Based on a school ethnography carried out in an English primary school in the last years of New Labour Government, this paper examines the processes and dynamics involved in the introduction of a cooperative learning method as part of the Success for All Literacy Program, which was being implemented in the school for the first time. It discusses…

Some methodological issues are discussed that arise from our comparative research conducted since the early 1990s into primary schooling in Finland and England. This research has been identified as part of a "new" comparative education that uses qualitative research strategies and which prioritises sensitivity to cultural context in data…