Research that is conducted across divergent contexts and communities presents challenges. This paper explores the importance of building trusting relationships between researchers and participants to overcome some of these challenges. Using a postmodern perspective it describes practices that merged to form a comprehensive strategy for working…

Learning about sexuality is a lifelong process that begins in childhood and continues through the lifespan. Through family and peer interactions and media sources, youth learn about sexuality and relationships, and develop their own values. The learning process and trajectory, however, may differ among youth from diverse cultures. In fact,…

Education to meet labour market demands and employer needs is a key priority in New Zealand's education policy. Government agendas for language and literacy education align with global discourses that link economic productivity to quality control, standardisation and proceduralisation through close regulation and funding. Yet, the interviews…

This commentary focuses on school leadership as connective activity. Leadership is essentially about designing, managing and energizing the right connections, and untying the wrong ones, in order to make schools successful, equitable, happier places. The author's basic proposition is that school leaders who influence students and their communities…

Emotion's twin roles-"unite and divide" our daily life, thus motivating the good and the worst in human behaviour. The way one "feels" does influence the way one "acts" toward others. If this reasoning is correct, then behaviour can never be without motive or "motiveless." Given the importance of emotions in human communication and decision…

This article examines the workings of informal exclusion units located within British secondary schools. Although articulated in terms of inclusion and support such initiatives effectively work to remove students regarded as troublesome from mainstream classrooms. Drawing on ethnographic research in three inner-city schools we show how a…

The adoption of educational policy measures to close the achievement gap, as well as the significant amount of scholarship dedicated to the subject, are just some of the indicators that reflect the tremendous concern in education about the academic performance of students of colour. Within research aimed at promoting equitable practices in…

Parent training (PT) is well established for reducing child externalizing problems; however, lower rates of engagement in PT among ethnic minority/immigrant families have been found. We assessed PT acceptability among Chinese immigrant parents and explored clinical and cultural factors that may be associated with acceptability. Participants were a…

The purpose of this study was: 1) to explore the pre-tenure experiences of an African American female faculty member in a counselor education program; and 2) to compare the themes that ascended from a precursor study to the current one. By using critical ethnography and case study format, this research gave voice to the participant by prompting…

Background: Reducing stigma associated with mental illness is an important aim of medical education, yet evidence indicates that medical students' attitudes toward patients with mental health problems deteriorate as they progress through medical school. Objectives: Authors examined medical students' attitudes to mental illness, as compared with…

The Children's Hand-Skill ability Questionnaire (CHSQ) is a new parent-report questionnaire that assesses children's manual ability in three domains: leisure and play, school/education, and activities of daily living. The CHSQ can be used with children presenting with a range of disabilities and works as a companion assessment before detailed…

Internationally educated teachers (IETs) can change how cultural differences are perceived in school communities. Rather than mirroring dominant social norms, IETs can be an alternative to stereotypes and extend all students' understanding of difference. This qualitative study examined how teacher agency is expressed by IETs in the context of a…

In Canada, as around the world, large numbers of Indigenous children encounter culturally dissonant learning environments in preschools and schools. Many of these children experience serious challenges, in part because of a striking mismatch between their early learning experiences in the family and community, and the expectations, perceptions,…

Idioms have long been regarded as problematic for L2 learners due to the arbitrariness of their meanings and forms. Traditional methods of teaching idioms focus on rote learning and memorization. Recent developments in cognitive linguistics research have considered idioms as analyzable expressions which are motivated by conceptual metaphors and…

This paper argues that all learners need teachers who are not only professionally qualified but also culturally competent. This is particularly so with teachers of indigenous students, who face the conflicting expectations of schools and those of their home cultures. References to Pacific students will be used to illustrate some of the conflicts…