In this article we explore the challenges faced by teacher educators who struggle with the emotional and intellectual distance between their work in the university setting and the K-12 classroom. We consider the benefits of having teacher educators find ways to teach children and youth in K-12 contexts as part of their role as teacher…

A review of education policy and practice indicates a paradox in policy implementation. Policy outcomes most often differ significantly from intended purposes and provisions enacted. This paper re-conceptualises this policy phenomenon, drawing on the post-modernist conception of policy as both "text" and "discourse" as an approach for…

Teaching macro practice can be challenging. While students have some concepts of what macro practice entails, their knowledge may be limited and sometimes inaccurate. Moreover, students may be reluctant to engage in macro change efforts. Given the scarcity of literature regarding teaching macro practice and the growing importance of it in social…

Though C. Wright Mills made a pivotal contribution to the discipline by raising sociologists' awareness of the ideological and bureaucratic content of sociological practicality, he may have placed unyielding limits on "the promise" he profoundly proclaimed in the "sociological imagination." By defining types of practicality in such rigidly…

"Turnaround" has become the new buzzword in education. From states and districts paying for principals to be trained as turnaround specialists to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's call to turn around the country's 5,000 lowest-performing schools, the concept of rapid, large-scale reform in individual schools--not just incremental…

Many students find proofs frustrating, and teachers struggle with how to help students write proofs. In fact, it is well documented that most students who have studied proofs in high school geometry courses do not master them and do not understand their function. And yet, according to NCTM's "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics"…

Rhetoricians have tried to develop a better understanding of the connection between words and things, but these attempts often employ a logic of representation that undermines a full examination of materiality and the complexity of scientific practice. A logic of articulation offers a viable alternative by focusing attention on the linkages…

With the current economic slump possibly the deepest since the Great Depression, interest in the subject of macroeconomics has reignited, and the number of students majoring in economics has increased during the last two years. While this would appear to be good news for educators in the economics field, the profession is nervous about more than…

Program evaluation and planning is at the heart of efforts to integrate the domains of practice and research. Traditionally, research and practice have operated in independent spheres with practitioners focused on the implementation of programs that affect individual behavior and researchers focused on the development and testing of theory.…

The relation between music pedagogy as a field of research and the practice of music education is characterized as a continuum ranging from remoteness through cooperation to full integration. A typology is drawn up (the where the relation is separate, co-operative, integrated, or parallel). All these types of relationship are considered necessary.…

Purpose: This article presents a case for addressing evidence-based practice (EBP) in educational administration. Content is arranged around four objectives: (a) summarizing the status of educational administration as a profession, (b) defining evidence and the model, (c) explaining EBP's social and professional merit, and (d) identifying barriers…

This article reexamines Bley-Vroman's original (1990) and evolved fundamental difference hypothesis that argues that differences in path and endstate of first language acquisition and adult foreign language learning result from differences in the acquisition procedure (i.e., language faculty and cognitive strategies, respectively). The evolved…

Within education, the term "research" is used in a multiplicity of ways. This paper draws on my own reflection of how educational practitioners experience shifting relationships to research. It suggests that within the further education (FE) sector, professionalism in teaching is measured through observation in the form of the Ofsted…

This article concerns a central issue in education as an institutional activity: instructions and their role in guiding student activities and understanding. In the study, we investigate the tensions between specifics and generalities in the joint production of guided action. This issue is explored in the context of handicraft education--or more…

In this article, the author writes from the perspective of a community college research practitioner, an institutional researcher whose daily work is intended primarily to affect policies, procedures and understanding of student learning and institutional effectiveness. The audience for this work is composed of faculty, administrators, staff,…