Integrating the nature of science (NOS) into textbooks is one of the challenges in science curricula. This case study assessed the issue based on a sample of high school biology textbooks in Mainland China. We quantitatively compared changes in the extent, quality, and distribution of NOS representations between 2004 and 2019 editions. Three main…

Concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) is a pedagogy guided by sociocultural theory, which has been shown to be effective in facilitating second language learning. Typical activities include materialization by using a schema for a complete orienting basis of an action (SCOBA) and languaging, through which learners' internalization of…

This dissertation uses the Conceptual Blending Hypothesis from the socio-cognitive method presented and refined by Kecskes (2002, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2020) to explain how the lexical choice of bilinguals differs across sociocultural situations. Quantitative (lexical density, lexical diversity, and lexical sophistication) and qualitative (lexical…

This comparative study examines the way in which preschool teachers support children's science learning in a Chinese and a Norwegian kindergarten. The study takes an ethnographic approach. Preschool teachers from one kindergarten in Shanghai and one in Bergen were asked to videotape educational activities that focused on science in their…

Formative assessment is increasingly being implemented through policy initiatives in Chinese educational contexts. As an approach to assessment, formative assessment derives many of its key principles from Western contexts, notably through the work of scholars in the UK, the USA and Australia. The question for this paper is the ways that formative…

This research assessed the extent to which sociocultural factors implicated in explanations of weight dissatisfaction among young Western females extend to sources of body image concern in emerging adult and adolescent males from the People's Republic of China. In Study 1, 219 Mainland Chinese male university students completed measures of stature…

Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating were compared across groups of college women from China (n = 109), South Korea (n = 137), and the United States (n = 102). Based on cultural differences in the amount of exposure to Western appearance standards, particularly the thin-body ideal, sociocultural theory (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, &…

Everyone has a name. Names are more than a symbol or label. The culture of a people finds expression in the language they employ. When personal names are studied historically, philosophically, etymologically, and psychologically the reflection of the social and natural environment can be perceived. This paper focuses on the analysis of the…

Evidence from this comparative investigation of the Soviet Union, China, and the United States shows that different countries attach their own political meaning and ideology to physical activity in order to stabilize and strengthen themselves, and thus, better promote their respective ideology in the international marketplace of political power.…

A study of the influence of the writer's social and cultural background and training on the organization of his or her writing was studied in essays written by two groups of students: Chinese students at the Beijing Institute of International Relations and the Xian Foreign Language Institute and foreign students in the United States. The essays…

The development of vocational education in modern China may be traced through four stages. The progress made during the experimental stage (1949-1965) was largely reversed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), at which time many secondary technical and vocational high schools were closed. The period 1977-1984 marked a recovery stage when…

Sociopolitical influences on education and research in the United States, China, and the Soviet Union are contrasted. Discussions with American scholars who have knowledge of educational practice in socialist nations are presented. The major philosophical difference stressed by these scholars is the pervasive influence of dialectical materialism…