The author challenges her students and herself to engage with tough issues like class, race, gender, disability, and homophobia. In this article, she discusses how she helps them learn from, and even embrace, the conflict that inevitably arises. Constructive management of classroom conflict begins with creating a cooperative learning environment…

Most communication research on bad news messages focuses on crisis communication, where attention is often limited to image repair strategies. The authors argue that a key indicator of an organization's effectiveness in communicating "bad news" messages is its organizational culture. Developing an organizational culture that values positive…

On the job experiences such as collaborative teacher meetings can shape how early childhood educators grow professionally and how schools can develop communities of practice. However, the effect of conversations during teacher meetings on teacher practice is not fully understood. This yearlong qualitative case study examined the relationship…

As teachers of political theory, our goal is not merely to help students understand the abstract reasoning behind key ideas and texts of our discipline. We also wish to convey the historical contexts that informed these ideas and texts, including the political aims of their authors. But the traditional lecture-and-discussion approach tends to…

This paper discusses the significance of conducting respectful research within urban schools, using the example of one large-scale university-school board partnership in northwestern Toronto. The authors, three research assistants on the project, use their experiences within three of the participating schools to interrogate the research approach…

Scientific expertise and outcomes often give rise to controversy. An educational response that equips students to take part in such discussions is the teaching of socially acute questions (SAQs). With SAQs, the understanding of uncertainty, risk and how knowledge is developed is central. This study explores the way in which students from different…

In this article, the authors examine the effect of a National Writing Project professional development model on a group of middle school writing teachers. The authors examine how contact with other professionals in intensive week-long sessions as well as mentoring from the professional development coach affected the teachers’ concept of themselves…

St Mark's Church of England Academy is an 11-18 academy situated in Mitcham, South London. It offers a commitment to high achievement within a community of care, underpinned by the Christian values of hope, love and trust. The academy encourages the development of the moral and spiritual well-being of students, alongside their academic success.…

The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of teachers who participated in professional learning communities, and the relationship of that participation to collaboration and co-teaching. Semi-structured interviews were employed to understand the perceptions of high school teachers who actively participated in PLCs with the goal of…

In the UK, the creative sector has been identified as a key strand in the economic recovery strategy. Composed of mostly micro and small enterprises often grouping together for particular commissions and projects, there is a tendency to operate primarily through a series of networks made up of peers. This paper presents the outcomes of a…

The research study is entitled, Beyond Dissolution and Dispersion: A Phenomenological Analysis of Student Perceptions as related to Resiliency. Resiliency as a concept has been studied in various disciplines for the past thirty years. The information in the literature review bears out that building resiliency in students and in school communities…

Because inequality is one of the central concerns of sociologists, it has been addressed, in various ways, by virtually all of the major traditions of sociological social psychology--social structure and personality, symbolic interactionism, and group processes. For those who work in the social structure and personality tradition, inequality…

According to the deprovincialization thesis, interethnic contact involves a reappraisal and distancing from the ingroup. Contact can broaden one's horizon by acknowledging and recognizing the value of other cultures and thereby putting the taken-for-granted own cultural standards into perspective. The current research uses data from three surveys…

This article discusses a critical challenge to current paradigms of continuing professional development within higher education institutions. A small group of higher-education-based teacher educators for the English post-compulsory sector describes and exposes the values and processes operating within a particular kind of professional development…

The best intentioned efforts of adults are often sabotaged by coercive climates of bullying among peers and conflict with adults. The solution is to create cultures where youth cooperate with authority and treat one another with respect. In this article, the authors stress the task of the staff to create a condition in which students see more…