This multiple case study examines patterns in the oral second language use of three Spanish-speaking English language learners in rehearsed presentations produced annually over 4 years (Grades 9-12) in a U.S. high school. Analysis focuses on students' changing use of transitional devices called frame markers (Hyland, 2005) as a lens for…

School leaders face potential conflicts between the demands of national and local education policy and the values and ethics that brought them into teaching and subsequently into school leadership. This article asks whether head teachers' values are changed by the policy context, and looks at incidents in head teachers' professional lives that…

Background/Context: There is little question that education is changing, seemingly quickly and in some cases dramatically. The mechanisms through which individuals learn are shifting from paper-based ones to electronic media. Simultaneously, the nature of what individuals must learn is evolving, in good part due to an exponential accumulation of…

Cross-border student migration has significant implications for host communities in terms of academic, financial and social consequences. In light of Hong Kong's thirst for human resources, this paper reports on a study that interpreted the graduation plans of a group of "elite" mainland Chinese undergraduates in a publicly funded…

The emotional and cognitive work of becoming a teacher is often unknown to preservice teachers, leaving many to negotiate professional identities without support from teacher educators. This article examines how one preservice teacher, Ava Mendon, used language to negotiate professional identities and to build professional confidence during her…

This article problematises emerging tensions in Chile, in relation to the discourses of early childhood teachers and public policies aimed at improving the quality of early childhood education. The aim of the analysis is to contribute to developing more nuanced understandings of these tensions, through the analytical lenses provided by the…

Many schools have recently experimented with moving breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom. We examine whether such a program increases achievement, grades, and attendance rates. We exploit quasi-random timing of program implementation that allows for a difference-in-differences identification strategy. We find that providing breakfast in…

Every country--and even every community--has populations of students who severely underperform relative to other groups and to their own potential. These performance differences are generally called achievement gaps, and they tend to focus on gaps at basic levels of academic proficiency. But such gaps also exist among the highest levels of…

Over the past two decades faith-based schools have expanded in number, grown in diversity, and become an important part of education systems worldwide. As a result, a rich research agenda in the field has emerged. One aspect of this agenda relates to school leadership. What is particularly neglected is research on the impact of leadership theory…

This paper presents a discussion about the terms of address used mainly in Libyan Arabic, and how they are similar and/or different from the terms used in other Arabic societies. In addition, the current paper describes how the use of such terms is determined by various social factors and perceptions, and how it is emphasized that these titles…

This paper reports how the context in which a mathematics item is embedded impacts on students' performance. The performance of Year 10 students on four PISA items was compared with performance on variants with more familiar contexts. Performance was not better when they solved items with more familiar contexts but there was some evidence that…

Views on the desirable characteristics of teachers and their professional development directly affect the organisation of the initial and continuing professional training of teachers, which in turn largely determines the development of teachers' professional identity. In recent literature, professional identity is enmeshed in a broader societal…

The influence of context on identity formation amongst young adolescent females and their subsequent participation in physics as a subject at Advanced Level (A level) is the central focus of this study. A qualitative approach grounded in an interpretivist paradigm was used for the purpose of this study. Verbal descriptions of the scientist they…

Dialogic talk, in which different ideas are considered, promotes conceptual understanding in science, and is in line with South Africa's school curriculum. The problem is that dialogic talk is difficult to facilitate and may run counter to cultural norms. As a result, classroom talk is often not dialogic. This paper reports on the nature of…

This article builds on our ongoing work in conceptualising an "evaluative stance" framework to assist in understanding how leaders in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) make decisions about the selection of professional development options for themselves and their staff. It introduces the notion that evaluative…