This conversational report uses student voice as data to determine whether the culture of urban sixth graders is being acknowledged and valued in the curriculum. While culturally responsive teaching has been touted by scholars as an important aspect of multicultural education and curriculum reform for at least a decade, students have seldom been…

This paper examines EFL learners' dialogic interaction in the implementation of a computer-mediated communication (CMC) task. Within the framework of sociocultural theory, the research focuses on how learners working in pairs collaboratively perform task management and build relationship in the synchronous CMC context. Sixteen Chinese tertiary EFL…

International graduate students are coming in ever-growing numbers to English-speaking countries. Educators have long believed that the successful English-learning experience of these students in their home countries will naturally lead to success in their academic studies and social life abroad. However, this may be not true. Using my…

This study investigates the perspectives of African-Canadian educators on critical factors for success in their educational careers. Interviews were conducted and life histories were constructed to analyze the complex and multifaceted nature of the experiences of ten African-Canadian educators. These data indicate that family and community…

This paper investigates three English textbooks for primary classes 4, 5 and 6 in Ghana from the "Gateway to English for Primary Schools" series, and their complementary teachers' guides, in order to determine the assumptions about teaching and learning which the books embody. The paper pays particular attention to the approach to…

This study examines generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia, covering six countries namely, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and one dependent region, Hong Kong. Using data from the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey, our study affirms the reliability and validity of using a two-item scale to measure…

The dominant approach to research in learning disabilities utilizes experimental and quasi-experimental designs to identify the most effective instructional strategies for students with learning disabilities. Research is always undertaken from a point of view, yet the discourse on "what works?" is generally silent on how theoretical frameworks…

Studies on second language (L2) learners' strategies tended to characterize strategies as individual learners' cognitive predispositions or personality traits, leaving a critical question unanswered: Why do learners use different strategies in different contexts? From a sociocultural perspective, this article pursued this question by focusing on…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine socio-cultural differences in internet use (Digital Divide) among 14-year-old Austrian pupils, in particular usage scenarios and research competences. It is based on a paper presented at the International Association for the Development of the Information Society e-Society conference, 10-13 March 2011, Spain…

This paper synthesis's three theoretical perspectives, including sociocultural theory, distributed cognition, and situated cognition, into a framework to guide the design and assessment of Web 2.0 practices in higher education. In addition, this paper presents a case study of Web 2.0 practices. Thirty-seven online graduate students participated in…

Recognising school readiness as a national priority, the National Education Goals Panel identified the development of young children's approaches to learning as essential for achieving readiness. Approaches to learning include inclinations, attitudes, and learning styles. Despite wide agreement that learning approaches are critical for school…

This paper is aimed at analyzing verbal and nonverbal strategies in terms of body contact, face-to-face contact, and discourse style during the first three months of life in two cultural communities that have been characterized as embodying different cultural models of parenting: German middle-class, and Nso farmer families. It can be demonstrated…

This paper highlights the significance of teacher identity to debates about the disconnect between digital literacies within and beyond school by exploring pre-service teachers' perspectives on digital literacy practices in their personal and professional lives. It uses aspects of Giddens' work on self-identity to frame an analysis that suggests…

What occurs when an African American woman professor and a European American woman professor review narrative data and interpret what the students write differently? This research illustrates how race and the experience of two ethnically different female researchers impact data analysis of teachers' interactions with narratives of personal past…

In an analysis of research data on three generations of Russians, it was found that the impetus prompted by the social and economic transformation in the early 1990s that opened up opportunities for social and professional growth had been practically exhausted by late 2006, and the tendency toward downward social mobility has become more…