This article presents the findings from a focus group discussion conducted with first year undergraduate dance students in March 2015. The focus group concluded a cycle of action research during which the researcher explored the use of enquiry-based learning approaches to teaching dance technique in higher education. Grounded in transformative and…

This paper examines the relationship between 'aspiration' and identity as rendered within discourses of power. Focusing on the deeply ingrained values of a group of 23 white working-class boys from South London (aged 14-16), the research critically considers the conception of power within a neoliberal era which produces both new subjectivities and…

Through an examination of the experiences of young people in one disadvantaged area, this paper adds to an emerging body of knowledge focused on what place physical activity occupies in the lives of young people in areas of disadvantage. A total of 40 young people (21 males, 19 females) participated in focus group interviews. The research question…

In this article, we argue that when complex sociopolitical issues such as ethnocentrism and racial segregation are represented as complex, emergent systems using agent-based computational models (in short agent-based models or ABMs), discourse about these representations can disrupt social studies teacher candidates' dispositions of teaching…

This article explores student empowerment in a restructured urban Title I middle school. The study includes data from eight participants in an action research project that involved a critical inquiry unit in an eighth-grade language arts class that asked students, "How are you empowered and disempowered by school?" Findings reveal that…

A problem-based learning (PBL) assumption is that silence is incompatible with collaborative learning. Although sociocultural studies have reinterpreted silence as collaborative, we must understand how silence occurs in PBL groups. This essay presents students' explanations of dominance, leadership, and silence as PBL group roles. An ethnographic…

This paper critically engages observations from a school that was aligned with a resistance movement in Lebanon during a post-war period of sustained political violence (2006-2007). Focusing on the pedagogical practices at one community-centered and community-led Shi'a Islamic urban school, the paper draws on extensive ethnographic data to…

This study explores the relevance of multimodality to critical media literacy. It is based on the understanding that communication is intrinsically multimodal and multimodal communication is inherently social and ideological. By analysing two English-language learners' multimodal ensembles, the study reports on how multimodality contributes to a…

Public relations educators are frequently challenged by students' flawed perceptions of public relations. Two contrasting case studies are presented in this paper to illustrate how socially-oriented paradigms may be applied to a real-client project to deliver a transformative learning experience. A discourse-analytic approach is applied within the…

This paper discusses pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations using examples from a final assessment for an intensive elective unit called Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years. This unit critically examines gender/power relations, the production of difference, heteronormativity and pleasure and desire,…

This dissertation builds on and extends research on the relationship between equity-minded mathematics teaching, specifically teaching mathematics for social justice, complex instruction, and project-based learning, and students' learning and identity development. Although different in their structures and strategies, equity-minded mathematics…

Peer sexuality educators' accounts of their work reveal two approaches to empathy with their students: affinity and alliance. "Affinity-based empathy" rests on the idea that the more commonalities sexuality educators and students share (or perceive they share), the more they will be able to empathise with one another, while…

International environmental education policy discourses have influenced policy construction in Botswana and how teachers conduct themselves and teaching in environmental learning. The researcher uses Foucault's notion of governmentality to understand the effects of power/knowledge relations in policy. The analysis is taken further through a…

Given the minimal impact in the classroom from the implementation of reform movements internationally, the question remains how researchers and teacher educators can address the learning needs of secondary mathematics teachers. The goal was to implement research that was focused on providing an empowering space for the advancement of teachers'…

Migrants and refugees settling permanently in a new country face significant social, linguistic and cultural challenges. However, they also bring intercultural strengths and skills which, if acknowledged and enhanced, can support successful settlement and inclusion in a pluralistic society. This paper describes the underpinning rationale and…