The ever growing diversity poses challenges for social work educators, who are engaged in developing new pedagogical methods for enhancing multicultural practice. Within the framework of a diversity course, I have developed a pedagogical practice for training social workers to work in a diverse, multicultural reality. Students conduct an…

This study investigated power relations in a graduate seminar on "Literacy learning and knowledge acquisition." Three categories were examined in relation to ideological assumptions: students' expectations, institution's expectations, and teachers' perceptions of their roles as guided by their teaching perspectives. The study aimed at…

Research in educational linguistics is now challenging the efficacy of monolingual approaches that often dominate educational practices in multilingual settings. In most African nations where multilingualism is the norm, there remains a persistent reluctance by educational stakeholders (principals, teachers, parents, and students) to embrace…

The transgressive use of language by out-group speakers, or crossing is used in a variety of ways to achieve both affiliative and disaffiliative ends among youths. However, crossing can also be used as an affiliative resource in asymmetrical power relations between teachers and students. Reporting on the findings of a 1.5 year ethnography of an…

Mutuality practice in the composition classroom attempts to create equal subject positions between teachers and students, mitigating the effects of dominant power structures inherent to an authority-driven classroom while showing teachers that their students are fully capable, though fledgling, members of an academic community. Understanding how…

Disinhibition is recognized as an effect that prompts online users to communicate with less constraint than in face-to-face discussion. This article describes how disinhibition may affect more than individual instances. In a blended learning environment, disinhibition may alter the entire context of discussion by disrupting established patterns of…

As an area of classroom research, Interaction Analysis developed from the need and desire to investigate the process of classroom teaching and learning in terms of action-reaction between individuals and their socio-cultural context (Biddle, 1967). However, sole reliance on quantitative techniques could be problematic, since they conceal more than…

Studies of interaction in ESL classrooms have not taken into account how space and materials used in classroom impact interaction. This case study examines how three ESL teachers in two different school districts, four high school and twelve junior high ELLs and the two-classroom spaces co-construct the cultural and literacy practices of the…

Studies on classroom practices in Africa and the developing world tend to report on the visible general features, i.e. code switching, rote learning, memorisation and safe talk, with very little on the micro, invisible, classroom life. This article, based on the findings of a study involving classroom observations of teachers and pupils'…

This article reports on a qualitative multiple case study that explored the academic discourse socialization experiences of L2 learners in a Canadian university. Grounded in the notion of "community of practice" (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 89), the study examined how L2 learners negotiated their participation and membership in their new…

This study is concerned with interactional involvement and identity construction in a university seminar comprised of native and non-native English speaking students. Findings reveal that in their classroom interactions, these two groups of students take on and perceive others to take on identities that have little to do with their language status…

This study juxtaposes current approaches to intercultural communication competence (ICC) with Chinese students' learning and communication experiences in a New Zealand pluricultural classroom. Fifteen first-year Chinese university students were interviewed and participated in focus groups. The findings indicated that the Chinese students' rules…

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of professors and students on the cultural/learning and linguistic characteristics contributing to the academic difficulties of Korean college students in the United States. The participants in this study consisted of 25 college professors and 19 Korean college students from a liberal arts…