In the face of globalization, speed communication, and the mashing up of once clearly drawn borders, it seems both pertinent and constructive that music education philosophers make use of comparative frameworks to make sense--and make new sense--of educational and musical events, products, and interactions. However, comparison that is merely…

This paper investigates the transformation of new elementary teachers in their understanding of mathematics in relation to pedagogy and learning. By participating in an intentionally created community of practice, new elementary school teachers, began to connect to mathematics in new ways: reflectively, confidently, and inquisitively. Analysis…

This article provides an analysis of the growing phenomenon of community writing groups for military veterans. Drawing on the scholarship on literacy studies, community literacy, and veterans' writing groups, the author profiles three veterans' writing groups and provides strategies for starting up, conducting, and sustaining such groups. The…

Professionalism remains a substantive theme in medical literature. There is an emerging emphasis on sociological and complex adaptive systems perspectives that refocuses attention from just the individual role to working within one's system to enact professionalism in practice. Reflecting on responses to professional dilemmas may be one…

Higher education is understood to play a critical role in ongoing processes of social transformation in post-apartheid South Africa through the production of graduates who are critical and engaged citizens. A key challenge is that institutions of higher education are themselves implicated in reproducing the very hierarchies they hope to transform.…

Authenticity has recently become a popular term in science education. A study focusing on authenticity in the sense of making chemistry lessons better resemble chemistry practice is carried out at the University of Cologne in the Institute of Chemical Education, where prospective chemistry teachers are trained. In the long run an innovative module…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to describe and critically analyse recent advisory efforts and the prevailing discourses that have affected the advisory service in Sweden over the past 15 years. The focus is on those efforts that have had a declared aim to support farmers to become more competitive and viable. We also analyse why the…

Once controversial or cutting-edge, freewriting has recently become "part of every writing teacher's repertoire" (Bizzell and Herzberg in Elbow 393). On par with outlining or webbing, freewriting seems to be a go-to practice in a writing teacher's tool kit. This downshift into uncritical acceptance presents an apt moment to reconsider how we…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore students' self-reported growth of mathematical understanding resulting from writing about the historical development of a mathematical concept. Using excerpts from undergraduate students' written reflections about their experiences with the task of writing about mathematics, this study describes…

This article explores the need to locate individuals' personal life stories in their life histories when the narrative approach to studying different aspects of teachers is used. This is partly done by revealing the limitations of the narrow focus on personal stories in research on teachers when it is restricted to researching teachers' personal…

Teacher preparation is a hot topic in the world of education today. Performance assessments mark one way that colleges may prove the readiness of their pre-service teaching candidates for a career in the classroom. This study used methods to evaluate one college's effort to implement such an assessment, to integrate assessment tasks into its…

PISA is a large international educational assessment activity coordinated by the "Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development" (OECD). PISA's "Functional Literacy" emphasizes the theoretical concept of mathematics as a human activity. From this pedagogical point of view, PISA's "mathematization cycle"…

Counseling families in poverty can be a daunting process if one only focuses on what is lacking. Taking such a deficit approach is limiting not only to the counselor but also can serve to disempower the clients. This paper presents a strengths-based approach for counseling families living in poverty that emphasizes relational processes and the…

The use of autoethnography in social science research is becoming increasingly popular. The potential this research approach might offer to the theory and practice of outdoor education has yet to be fully examined. In this paper, autoethnography is used to explore some personal accounts of my own outdoor experiences from which I derive distinctive…

Cultivating spiritual development is central to the mission of Catholic higher education institutions. Studies demonstrate that service learning is a pedagogical method through which spiritual development can be fostered among undergraduates. This study builds upon prior research to analyze whether spiritual growth occurred and which dimensions of…