In this performance autoethnography, the author explores her positionality (Davies, 2000; Spry, 2001 ) in the Spanish-speaking community, moving from her outsider role as an interpreter at the Health Department to her relationships with some of the women and their families to her current position as the grandmother of a Mexican American grandson.…

This essay argues for the importance of re-framing international service-learning as global service-learning. This includes recognizing the entire "ecology of education," the interconnected web of relationships in which learning can occur at home and abroad. It draws upon the experiences of developing a new program in global studies at Providence…

Laurie Barron, the principal of Smokey Road Middle School in Newnan, GA, is the 2013 MetLife/NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the Year. This article presents a conversation with Barron on her passion for teaching and learning. She shares her biggest motivator as a school leader and how she motivates her students and staff members to fully…

This study evaluated the efficacy of preschool Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS), an early years curriculum designed to improve children's social and emotional competence, and reduce problem behaviour. Fifty-seven children aged three to four years took part in the study over one academic year. The control group (Group 1) received…

Seventeen social educator students were taught to analyze their work activity by means of a Vygotsky-inspired method, drawing on Engeström's notion of an activity system. The method aimed at increasing the consciousness of the students of the structure of work activity system. The participants wrote two accounts of their field-work practice…

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss current issues and provide suggestions for solutions. Today's classrooms across schools in the USA are increasingly diverse. This diversity encompasses students from a myriad of cultural and linguistic and backgrounds' academic performance levels. Teacher training programs and schools are making efforts to…

The use of sarcasm sometimes lessens and sometimes enhances the negativity inherent in a sarcastic statement. Using a realistic conversational format, participants read either a sarcastic or a non-sarcastic aggressive argument between same-gendered interlocutors, and rated the pragmatic goals being expressed using a range of measures taken from…

Does children's bias toward their own groups reflect egocentrism or social understanding? After being categorized as belonging to 1 of 2 fictitious groups, 157 six- to ten-year-olds evaluated group members and expressed preferences among neutral items. Children who expected the in-group to share their item preferences (egocentric social…

This paper argues that lifelong learning can be a torch for education that is relevant, appropriate and appreciated by many Africans if conceptualized within the African Indigenous Learning (AIL) framework. Such learning is entrenched deep in the practices, cultures and ways of knowing of many Africans. The fundamentals or the ideals of lifelong…

The author examines the use of the Web-based foreign advertisements for enhancing the international awareness of undergraduate marketing students. An analysis compares the adaptation of advertisements for identical products to the cultural perceptions and values of consumers in different countries. In a sample of 110 international marketing…

People are intrinsically motivated to connect to others socially. One of the most important mechanisms in fostering social relationships is social perspective taking (SPT)--the capacity to discern the thoughts and feelings of others. Thus, students in social studies classrooms might be motivated to engage with their subject either through taking…

Perspective taking, which is seeing a viewpoint other than one's own, is critical in interpersonal understanding and in cross-cultural communication. It is especially crucial in diverse societies such as the United States as well as in countries where immigrants from other nations are living as one community. Hence, this article focuses on…

Background: Although teacher-student relationships lie at the heart of students' schooling experience, fundamental questions regarding these relationships remain unanswered. Aims: This study investigates three related questions about these relationships: To what extent do they change from the beginning to the end of a school year? Are any emergent…

In this article, the author makes visible and works to interrupt the story of school as "protectorate." In examining, within this dominant narrative, educators' taken-for-granted assumptions about parents' positioning in relation to the landscape of school, the author presents research on parent engagement that provides those within the…

Though many teachers have adopted collaborative models for teaching writing and literature, much of classroom discussion, in small or large groups, is driven by the assumption that arguing ideas is a competitive exercise. Generally, essays written in this context are "counter-positional" and "agonistic," supporting points by…