Although systemic reform seems to be a broadly accepted framework for educational change, concrete reform projects still face the uncertainty of how to meet the necessary requirements. This paper considers the case of a curriculum reform process in primary mathematics education that has a focus on the involvement and influence of parents. The data…

The expression of surprise--at something unexpected--is a key form of emotional display. Focusing on displays of surprise performed by means of reaction tokens (akin to Goffman's "response cries"), such as "wow, gosh, oh my god, ooh!, phew," we use an ethnomethodological, conversation-analytic approach to analyze surprise in talk-in-interaction.…

More and more companies now rely on the benefits of e-mail communication as a means of ensuring customer service. To date, very few publications have explored the role of this medium in the establishment of an interpersonal relationship between customer and company. In a descriptive study, the e-mail replies of producers were investigated with…

Disciplinary variation in academic writing has been explored for the most part by comparing a particular genre, such as the research article, across different disciplines. However, genre theorists have not systematically studied relationships among related genres. It is argued in this article that a study of relationships among related genres from…

The moral panic concerning "boys' underachievement" is well established in the UK and Australia, and is spreading to other countries. Feminists have articulated concerns that this debate has reflected a "poor boys'" discourse with negative permutations for girls' schooling; and there is much evidence to support this claim.…

Previous researchers have found it challenging to disentangle the memory and language capabilities of the famous amnesic patient H. M. Here, we present an original linguistic analysis of H. M. based on empirical data drawing upon novel spoken discourse with him. The results did not uncover the language deficits noted previously. Instead, H. M.'s…

Classicist Steven J. Willett is amazed at the president of the Philological Association, who wants to abandon the "metanarrative" that has always supported our culture. Apparently, the Greek and Roman origins of Western thought are merely an "old story that won't work any longer." Professor Willett's answer to this is a stinging indictment of the…

Composition theory is unique in that it attempts to take student voices and identities seriously, to incorporate them into the very fabric of the class, the research, the conversations. In order to accomplish this, teachers must continually ask difficult questions about themselves, their pedagogy, and their responses to student writing, even if…

This article presents a rejoinder on the commentaries of the authors' article titled, "The Idea of Testing: Psychometric and Sociocultural Perspectives." In different ways, each commentary has made a productive contribution to a multidisciplinary dialogue about educational assessment. The authors acknowledge that dialogue across disciplinary…

This paper examines the effectiveness of routinizing lexical phrases to a group of second language learners. A group of proficiency class students were drilled or routinized with semi-fixed and fixed phrases which are commonly used in problem-solving group discussion. Basic frequency counts and interview were carried out to see improvement in…

There is an ever-increasing trend in the world today to adopt English as the language of instruction in higher education. The increase is in part due to the views that such adoption constitutes the key to competitiveness in a globalized higher education market. Thus, a growing number of universities in non-English-speaking countries switch to…

Since the beginning of the British colonial enterprise in India the representation of the relationship between Western biomedicine and Ayurveda has been based on a fundamental epistemological asymmetry. However much Ayurveda was represented in Orientalist literature as accurate, poetic, useful, scholarly, or interesting, it could never occupy with…

This article examines the rhetoric of resistance used by South African anti-apartheid journalists to expose the links between the apartheid government and death squads. By utilizing allusions, repetition, and a concept I refer to as "subversive enthymemes," these journalists managed to reveal publicly information about death squad…

This article examines China's senior high "Thought and Politics" ("sixiang zhengzhi") texts, analyzing how these seek to legitimize the regime's developmental strategy. It is argued that their overriding emphasis on the strengthening of the state is premised upon the imperative of securing China's position within global order…

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there exists a deficit of compelling financial education curricula in urban schools that serve financially vulnerable working-class students. Part of a design-based research investigation aimed at creating culturally-relevant financial literacy learning environments, this study…