This paper offers a cultural assets model for supporting school effectiveness that moves beyond the deficit and difference approaches of the twentieth century. The model incorporates the capacity to identify contemporary cultural assets, and support cultural continuity, cultural diversity and cultural resilience during change. Undertaking…

Explanation pertaining to individuals' cognitive development and learning approaches is a recurring theme in the areas of education and psychology. The work of Okagaki (e.g., Okagaki, 2001; Okagaki & Frensch, 1998), for example, has provided both theoretical and empirical insights into the structuring and situational positioning of individuals…

Motivations for choosing teaching as a career were investigated in 200 pre-service teachers from Canada and Oman. We used a novel structured qualitative approach and two theoretical models to analyze how pre-service teacher career-choice motivation varied according to cultural context. The results of the study showed that Canadian participants…

In this study, we aimed to explore the experiences of 10 female Taiwanese childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivors (age range = 20-39 years) to broaden our understanding of the post-abuse coping process in a Chinese sociocultural context. This investigation was grounded on a feminist paradigm, and the consensual qualitative research method (Hill et…

Sociocultural theory is increasingly popular as a paradigm for research in education. A recent member in this family of theories is introduced--cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)--that shows much promise to complement and invigorate the field of educational change, a large, multi-faceted, and persistent problematic. In particular,…

Since the middle of the twentieth century waves of immigration have increased heterogeneity in American classrooms and contributed to new challenges and problems for both teachers and learners. These trends in the United States are, in fact, part of a global phenomenon of large-scale movement of people (Garcia Coll & Marks, 2009;…

The objective of this dissertation is to explore the socio-cultural contextualization of the digital divide in Japanese society. I undertake this task by developing a theoretical and methodological framework based on the notion of "culture as models," while explicating the cultural dimensions of the digital divide and the dynamics of…

Children constantly encounter signs during cultural practices, although many theories do not fully acknowledge sociocultural aspects of semiotic development. The author examines research on cultural practices and contexts in which children learn to produce signs involving representational drawing and pretend play. This work is contrasted with more…

This paper illustrates how classroom discourse demands a multi-layered analysis. The first analysis focuses on classroom discourse and provides a picture of pupil participation in teacher-pupil interactions: who is inducted into discourse and who is not. However, this local micro-analysis does not afford interpretation at the level of the…

Develops a social value model that reveals the relationship between film and social phenomena, and political processes. The model is used to demonstrate the nature of the political context that impinges on a film, such as "Rocky," and the specific exigence to which it is a response. (JMF)

A systematic cultural plan applied to the second language textbook will not produce riches overnight, but it is a solid beginning that might be expanded when the teacher has the opportunity for further research or an increase in budget for the purchase of cultural modules. The key word in this proposal is "system." Teachers can, and do, add…

Argues that awareness of the relationship between language and the sociocultural context in which it occurs is important for students and teachers. The article suggests that everyday, ephemeral texts can be easily collected and categorized according to genre for teaching and cross-cultural comparison. (19 references) (Author/CK)

In Taiwan, traditional pedagogy and technique-oriented teaching methods have become too outdated to enable students to fight with a society full of complicated and confusing socio-cultural phenomena. An art education curriculum change is needed, and innovative art programs should be developed with careful consideration of the socio-cultural…

Using a transcultural perspective this model of the post-parental years assumes a "parental imperative" perspective of the entire life cycle and, thus, analyzes the post-parental years in relation to the pre-parental and parental years. Through this perspective, young parents recognize needs of infants for security, and select those…

Suggests that parenting beliefs are influenced by the broader societal contextual variations, and focuses on cultural and subcultural variation. Uses studies of parental beliefs among immigrant families who must make transitions across different cultural contexts to illustrate these variations. (ET)