Scholars from multiple disciplines have commented on the divided nature of childhood as a historical construction: a period of life to be valued in itself as well as a means to adulthood. In this essay, James Stillwaggon considers George Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys," an autobiographical account of his childhood education, as a site of…

This environmental autobiography outlines my process of repositioning the natural environment as a primary character in my life. By exploring moments in my childhood when I made instinctive connections with my surroundings, I have come to better understand the person I am today and where I am going. Throughout this autobiography I address the…

In this article, the authors describe how educators used an autobiography, "How to Succeed in Business Without Being White: Straight Talk on Making It in America" (E. G. Graves, 1998), in a general undergraduate entrepreneurship course to augment the learning opportunities of entrepreneurship students. This learning modality provided students with…

The purpose of this study was to describe my experiences as a campus principal in facilitating the use of participatory formative assessment (PFA) in an environment of accountability and high-stakes testing. The methodology I employed was autoethnography (Chang, 2008; Ellis, 2004; Reed-Danahay, 1997; Stinson, 2009). I kept journals over a period…

Five Frameline short films by and about LGBT youth's coming-out narratives are reviewed by a professor and his (under)graduate university students studying visual culture and the socio/cinematic construction of (homo)sexualities. Respondents collectively found the group of films moving and well suited for viewing by middle- and high-school-age…

The challenges facing contemporary boys are complex, highlighting the importance of positive paternal influence for young men to achieve success. This study examines the father-son relationships of 10 prominent gifted men of achievement to identify factors influencing talent development. Through biographical analysis, 6 significant themes were…

In this essay, the author provides a critique of sources relevant to the feminization of teaching in the United States from the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Sources covering topics such as the American Civil War, labor market forces, increasing urbanization, educational reform, and regional differences, and how they affected the feminization…

The emotional dimension of teaching and learning from the perspective of the teacher and learner in adult education is considered in this paper by means of an autoethnographic story written as an approach to reflective practice. The genre of autoethnography allows for the personal and the autobiographical as a legitimate site for research into…

This paper discusses the processes and practices that link crafts and gender in the upbringing and education of girls. The paper is based on a study conducted among female primary school trainee teachers in Finland. The data are comprised of their experiences with crafts as schoolgirls. The methods of the study were memory work and writing of…

This article presents a review of three chapters in "Part III, Section F: Inquiring into Curriculum" of "The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction" (F. M. Connelly, M. F. He, J. I. Phillion, Eds.; Sage Publications, 2008). These chapters ["Reenvisioning the Progressive Tradition in Curriculum" (David T. Hansen,…

This article consists of critical reflections on an inclusion story I wrote about my own practice as a local education authority educational psychologist in the United Kingdom. The aim is to shed light on the process of producing stories and possibly also on criteria for judging them. As a critical reflective practitioner, I saw myself as writing…

This paper describes the integration of cooperative learning (CL) activities into a graduate teacher education course, Collaborative Teaching in English as a Second Language (ESL). Because teachers and researchers have both identified discipline status and relationship issues as challenges to collaboration, this course focused on relational…

Based on the writing and oral reports of a group of 15 students in a graduate course focused on autobiographic writing and professional development, I address the question of how graduate study in education might sustain teachers in their work. For the course in question, the students studied recent research on teacher learning and devoted time to…

This autobiographical account provides a historical map of landmarks in the author's personal and professional life that led him to his present understanding of public anthropology as public pedagogy and vice versa. He indicates that his experiences led him to study sociocultural anthropology to investigate learning from experience, a foundational…

Many scholars have made the call for teacher educators to provide experiences that can lead preservice teachers to embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy. We investigated the use of brief autobiographies during an internship as a tool (a) for preservice teachers to examine their multidimensional culture; and (b) for teacher educators to assess…