Special admissions programs may offer access into higher education for students who, for various reasons, do not meet the institutions' standard admissions criteria. Once the special admissions status has been granted, these programs provide support to these students. This paper is not a critique of special admissions programs in general or…

This paper describes a specific form of qualitative research--narrative inquiry. In this form of research, peoples' stories become the data. The paper explores the power of narrative inquiry as a "heretical" research method and how it can be used to examine stakeholders' experiences and beliefs related to transforming a system; for example, the…

Despite three decades of research on African American English (AAE), educational workshops aimed at improving the academic achievement, particularly the literacy achievement, of African American students still emphasize differences between Standard English and African American English. One result is that teachers may overlook the linguistic…

This study used Bloom's Taxonomy in conjunction with new and emerging research paradigms, such as discourse analysis, to examine the outcomes of online science instruction in various biomedical science courses (i.e., histology, histopathology, physiology, microbiology, and farm animal anatomy). By combining quantitative and qualitative data, a…

The development of a scientifically literate society is dependent upon effective communication. Accordingly, the Benchmarks for Science Literacy, which defines science literacy goals for United States students K-12, contains an entire section on communication skills. One of the skills described in the Benchmarks is that "students should be able to…

The articles in this collection offer rich and provocative views, backed by research and intensive classroom experience, of science and mathematics and teaching and learning. In particular, they explore some combination of the following: (1) science and mathematics as discourses; (2) students' home- and culturally-based ways of knowing, talking,…

This paper traces the range of literacy events that occur in one cybercommunity whose members are participants in the ongoing role play, "Cybersphere." A sample text produced by users within the community serves as the focus for critical analysis and offers a rich example of the ways in which language is being used within cyberculture.…

One especially productive avenue of research is the close analysis of classroom talk. In the micro-ethnographic approach used in this study, conversation is not simply a metaphor, but becomes the unit of analysis. For the study, one key element to the functioning of thinking communities is the way they are co-constructed by participants. While all…

This article examines how participants in an interview use different linguistic and social resources in order to construct multiple, complex self-representations. It discusses interviews from a critical discourse perspective. In particular, it suggests that interviews are sites of struggle where individuals strive to construct representations of…

A study investigated the involvement strategies present in the textual conversations of four graduate students enrolled in a fully online graduate course in language education. The students interacted through an asynchronous interactive computer conferencing system that allowed communication from two continents. Two 2-week ongoing discussions were…

Conclusion of an article begun in the preceding number. (WB)