should enable conflict and attend to their pupils in the process, in order to enable further understanding of each other and their differences, as part of…

For teachers to integrate ethnomathematics approaches, it is essential to understand their views related to the implementation challenges of such approaches. In schools, teachers held previous views and experiences that influenced their integration of ethnomathematics approaches. This study investigates school-related factors that impede the…

The paper argues that what is left behind in the current era of accountability is the educational content. The authors present "shedding the content" as the great challenge of teaching and learning in today's schools. They turn to the tradition of "Bildung" and outline the theoretical background for the "content-focused…

This paper attempts to move beyond a critique of historically dominant ways of thinking about teaching and learning relationships to offer a conceptualization of relational pedagogy from a theological perspective. It offers commentary on the potential of relational pedagogy for Christian faith-based schools informed by the scholarship of German…

Modern historical research challenges religious education by undermining the arguments in favour of the existence of a supreme power who is responsible for patterns of reality. This article explores how the new generation of history textbooks of Religious Zionism, one of Israel's ideologically most influential populations, cope with this dilemma.…

This article examines the diffusion and present day status of a family of unsubstantiated learning-retention myths, some of which are referred to as "the learning pyramid". We demonstrate through an extensive search in academic journals and field-specific encyclopaedias that these myths are indeed widely publicised in academia and that…

This article presents a new conceptualization of 'shadow curriculum', one component of the worldwide phenomenon of shadow education, i.e. learning outside of school. Traditional conceptions of curriculum are not applicable to shadow education, and so this article begins by exploring how shadow education practices qualify as a new focus of…

Current landscapes of curriculum discourse and educational practice are examined by focusing on co-evolutions of metaphors for knowledge, learning and teaching across four prominent 'frames'--namely, Standardized Education, Authentic Education, Democratic Citizenship Education and Systemic Sustainability Education. It is argued that these frames…

This paper outlines a conceptual framework in order to systematically discuss the meaning of intercultural learning in history education and how it could be advanced. We do so by bringing together theories of historical consciousness, intercultural competence and postcolonial thinking. By combining these theories into one framework, we identify…

The characteristics of Chinese learners and the factors influencing these characteristics become increasingly an important focus of research in the field of educational psychology, sociology and comparative education ever since the publication of the book, "The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Influences," edited…

This paper reports a design experiment that attempted to strike a balance between coverage and learning in an exam-oriented, college-preparatory, high school course--Advanced Placement (AP) US Government and Politics. Theoretically, the study provides a conceptual framework for penetrating the depth/breadth tension in such courses, which are known…

This study examines the mediating role of homework in the daily practice of a middle-school mathematics teacher and her colleagues in Shanghai. It aims to explore how a system of homework activities mediates and engenders a cultural pedagogy characterized by transforming errors into resources for teaching and learning. The transformation itself…