Background: Mother-tongue education in South African primary schools remains a challenge to policymakers. The situation is problematic in multilingual "lok'shin" (township) schools where the "lok'shin" lingua is not recognised as 'standard' language. This article raises the controversial possibility of positioning of…

This paper focuses upon the micro level of the pre-school classroom, taking the example of the Indian Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS), and the discourse of "child-centred" pedagogy that is often associated with quality pre-schooling. Through an analysis of visual data, semi-structured and film elicitation interviews drawn…

The vast majority of young South African children grow up in socially- and economically-challenging settings. These impeding conditions hamper their intellectual growth and affect their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. Increasingly, mindfulness is being recognised as a means to enhance holistic well-being of children.…

The aim of this article is to report on the Foundation Phase (FP) teachers' professional identities in two primary schools in the Western Cape. This is meant to serve as a basis for understanding teachers' identities with regard to their teaching experience, qualifications, specialised knowledge base, and ongoing professional development. The…

Due to apartheid policies, Black African learners in South Africa have been severely disadvantaged in school science. Despite policy changes to redress these historical imbalances, Black African learners continue to underperform in science. Previous research has identified motivation as a key factor that impacts performance. Achievement goal…

The 1994 democratic government of South Africa brought greater responsibility and growth of school-based management in schools which impacted on the role and workload of school leaders (Rosenfeld, Ehrich & Cranston, 2009). Principals of public secondary schools delegated greater responsibility to Heads of Departments who had to ensure that…

Background: This small-scale study investigated English vocabulary exposure from graded readers and teacher talk in Grade 3 classrooms in poorly resourced township schools in South Africa. Vocabulary is one of the key building blocks for becoming a fluent reader. Most words are learnt through incidental exposure to oral or written language.…

This paper is an exploration of challenges arising in the interplay between a standardised peace education curriculum and a localised post-conflict setting. Drawing on interview data from two Kenyan schools, the paper explores the reception of peace education initiatives implemented in Kenya following the post-election violence of 2007/2008…

This article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory and reflects on key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including 2 Change Laboratories, are analyzed with the help of…

Background: This article investigated the potential of Grade 3 English Second Language (ESL) teachers' vocabulary development practices to equip learners in English-deprived environments with English vocabulary requisite for transition to Grade 4 where English is the Language of Learning and Teaching and where learning to read gives way to reading…

Curriculum reforms provide a unique opportunity to investigate how in times of social change education is not only influenced by, but also itself a driver of, competition and inequality. This article sheds light on a specific instance of how macro-societal patterns in education intermingle in twenty-first century Turkey by inquiring into a major…

The article examines the problems of teaching William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" after the Holocaust, arguing that even though the play is anti-Semitic, it can become a valuable teaching tool when placed in the context of the Holocaust memoirs "Dry Tears" by Nechama Tec and "The Nazi Officer's Wife" by…

An innovative learning technique that originated in a slum in India's capital, New Delhi, sets the stage for "Q&A" that is now the Oscar winning movie, "Slumdog Millionaire". In an interview, Dr. Sugata Mitra, the creator of this new educational pedagogy termed Minimally Invasive Education (MIE), explains how it can help…

Through directing concerted efforts and educational services of seven Faculties of Helwan University towards socially underprivileged pupils in slum areas (EL-Marg area in big Cairo) this research project had two main aims: firstly, modifying a set of arbitrary behaviors of those pupils, in a trial to develop some behavior skills associated with…

The Keeps All Pupils in School (KAPS) program in Baltimore is discussed. (DB)