The current high-stakes educational context compels many schools and school systems to encourage teachers to use restrictive literacy teaching practices, which are unlikely to meet students' diverse needs. These restrictions typically fall on novice teachers, who enter the field through various preparation routes, because they often work in…

This article explores the parenting practices of wealthy Danish families and offers insight into the workings of dominant parenting norms within contemporary Danish society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among 15 families living north of Copenhagen, Denmark, this article identifies the parenting strategies of people with ample…

The progressive educational systems of some regions of Italy are becoming increasingly recognized by educators and researchers seeking insight into diverse educational approaches from the international community. This article represents a case study of Filastrocca ("Nursery Rhyme"), a preschool in the Tuscan city of Pistoia. Filastrocca…

This paper describes the 5E+I/A inquiry model and reports a case study of one curricular enactment by a US fifth-grade classroom. A literature review establishes the model's conceptual adequacy with respect to longstanding research related to both the 5E inquiry model and multiple, incremental innovations of it. As a collective line of research,…

Supervising masters and doctoral dissertations is a key function of teaching in higher education and giving written feedback on draft sections is an essential component of this function. However, the specific types of response that supervisors give to their dissertation students' written work have received limited research interest to date. The…

In the general education classroom students with learning disabilities (LD) often need academic accommodations to be successful. These accommodations are typically selected and implemented by their general education teachers, not by the students themselves. High school students with LD were taught to recognize when an accommodation was needed,…

Creativity plays a very important role in education. Most of educational systems support creativity as relevant competence for the 21st century. According to the findings of experts, teachers' creativity is important for the development of students' creativity. We introduce a theoretical base of creativity and styles of creativity. Based on our…

This qualitative study explores aspects of formative peer assessment through looking at teachers' and students' perceptions and practices. The study takes place in a first semester course, where mastering peer assessment was a learning outcome and where formative peer assessment was designed into the course plan as a learning activity. Empirical…

This paper explores the role of reflexivity in habituation by contrasting the learning of aerobics and basketball with the acquisition of gendered bodily skills. The discussion is inspired by the paper "So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis? Habitus, consciousness and habituation," by Noble and Watkins (2003), which represents a…

This article introduces a theoretical framework for studying school improvement processes such as making school environments safer. Using concepts from spatial theory, in which distinctions between mental, social and physical space are applied makes for a multidimensional analysis of processes of change. In a multilevel case study, these were…

Educators have become increasingly interested in the learning benefits that mobile technology can provide to students in and out of classrooms. While there is considerable enthusiasm for using mobile devices to support learning with their multimedia capabilities, portability, connectivity, and flexibility, there is a paucity of research evidence…

This comparative case (Merriam, 2009) study explored two charter school principals' engagement in instructional leadership. Analysis of three data sources--interviews, observations, and documents--revealed that principals were almost exclusively focused on state accountability and possessed limited knowledge of pedagogical practices. In…

In an era of school reform and high stakes accountability, the major challenge in education is to turnaround the nation's lowest-performing schools. National policy provides abundant resources with often restrictive prerequisites. Research indicates that quality principals and teachers are the most important factors for turning around the lowest…

Within the current standards-based framework of early primary education, teachers must negotiate the integration of assessment with traditional, developmental orientations to teaching and learning. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teachers' approaches to early primary assessment within five different school contexts: public,…

This study builds on a set of Australian case studies exploring the impact of Place on the work of principals and of the importance of Place in the preparation and development of principals. The project compares the ways that principals in Iceland and Australia build leadership capacity in small rural schools. Leaders of small schools in both…