This response to ""Buscando la Libertad": Latino Youths in Search of Freedom in School" by Jason G. Irizarry demonstrates how youth participatory action research (YPAR) as an instrument of subverting oppressive school policies and structures is a form of critical policy analysis (CPA). As an evolving method, CPA acknowledges the absent voices in…

Despite Colombia's official recognition of its ethnic and cultural diversity, it has yet to develop in practice an inclusive educational vision involving the recognition of diversity, as well as promoting the country's insertion within the global market. Garcia et al. acknowledge the importance of "cultivating" students' diverse…

The main goal of this study was to expand understanding of a Korean-American community's cultural identities through storytelling and artmaking, which was conceptualized as "Visual Storying" in this study. Ethnic minority students in the United States often experience confusion or conflict between American and their heritage cultures.…

Psychology lecturers are well-qualified to carry out action research which would contribute to the theoretical understanding of learning as well as having practical benefits for students. Pedagogical action research demonstrates how knowledge of psychology can be applied to solve practical problems, providing role models of psychological literacy…

This article reports on a first cycle of a larger action research study conducted to determine how Circuit Teams could support School Management Teams of underperforming high schools towards whole-school development. Although it is a mandated requirement by the Department of Education, none of the four schools involved in the study had developed a…

Systemic splits between pre-compulsory and compulsory early years education impact on transitions to school through discontinuities in children's experience. This paper presents data from a critical participatory action research project about transitions between pre-compulsory and compulsory early education schooling in Australia. The project aim…

The purpose of this study was to obtain an accurate picture of minority student enrollment in honors and advanced placement (AP) classes at Wichita (Kansas) High School East and to develop a plan of action to close the achievement gap between White and non-White students. Prior to this study there was no clear, concise data to move this discussion…

Over the past few decades, the pursuit of teachers-as-researchers has become an ideal for developing teacher autonomy to which many in the world of curriculum development and language teacher education try to promote (Benson, 2001). Nevertheless, research into how teachers learn to do research has been scarce, and there are pressing needs for…

This article uses the author's original study of over hundred Year six children's perspectives of literacy and the wider curriculum, in English schools, to explore the potential challenges of exploring "pupil voice". Using collective case studies, with descriptive and time-sampled observations, and semi-structured interviews, across an…

Committed to being a charter school with a professional learning community that empowers teachers, New Mexico's South Valley Academy (SVA) staff transformed its state evaluation process into a practitioner action research process (Anderson, Herr, & Nihlen, 2007). While teachers self-diagnose growth needs and play active roles in improving…

The idea of using values as a means of guiding our research decisions and judging the validity of our claims of knowledge is well established in literature on the self-reflective genre of action research. Values in action research should always result in virtuous behaviour--to promote the general social good. However, ideas of what constitutes the…

At the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa, professional development is characterised by its focus on the advancement of scholarly teaching in the disciplines. Practices followed are informed by the scholarship of teaching and learning movement. Within learning communities, special attention is given to the motivational conditions…

This paper describes an action research project that investigated a range of activities to improve learners' mathematical communication skills. It also gives details of a subsequent case study that illustrates how technology can provide a means of overcoming some of the difficulties learners and tutors face in communicating about numeracy, while…

This paper reports an action research study aimed at understanding how to sensitize young English language learners towards caring for the environment. The pedagogical intervention in a 5th grade class consisted in the use of creative writing strategies to express learners' ideas. Three stages were followed: "recognizing facts,"…

In this paper we discuss perceptions of the benefits of learner-generated podcasts for supporting postgraduate engineering students in a mathematics-intensive course. The course under study had previously been highlighted as one in which students had struggled to attain knowledge that formed an essential underpinning to their degree programme.…