The manuscript examines the relationship between language, identity, and classroom learning. Through an exploration of a series of research studies conducted over the course of 6 years, this manuscript examines how the idea of "Good Teaching" fails to account for the language-identity learning dilemma. In stage one of the research, a series of…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and elsewhere are having a hard time, pushed into the marketplace with the turn to "academic capitalism" and now suffering the effects of the economic downturn. Increasingly, the discourse of "excellence" is being invoked as HEIs are held to account and public funding for research…

This paper outlines some findings of a three-month investigation into the effects of students' interpersonal relationships on communication in two EFL classrooms in a Japanese university. Data was collected to identify and describe the various social subgroups that existed within the classes, and samples of classroom discourse were then analysed…

The purpose of this article is to examine the use of English discourse markers (EDMs) in medical consultations that were conducted in Spanish. Data are collected from an audio-recorded corpus of Spanish-language consultations that took place in a small community clinic in the United States as well as post-consultation interviews with patients and…

One important hallmark of William Lowe Boyd's scholarship was his uncanny ability to identify and articulate changes in the key ideas that shape and reshape scholarly, professional, and public discussions of educational policy and politics. Whether one thinks about debates over centralization and decentralization of policy control, changes in…

This study investigated 6 weeks of online asynchronous discussions in a graduate-level course involving eleven students. The research purposes of this study were to identify patterns of collaborative knowledge exploration (CKE) and to suggest new analytical dimensions for investigating online discussions. Based upon a unique theoretical framework…

The purpose of this article is to analyze the sparse presence of women in social studies education and to consider the possibility of a confluence of feminism and neoliberalism within the most widely distributed National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication, "Social Education." Using poststructural conceptions of discourse, the author…

This study examines how a first-year biology teacher facilitates a series of whole-class discussions about evolution during the implementation of a problem-based unit. A communicative theoretical perspective is adopted wherein evolution discussions are viewed as social events that the teacher can frame intellectually (i.e., present or organize as…

School segregation continues to be understood as legitimate in Germany. To explain why, we chart the development of the learning disability discourse and the special education profession, providing insights into the ongoing expansion of segregated special schooling. The discourse analysis of articles published between 1908 and 2004 in the special…

This four-part story is about one teacher educator's attempt to embody praxis as a form of academic work, emphasizing the importance of the corporeal in learning and teaching. I describe the inter-related context (1) of my embodied self, the teacher education course I constructed, and theory employed in mediating course practices. Evidence of…

Discussions on discipline in education often accentuate corporal punishment or measures to infuse moral fibre. In addition, many authors argue that inculcating a particular value system can promote discipline in schools. This could however be profoundly problematic in the light of the Constitution. We argue that positive discipline in…

This mixed methods study examined the various aspects of multimodal use of non-verbal communication in virtual worlds during dyadic negotiations. Quantitative analysis uncovered a treatment effect whereby people with more rhetorical certainty used more neutral non-verbal communication; whereas people that were rhetorically less certain used more…

This ethnographic study examines the role of spirituality in the composition teaching process and in Paolo Freire's dialogic education specifically. Work to acquire some aspects of spiritual "Discourse," as the term is defined by James Gee, is needed in order to make this spiritual foundation visible and practicable. Through a series of…

Current studies on language and literacy in hearing children have pointed to face-to-face linguistic interaction as one crucial factor in the emergence of literacy. Studies that explored the language and literacy of preschool children, both in the their homes and in school, have found that the kind of talk and the quality of talk that transpires…

Comparisons were made between instructor and student contributions in an online course that engaged eight graduate students asynchronously in discussion of early intervention principles and practices. Discourse patterns and levels of cognitive complexity were analyzed as indices of engagement and "critical thinking". The online…