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…

A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest to equip learners with new target language resources, is not held back by the perceived boundaries dividing named languages. Instead she employs language in creative and goal-directed ways that we believe have not received enough focused linguistic…

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…

Out of his experience in teaching in slum schools the author stresses the way discipline is involved in teaching success. (Editor)

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

An art teacher at an inner city elementary school has found that his young students are eager to join his after-school art club and to tackle the difficult processes of etching and printmaking. This article describes the program's printmaking procedures and facilities. (SJL)

This book is a personal account of teaching experience in the inner city school, as well as being an organized approach to improving teaching methods. On the schools and the teachers are placed the responsibility for teaching and for reasonable academic achievement of students. The underlying educational philosophy is that the individual teacher…

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATING SLUM CHILDREN IS SPECIAL AND SHOULD NOT BE BUTTRESSED WITH DEMOCRATIC SLOGANS. AN EXAMPLE OF THE LATTER IS GIVING SLUM CHILDREN AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE TEACHERS WHO ARE KNOWN TO BE GOOD IN OTHER SCHOOLS. TRANSFERRED TO THE SLUM SCHOOL, THEY BECOME DEMORALIZED AND FAIL. THEIR INSUFFICIENT SOCIAL AWARENESS AND THEIR LACK OF…

The following essays make up the contents of this book: (1) John Niemeyer, "Importance of the Inner-City Teacher," (2) Robert Strom, "Teacher Aspiration and Attitude," (3) Robert J. Havighurst, "Overcoming Value Differences," (4) E. Paul Torrance, "Fostering Creative Behavior," (5) Paul Bowman, "Improving the Pupil Self-Concept," (6) A. Harry…

Excerpts from tape recorded interviews with 14 beginning teachers in slum schools form the basis of this volume. Written to help neophyte teachers gain insights into the problems and experiences of teaching in such schools, the book presents anecdotes followed by discussion of relevant social science and cultural anthropological theory. There are…