Four decades of university-based teacher education reform has failed to yield favorable outcomes in teacher effectiveness in P-12 schools. A rising tide of reform and criticism from governmental agencies and neo-liberal reformers has resulted in one-dimensional, structural approaches to impacting teacher effectiveness, based on the assumption that…

It is important for educational researchers to possess an understanding that research (albeit a contentious area in terms of what indeed this constitutes) undertaken is done with certain pre-existing values and beliefs as to what we as individuals and teachers hold true. The methods and methodologies defined by Gough (2000, p.3) as "the reasoning…

This book unmasks the neoliberal ideology that led modern civilization to withdraw from its previous accomplishments into what may be called the new Dark Ages. The international group of contributors to this volume aggressively rejects the siege of society by capitalism and the resulting deterioration. These authors engage a critical pedagogy that…

This article presents a moral orientation that can serve as a "commonly shared" foundation for developing moral consciousness in (postmodern) multicultural democratic societies. To this end, I distinguish between two prevailing generic views of moral education--"thin" and "thick"--and claim that the tensions between them contribute to the sense of…

Rather than viewing curriculum as linear, a post-modern, learner-centered curriculum design is a spiral or recursive curriculum. Post-modernism provides a much less stable foundation upon which to build a model of student learning, a model that recognizes and even celebrates individual difference and one that is supported by research on how people…

The article draws on the elements of poststructural theory to explore the mismatches and alignments in language and literacy teaching discourses in urban Fijian primary schools. More specifically, it compares the liberal progressivism of whole language and literacy pedagogies with the culturalism that informs a key reading resource in the teaching…

A strategic plan is not a simple goal to be reached, rather in many ways it is similar to the brain that guides the collective actions of members of an organization (Bryson, 2004). In the widest sense, a strategic plan can actually manifest a certain vision of reality by structuring the perceptions and actions of those members (Bryson, 2004;…

This paper attempts to conceptualize identity prototypes regarding model L2 learners/users of English over the past 50 years, as embedded in research discourses. For a long time, the ideal learner was a "faithful imitator" whose L2 use and cultural conduct were strictly modeled on the native speaker (NS). With postcolonial changes around…

Czech-German relations developed in a complex way during the twentieth century. This article addresses the mutual historical and current relations of these nations, in light of historical events in the last century. The analysis is based on the study of period geography textbooks (as an example of one of the tools used to create a picture of the…

In this article, I explore some of the contested meanings of leadership coexisting within the context of higher education. I report from my study about how academics at one university in Aotearoa/New Zealand experience and understand themselves as leaders in their everyday working contexts. From the participants' accounts and their institution's…

Postmodern university education should provide students with, among other things, a third eye of wisdom to see the world and themselves. The enculturation of Buddhism in university education serves to realize this grand aim. This paper first examines the historical development and practical significance of the Buddhist components in both Chinese…

In this article, the authors show how groups of 2nd- and 4th-grade students in an urban school district responded to a postmodern children's book, The "Three Pigs" by David Wiesner (2001). The students came to the project from basal-based direct instruction, and here they were offered a more constructivist opportunity to engage with a…

This study explores how religious education, and in particular transformative teaching and learning can provide an opportunity to re-ground authority in the Roman Catholic Church. The research presents an educational response to the legitimation crisis. It seeks to resolve the organization problem as typified in the pyramidic-hierarchical pattern…

In this article, I draw on a qualitative longitudinal study to explore the influence of a tertiary Outdoor and Environmental Education (OEE) course on the formation of environmental ethics among students. In this task, I bring together Lave & Wenger (1991) and Wenger's (1998) concept of "communities of practice" and Michel Foucault's later work on…

By drawing upon the dialogic theory of Bakhtin, I consider how register variation is represented in the children's books by the popular Greek writer Dr. Eugene Trivizas, with the aim to explore whether, and in what terms, it could be exploited for the raising of (critical) language awareness. Most sociolinguistic studies which have used literature…