This article presents an adaptation of established qualitative research methods for online focus groups by using the "Disqus" website-based commenting platform as a medium for discussion among doctoral and early-career academic learners. Facilities allowing Internet users to comment on the content of web pages are increasingly popular on…

Rancorous dialogue among political opponents is nothing new in the American political system. However, in the past two decades or so, pundits and scholars have noted an increase in the overall intensity and frequency of incivility among elected officials and citizens. At the collegiate level, many universities have undertaken some form of civility…

Teacher education involves an identity transformation for trainees from being a student to being a teacher. This discourse analysis examined the online discussion board communications of a cohort of trainee teachers to better understand the situated identities of the trainees and how they were presented online. Their discussion board posts were…

This dissertation addresses the related questions of how online communication technologies affect communication in science and, more broadly, how new ways of interaction in online spaces affect how texts enact genres. Genres have been usefully thought of as typified discursive responses to recurrent social exigences, and much recent work has shown…

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…

Compares electronic support groups to electronic hobby groups to demonstrate the difference in terms of the rhetorical behavior of participants. Finds that some discourse characteristics and rhetorical features are common to all groups, others are unique to the special requirements of electronic support groups. (PA)

In this research note we explore how children construct their identity in the context of a literacy practice: developing written and audio-visual texts in small-group situation to be published on the Internet. Through their dialogue, a shared identity is growing on the context, and every children create an identity as member of a community in…