This teacher research inquiry is a critical discourse analysis of second grade classroom talk about racial identity and dialect difference within the theoretical framework of moral philosophy. Participants in the study, which took place in an urban public district in a Midwestern United States city, included ten African American students and a…

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have been widely introduced to English primary schools (5-11 years) in the last decade and this has generated much research interest. In the past, research has focused on IWB-use in teacher-led sessions, attending particularly to the nature of teacher-pupil interaction at the IWB and the apparent motivational…

This article investigated four Chinese American students' biliteracy development in two contexts: their heritage language school and public school. Data were collected through participant observations, audio-recorded classroom interactions, student work samples, and semistructured interviews. Findings demonstrated how literacy instruction across…

The purpose of this study was to explore secondary school teachers' perceptions of interactive whiteboard (IWB) training workshops in Taiwan. This study also sought to identify potential problems associated with the design of IWB training workshops in order to improve their effectiveness. This research employed observations and interviews to…

The assignment for the students was to write honestly about how they felt regarding specific current events dealing with diversity. However, what resulted was a "kairos" moment for the professor--an instance that called for her best response even when she did not know what that was--when a student crossed the line in terms of respectful…

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate how learning in "democratic participation" is constituted by the social interaction and conversation pattern in school democratic meetings in a Swedish primary school. According to the findings, a pupil control discourse and the Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern dominates the…

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mae West would seem to have little in common, but there is one thing they both understood--the importance of body language. Educators, psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists define body language or nonverbal communication as communication without words. It includes overt behaviors such as facial expressions, eye…

This paper explores the role of oral language and representations in negotiating mathematical understanding. The data were gathered from two Indigenous Australian classrooms in Northern Queensland. The first classroom, a Year 6/7 consisted of 15 students whose ages range from 10 years to 12 years with eight being Aboriginal, six from Torres Strait…

Yes-No (Y/N) questions are distinctive in calling for a bipolar response. Some Y/N questions predispose one answer over the other. Conversation analysts have examined the sequential relevance of this predisposition and found the institutional character of social actions enacted in Y/N questioning processes. Classroom interaction is one such…

This paper examines the turn-by-turn organization of social actions during educational activities at a multilingual preschool in Sweden. Specifically, it focuses on instructional exchanges within two commonplace activities: "sharing time" and "Spanish group". The study builds on earlier research arguing that interactional…

The present paper examines male and female teachers' language practices in relation to "censuring" talk in the primary classroom, in the context of the debate around boys' "underachievement" and the "feminisation" of primary school culture. Through an analysis of classroom observations with 51 men and women teachers, it looks to see whether gender…

Family writing projects can change the nature of classroom writing instruction and rejuvenate teachers. Marilyn McKinney, Saralyn Lasley, and Rosemary Holmes-Gull report on their study of one such project in an urban school district. Using the concept of "third space," they describe the influence of this family literacy program on…

The purposes of this study were to compare the instructional methods and strategies identified as useful in online teaching environments with those used in a face-to-face teaching environment, to investigate relationships between the perceived usefulness of instructional strategies and methods used by higher education faculty in both teaching…

Diverse schools offer enriched academic and social environments, as students and families of different backgrounds and experiences provide a vibrant mosaic of insights, perspectives, and skills. To take advantage of the unique opportunities that diversity brings, schools must value and effectively connect with students and families of all…

As the importance of mathematics continues to grow in our society, so does the question of how to effectively teach mathematics. Although the claim that teaching does make a difference seems obvious, the question of what makes mathematics teachers effective is not easily answered. Evidence from research shows that students' mathematics learning is…