This article shares the experience of a teacher investigating the tension between a mandated literacy program and his desire to teach in response to his perceptions of students' needs. Qualitative teacher research methodology is used to study the impact of mandated literacy practices on teaching and learning; and to answer the question: how is my…

In the province of Quebec, Canada, a trend towards full inclusion has impelled teachers to adapt their instruction to meet the needs of both advanced and weaker learners in regular school settings. The main purpose of the present investigation was to develop and validate the Differentiated Instruction Scale (DIS), which assesses the use of…

Through a sociocultural lens this study explored how four teachers, a reading teacher, and their principal lived literacy policy in practice in and around Maplewood Elementary School. This work grew out of three questions: (a) How do six policy stakeholders at one elementary school--four teachers, one administrator, and one reading teacher-make…

The problem addressed by this study is the impact of the current high-stakes accountability policy on the work of teachers, and whether this impact has created an environment of intensification. Research has shown that intensification manifests itself in teachers' feeling a loss of autonomy, a de-professionalization of their working environment,…

If emerging teachers are going to be something more than technicians, they need to reflect on their instructional worldviews, the mission of schools, and their role as autonomous professionals. In this article, the author shows how three pedagogical "moves" she made as a holistic mentor helped her student teachers forge and voice…

For developing professional development (PD) programs, research suggests referring to effective components. In developing a PD program on classroom dialogue, we explored to what extent effective components could be addressed. We conducted a study with two groups. In the "Dialogic Video Cycle" (DVC), six German teachers participated in a…

In this paper we examine how agency is characterised by teachers and students when personalised learning is enacted in the contemporary open classroom. A case study is outlined that identifies teacher reasoning for practice, the use of physical and virtual learning spaces, and student reaction to teacher facilitation of personalised learning.…

As the face of education in Philadelphia's public schools changes in response to budget constraints and politics, current "Teach For America" (TFA) corps members' roles have also changed. These changes have resulted in the majority of second-year TFA corps members being relocated from school district to charter-managed schools, many of…

At the level of policy the relative "value" of subjects is determined by their official curriculum designation, creating a hierarchy of learning within which particular subjects are categorised as optional to the educational experience of young people. This situation is well-illustrated by the marginalised position of drama in the…

Practitioner voice has been absent from debates regarding what constitutes professional behaviour and practice in the early years. This research identifies and uses the professional knowledge of a group of early years educators to create a typology of professionalism. The typology comprises seven inter-related dimensions of early years…

An evaluation of the impact of a professional development experience on participants' ability to explore student voices as input for improving the teaching of mathematics evolved into a self-study of our growth as non-evaluative listeners. This paper specifically describes our emergent awareness of the evaluative stance implicit within our attempt…

The development of critical sensibilities in English Language Teaching (ELT) in recent years has seen challenges to assumptions and methodologies in the field, placing an explicit focus on the manifestation of structures and relations of power. The critical stance affords a growing acceptance of English Language Teaching as a complex situated…

This article is a critical review of recent literature comparing pedagogical influences in primary schools in England and Poland. It identifies curriculum, assessment, leadership, teacher perceptions and personal fears as immense influences on pedagogy and considers how these factors influence pedagogy. Comparison of England's prescriptive…

Background: Research has shown that both achievement goal theory and self-determination theory (SDT) are quite useful in explaining student motivation and success in academic contexts. However, little is known about how the two theories relate to each other. Aim: The current research used SDT as a framework to understand why students enter classes…

This article considers the extent to which the needs and aspirations of teachers are taken into account in three examples of current Primary and Early Years documentation--the National Curriculum, the Early Years Foundation Stage and the Primary Framework. This analysis is done through three methods: a critical discourse analysis of the aims and…