In this article, the author proposes that, aside from modified instructional strategies, cultural mediation by secondary teachers on behalf of minority students is the key to school adjustment and academic achievement of language minority students in secondary schools. Cultural mediation can be defined as a process of planned intervention in which…

We argue that the student teaching seminar, a co-requisite to student teaching, may best be construed as a "first" introduction to a teacher learning community and to inquiry-oriented professional development. Using a qualitative case study design and discourse analysis, we examine 60 "Teaching Inquiries" (TIs) occurring in student teaching…

The same factors appear to drive early childhood policy in all parts of the world, including the importance accorded to early childhood education, national goals, governments' beliefs about their role in the early care and education of young children, governments' regulations of early childhood services, and the background and characteristics of…

"Extensive" reading has been discussed in the recent research literature as a viable, indeed preferable, means of helping learners develop fluid, more native-like reading skills in a foreign language. But extensive reading texts, in order to be comprehensible at the beginning/intermediate level, are either "diluted" authentic texts, or…

In the spring of 2007, more than 40 years after the advances made by the civil rights movement, and more than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court "Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education" decision, white radio talk-show host Don Imus taught us a lesson about racism--but it was not the lesson he thought he was teaching. His…

This book, the first volume of the paperback versions of the "The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, Third Edition," takes a look at the field from a broadly theoretical perspective, and is composed of the Handbook's Parts I ("Locating the Field"), II ("Major Paradigms and Perspectives"), and VI ("The Future of Qualitative Research"). "The…

All children grow up within a cultural environment that influences their learning patterns and communication styles and how they interpret experiences, process and organize information, and perceive their surroundings. Culturally responsive instruction incorporates students' cultures and experiences into the classroom curriculum and uses their…

This article discusses the results of a one-year study in a physically isolated school community in Queensland, Australia. The decision-making processes in the selection of school subjects became the focus for interviews conducted with the school community (students, parents, and teachers) and the vehicle for identifying the held conceptions of…

This collection of poems by contemporary poets stretches across the boundaries of skin color, ethnicity, language, and religion to give voice to the lives and experiences of ethnic Americans. The poems address common themes of assimilation, self-perception, and communication. In recording everyday life in the many American cultures, the poems…

New researchers on community colleges, such as Rob Rhoads, Estela Bensimon, Bill Tierney, James Valadez, Berta Laden, and Romero Jalomo, are exploring new conceptual frameworks to guide thinking about the transformation of community colleges from mere open-access institutions into colleges that make a difference in the lives of students who have…

This book examines the phenomenon of "political correctness" in higher education and argues that it is a powerful conspiracy theory created by conservatives and the media who have manipulated resentment against leftist radicals into a backlash against a fictional monster, political correctness. The first chapter describes in detail the…

Using different approaches when viewing art is critical because it provokes the viewer to go beyond a cursory glance and the influence of the historical period, and the influence of the culture in which it was created. In this resource kit three approaches to looking at art are examined including the examination of the elements of art, the…

An unconventional writing activity like correspondence between students can, under favorable social circumstances, encourage some college composition students to discover and employ literate, or decontextualized, writing strategies. The African American student will often write, to borrow James Britton's terms, from the standpoint of the…

Constructivist approaches to therapy that view the therapist and patient as equal participants in co-creating a new dialogue render aspects of experience invisible. What is missing is an awareness of the dominant structures in society and the dominant ways of thinking and speaking. Three key factors need to be understood: first, the way meanings…

Minority voices in Western psychology have been encouraging clinical and counseling psychologists for years to make their psychological interventions more relevant to minority group issues by attending to clients' social contexts. The National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology recently has responded by means such as…