This study is about graduate students' discourse practices in classroom text-based synchronous computer mediated discussions (SCMD). Cultural historical activity theory (in short, Activity Theory) is the primary theoretical lens through which the data are analyzed. Engeström's (1987) Activity System model among the various theoretical positions or…

China's recent education reforms are a result of selective policy borrowing from "the West". Although comparativists have highlighted the importance of cultural context in policy borrowing in China, what remains relatively under-explored is the epistemological basis for cultural views that mediate policy transfer. This article argues…

The pressures of the information and digital culture exhibit innovation, but also a hegemonic power, and act in reciprocity with the global economy. Theoretical concepts and practical actions need to be revisited, to build equity in virtual communication. A sociological-cultural focus of communication mediated by technology, cannot occur without…

This article explores how achievement motivation is framed by the larger context of the devaluation of educational capital that is currently underway in urban centers in Europe. The article elucidates the shared cultural meaning working-class German Turkish youths living in urban marginalized zones in Berlin, Germany create about the decreasing…

Much previous research has pointed to the need for a unified framework for language contact phenomena -- one that would include social factors and motivations, structural factors and linguistic constraints, and psycholinguistic factors involved in processes of language processing and production. While Contact Linguistics has devoted a great deal…

This essay presents an overview of the system of gifted education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To highlight the characteristics of this system, however, its presentation is preceded by a discussion of particular aspects of Saudi society and its general system of education. These aspects distinctly differentiate the general and gifted systems of…

This article explores the North African Jewish community's establishment of Or Haemet Sephardic School as a response to the forced "Ashkenazification" of Sephardic students in the Orthodox Jewish day school system. The establishment of the school signifies the North African Jewish community's refusal and resistance to an essentialist…

Integrating a "global perspective" into courses necessarily involves examining whether traditional disciplinary assumptions still apply in a global context and, if not, how they need to be translated in order to remain relevant. In this article, the author maps out this process by tracing one "intellectual journey" in order to…

This research explored gender and cross-cultural similarities and differences in the motivational profiles of Indigenous Papua New Guinean (PNG) and Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Secondary students (N = 1,792) completed self-report motivational measures. Invariance testing demonstrated that the Inventory of School Motivation…

This investigation was carried out in an attempt to respond to the issue of identification of codes for constructing meaning that yield to innovation. Based on the discourse of rural primary school teachers of la Araucania Region, Chile, we sought to expose key elements and codes that allow teachers to construct and/or re-elaborate meaning that…

This study extended the consideration of help-negation in regard to suicide to that of depressive symptoms in a large sample of 981 Chinese university students in Taiwan. The study examined the help-negation effects of depression and the impact of gender, anxiety, and help-seeking attitudes on that relationship. Chinese students, aged 17 to…

This article is based on a phenomenographic study that focuses on identifying the pedagogical conceptions of Finnish teachers of transnational dances. The purpose is to uncover and understand teachers' conceptions concerning the implications of the cultural contexts of their specific dance forms for their pedagogical practices. Through a process…

Games have played an important role in modern educational methodologies. Beginning with the work of luminaries like Froebel, Montessori, and Dewey and continuing through the Cold War, the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and '70s, and into the present day, shifts in educational practice can be traced historically using the lens of games,…

This article illustrates the application of psychological and educational consultation in an international setting. With the goal of promoting psychological well-being of the school-age population, a partnership was formed between an American school psychologist and a Sri Lankan educational sociologist and teacher educator. The partners, or…

This case study discusses a mixed-methods longitudinal research study which focused on the experiences of secondary students as they moved through the school system. This study was the first of its kind in the Irish context and has yielded insights into important processes such as the transition to secondary education, the factors influencing…