Critical approaches to Whiteness, heteronormativity, masculinity, and educational privileges have contributed in recent years to a greater focus on structural privileges. Various studies have established that structural privileges often remain invisible for the privileged individuals themselves (Bourdieu and Passeron 1997; Frankenberg 1993;…

We present findings from an in-depth study on a school-based multi-disciplinary learning community in the context of practice teaching in university pre-service education. We elaborate on one of the three predominant patterns of talk identified, the "star" pattern, and show how it created particular power relations in the discourse which…

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have been growing in popularity with educational researchers, instructors, and learners in online environments. Online discussions are as important in MOOCs as in other online courses. Online discussions that occur in MOOCs are influenced by additional factors resulting from their volatile and voluntary…

This exploratory netnographic study describes how a sample of Ontario kindergarten teachers perceive the new Ontario Full Day Kindergarten (FDK) curriculum. Discussions from teacher message boards, the comment sections of online news articles, and interviews with kindergarten teachers were analyzed and coded using a qualitative approach. Analysis…

Drawing on an evaluation experience of a teacher education preparation project in a rural area of South Africa, this paper attempts to explore the possibility of using Communities of Practice (CoP) in teacher preparation. The paper concludes that the concept of CoP is powerful in providing spaces for self-reflection to pre-service teachers and…

This paper explores a middle school teacher's and his students' perceptions of the differences between online synchronous literature discussions and face-to-face literature discussions. Each member of this literature group participated in two face-to-face and two online literature discussions. Participants were interviewed twice to discuss their…

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…

Discourse, especially dialogic communication between students in collaborative problem-solving groups, plays a central role in educational reforms informed by learning science. This study examined the quality of discourse in problem-based learning groups in a university course. The study found a low incidence of high quality dialogue (dialogic…

A study compared the discourse within a knowledge-building community in dual mediums: face-to-face meetings and electronic mail postings to a discussion list. Participants were faculty members and graduate students at a major university. The study focused on patterns of participation in both mediums, changes in these patterns, and possible effects…

In this article, the author examines the character of the conversations generated in an elementary teacher group as they worked on mathematical problems together and analyzed their students' work. Two distinct forms of talk--"exploratory" and "expository"--were found. The first type of talk occurred most prominently when discussions centered on…

The National Reading Conference (NRC) Yearbook represents an archive of conference reports that have undergone the rigorous review that research demands, as well as an indicator of topics, ideas and concerns that occupied participants during the annual conference. With this 52nd volume of the Yearbook, the editors hope the reader finds a broad…