In an effort to expose students to a wide array of 21st century literacies, it is easy for teachers to forget the equally important role of leading students in critical inquiry regarding "when" and "why" particular media ought to be used. This results in students who possess knowledge of how to use a medium but lack the wisdom to truly understand…

This article describes impromptu presentations, a new pedagogical approach for college classrooms that produces full engagement and rapid information processing by students. The technique offers an additional tool to the growing literature on active and collaborative learning. Given a short timeframe, students are required to investigate, analyze,…

This paper gives a critical assessment of the relationship between learning outcomes and the governance of education and training systems. Learning outcomes are defined as an instrument that might work at different levels with different meanings and different results: at the level of education and training practice, they might obtain pedagogical…

Sceptics of an Africanisation of education have often lambasted its proponents for re-inventing something that has very little, if any, role to play in contemporary African society. The contributors to this issue hold a different view and, through the papers included in this issue, arguments are proffered in defence of an Africanisation of…

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Australian government's education revolution policy as promulgated in the media release document, "Quality Education: The Case for an Education Revolution in our Schools". It seeks to problematize the government's claim to marry quality and equity, via an analysis of the discursive…

This analysis of the writing in a grade 7 mathematics textbook distinguishes between closed texts and open texts, which acknowledge multiple possibilities. I use tools that have recently been applied in mathematics contexts, focussing on grammatical features that include personal pronouns, modality, and types of imperatives, as well as on…

This essay discusses Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's choice to foreground arguments from due process rather than equal protection in the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. Kennedy's choice can realize constitutional legal doctrine that is more consistent with radical queer politics than arguments from equal protection. Unlike some recent…

This article contributes to a social psychological understanding of identity by identifying some features of the interactional organization of self-praise. Early conversation analytic work on the epistemics of self-assessment and constraints against self-praise has shown that praising oneself is an interactionally delicate matter that may leave…

School shootings loom large in the collective imagination and young, White males commit a majority of these horrific crimes. Although many of the descriptions of school shooters in the media and scholarly studies attribute their actions to psychological problems and/or personal/social failings, these events are also often placed in a comparative…

This paper addresses "the gift" as the central concept in a discussion about the literacy education for new immigrants that has been developing in Taiwan since the early 1990s. The point of departure for this discussion is the advent of international marriages that are the consequence of new arrivals from Southeast Asia and China, and…

Gang membership is an indicator of chronic illicit substance use and such patterns of use may have a normalized character. Using epidemiological and qualitative data collected between 2006 and 2007, this manuscript examines the drug normalization thesis among a small sample (n=60) of gang youth aged 16-25 years from Los Angeles. Overall, while…

The 2011 Children's Literature Assembly Workshop investigated cultural contexts and relevant issues in children's literature. Award-winning authors, illustrators, and an educator shared their thoughts about writing, illustrating, and teaching multiethnic literature. The panel included author Nikki Grimes, author and illustrator Eric Velasquez,…

This analysis and synthesis explores constructs of professional autonomy and accountability using constructivist theory and practice to examine the organizational dynamics of centralization/decentralization, particularly as applied to educational organizations. Major schools of constructivist thought are explored to shed light on…

The author has been asked to discuss the relevance, or lack of relevance, for "The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies" (Sarason, 1972) for community psychology today. She appreciates this assignment, as one of the first books she read in graduate school was "The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies." After that, she was exposed…

This paper examines three recent accounts of what has allegedly gone wrong with the school curriculum in England in recent years and their prescriptions for remedying these ills--all three accounts sharing strong proposals to reinstate "knowledge" at the heart of the curriculum. These analyses, despite some significant similarities, come…