With the ascent of the National Party to power in South Africa in 1948, education reflected apartheid thinking and practices and implemented the ideology of separate development in educational institutions. Pronouncements of the African child's inferiority were reflected in government policy and legislation. The origins of this thinking and…

Skin color, one of the most conspicuous physical traits, encompasses complex social and cultural meanings and value judgments that can influence individuals' lived experiences and social wellbeing in a profound way. In this article, the authors provide a brief overview of how skin color diversity evolved, its corresponding biological and…

This study investigated the performance of 790 fourth graders from Taiwan for judging the reasonableness of a computational result by using corresponding methods pertaining to whole numbers. A number-sense web-based two-tier diagnostic test was used to assess the number-sense performance of the fourth graders who participated in this study. The…

Background: Policy makers are increasingly adopting performance incentives to spur underperforming teachers as a way to improve teaching and student performance. However, much of the experimental research fails to find meaningful effects of performance incentives on either student achievement or teacher practice. Purpose/Objective: Using the…

In order to understand and evaluate computing technology in their environment, students first need to be able to identify it. This task becomes increasingly difficult, however, as computing systems become more and more ubiquitous and invisible. Based on the analysis of semi-structured focus interviews with 28 German pre-college students, we…

This paper reports the findings from a pilot qualitative study that set out to investigate pre-service primary school teachers' beliefs concerning the integration of children's literature in their mathematics learning and teaching. The thematic and content analyses were drawn from self-reported beliefs of 33, third- and fourth-year pre-service…

The aim of this research was to explore 11 to 12-year-old children's understanding of the mass of objects made from different materials, and the measurement of this attribute. In depth task-based interviews were conducted with six children attending six different schools; five were in Year 6 and one in Year 7. The children were found to hold…

This study investigated preservice secondary mathematics teachers' difficulties with and understanding of graphs of two-variable inequalities with the lens of the APOS theory. The analysis showed that most teachers understood inequality graphs as actions, at best, and used informal rules to construct graphs. They also had difficulty justifying…

In an informal study, two versions of a story involving probability are introduced to undergraduates. The findings reveal that students have troubles detecting equal probabilities in a sampling scheme without replacement in which no information on earlier draws is available.

This paper discusses the 'telling case' and the manner and extent of its use in social research. The 'telling case,' proposed by Mitchell as a counter to prevailing expectations of typicality, is an ethnographic case study, derived from analytic induction and focused on the exposure of new theoretical insights. By means of an evaluation of the…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with social interaction and communication. First-hand accounts written by individuals with ASD have shown the existence of other atypical characteristics such as difficulties with body awareness. However, few studies have examined whether such atypicalities are found more generally…

The present study aimed to evaluate the use of metaphors by preservice science teachers on the subject of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the study, a phenomenology method was employed in the scope of a qualitative research model. The study group was composed of 189 preservice teachers who were employed in various science fields (e.g.,…

Introduction: This paper presents the results of research focused on identification of preschool teachers' progress in relation to the use of children's preconceptions in formal pre-elementary education. It represents the theoretical concepts that are applied in the work with children's preconceptions in schools. It analyses them and creates a…

Mathematicians are often inimically portrayed in popular culture, resulting in an abundance of non-mathematical identities in the classroom. Various tropes are propagated by the media that dominate our mental schemas of what makes a mathematician: the eccentric Einstein-like old man; the young, tortured genius; and the "genetically…

In this paper we present a critical analysis of some of the arguments of flat Earth theory, and we also try to show that this analysis and refutation of these false claims can be a useful exercise in critical thinking that is so much needed today. This article can also make it easier for teachers who are exposed to some of the arguments of flat…