Faculty at Columbia University's Earth Semester created the interdisciplinary Riparian Area Management Project to help students integrate information and skills from life sciences, geosciences, social sciences, and humanities focused coursework. Structured as a "consulting" contract, students were required to make a policy recommendation…

This article draws on data collected through two focus groups and eight telephone interviews undertaken as part of an evaluation of a local Sure Start programme. Located in the context of New Labour's valorisation of parenting, and specifically mothering, the article explores the impact of Sure Start policy on discourses of motherhood in this…

I study the relationships of resources and personality characteristics to charitable giving, postmortem organ donation, and blood donation in a nationwide sample of persons in households in the Netherlands. I find that specific personality characteristics are related to specific types of giving: agreeableness to blood donation, empathic concern to…

Family meals act as a barometer to signify the changing nature of family life. The primary objective of this activity is to allow students to experience the many ways in which a recursive relationship exists between the food families eat and the patterns of communication families enact. Through this activity, students experience how food and…

Content analysis of the curriculum and textbooks for the last four grades of compulsory education used in Bosnia and Herzegovina are presented. The major aim in this research has been to identify how issues related to democracy and human rights are presented.--Do the curriculum and textbooks support the ideas and behaviours recognized as…

This article critically examines the compatibility of United Arab Emirates culture and values with the assumptions of reflective practice currently being written into a new teacher education degree programme. The curriculum that is being developed relies heavily on the notions of reflective practice as a method of professional development. The…

The rapid pace of change in the last thirty years has contributed to confusion, fragmentation and disorientation that have affected all of society's institutions, including schools. The last two decades have brought economic and cultural restructuring, guided by a neo-conservative worldview emphasizing individual enterprise and free-market…

Drawing on data from a three-year ethnographic study of Gypsy life in England, this article explores the experience and attitudes of Gypsy women regarding the home-school interface. Specific attention is given to the following: role expectations in the different contexts; changing perceptions of role in the face of economic and social change; the…

Research on learning disabilities (LD) depends upon a conceptual framework that specifies what it should explain, what kinds of data are needed, and how these data are to be arranged in order to provide a meaningful explanation. An argument is made that LD are no different in this respect than any other form of human illness. In this article, a…

Teaching elementary aged students about the importance of fair play and being a good sport is becoming a much more difficult task. Professional athletes, once touted as positive role models, have become increasingly poor examples for children. So, while physical educators often deal with issues of fair play in their classes, it has become a larger…

This article explores the status of U.S. public school educators both queer and non-queer who have historically resided at the intersection of sodomy laws and professional norms including licensure, morality clauses, and professional socialization. Employing Foucault's notion of panopticism, the author examines how sodomy laws and professional…

This article examines how the democratic practices of a teamed model of student teaching affect the student teachers' susceptibility to be "summoned" by cultural myths of teaching as described by Britzman. Development and implementation of the teamed model was the basis for a case study of the mediation of power within the context of a student…

The most basic challenge offered by the working-class student is the challenge to recognize that the attitudes and expectations underlying our typical concerns and methods are not transparent. The very notion that ideas matter can be difficult for working-class students to accept. Even more than academic assistance, that student may need help…

Much has been written about how K-12 teachers and university faculty come to understand their roles within Professional Development Schools (PDSs). However, there is not a clear body of research that addresses the role of graduate students who represent a valuable force in PDSs. This paper aims to explore the dynamics of relationship building in a…

Technology and means of communication need an ethical analysis, which should be developed in educational contexts, so that they can be used suitably. This idea is materialized in the concept of "educational technoethics," which deals with the following two parameters: the intrinsic values including technology and means of communication…