This paper utilises a Vygotskian framework to examine the ways in which teachers shape the creation of children's artwork in educational contexts. Reflexive ethnography and a bottom up approach to discourse analysis are used to analyse a range of qualitative data including photographs, observational notes and audio recordings collected from a Year…

This article investigates the underlying themes and principles that inform curriculum debate and how they are articulated in current school policy discussions. This topic is approached with the help of a case study covering the debate on which subjects should be mandatory for students at the upper secondary school curriculum in Sweden. The focus…

This study investigated and compared how native-English and native-Korean speaking university students, who received their education respectively in the U.S. and in Korea, thought about the concepts of "infinity" and "limit". The primary motivation for this study was the discontinuity in Korean and the continuity in English…

The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experience of reflection and document how a holistic approach to teacher reflection contributes to teachers' understanding of, and improvement in their pedagogical practice. The investigation asked how classroom observations, when followed by a reflective dialogue, impact pedagogical practice. The…

Many people consider books to be one of life's treasures and often embark on pleasurable and transformative literary journeys. Unfortunately, struggling readers' journeys are often arduous, if not painful. Recent reading mandates under No Child Left Behind often limit the scope of literary resources purchased with federal funds and appear to alter…

This study investigates the ways writers comment on the results of their research. Making claims in the form of Commenting on Results is a key move in discussion of results sections. Using data drawn from published journal articles and master dissertations in Language Teaching, the study investigates how published academics and students writing…

On several occasions in his work, R. S. Peters identifies a difficulty inherent in teaching that underscores the complexity of this relationship: the teacher has the task of passing on knowledge while at the same time allowing knowledge that is passed on to be criticised and revised by the learner. This inquiry asks: first, how does Peters…

This paper examines regulating discourses "spoken" within the complex multi-sector network of educational policy and provision that has grown from a recent introduction of choice advisers in England. Choice advice documentation from across the network is examined and four discursive themes are identified: equity; parental responsibility;…

The aim of this article is, by analysing children's discourses, to investigate their actions or absence of actions during a domestic violence episode. The empirical data are recorded group therapy sessions and individual interviews with children who have grown up experiencing their fathers' violence against their mothers. The analysis shows that…

In view of the growing body of research on humor and language play in computer-mediated communication (CMC) which--more than any other medium--has been associated with goofing off, joking, and other nonserious communication, this paper compares spontaneous foreign language play (L2 play) in text-only synchronous computer-mediated versus…

Learners engaged in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) work collaboratively to construct knowledge by providing each other with implicit and explicit feedback. In addition to its value in encouraging learners to make modifications toward target-like forms, the implicitness or explicitness of the feedback provides a means to…

This research explores the interrelationship between the production of national identity and multiculturalism in Irish schools and society. Working from the perspective that ideas about "race" and nation are inextricably linked, I examine how contemporary nationalistic identity projects and processes map onto the current policy drive…

This article examines the way in which socially constructed notions of "language", "social cohesion" and "diversity" create tensions within different educational arenas, particularly concerning educational policies developed at administrative levels and the subsequent interpretation of these policies in the classroom.…

The attention to the visualization of education policy is an area of study yet to be developed and explored. This paper extends the scholarship of "mediated education policy production" by developing a visual methodology to analyse a visual education policy document that takes the form of a documentary titled "Learning…

This paper examines the tensions created in a Greek Cypriot primary classroom between the legitimate variety of the school, Standard Modern Greek, and the home variety of the students, the Greek Cypriot Dialect. Ethnographic data are presented to indicate that language use in the classroom, contrary to what language policy-makers argue, is…