This article presents an ongoing study of educational policy enactment in Singapore lower primary English classrooms. It explores how teachers react to and interpret educational reforms in their classroom practices against a backdrop of traditional cultural values. Using a prescribed coding scheme, the article presents the instructional…

The phenomenal growth and subsequent increasing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovations has led to an increase in their use in higher education over the past decade. Past research has criticised e-learning (compared to traditional face-to-face lecturing) for its failure to engage students in their learning. However, King…

This qualitative study examines educational and socio-cultural experiences of seven Kenyan women pursuing higher education in the United States. The study uses in depth interviews to explore the participants' socio-cultural experiences, how they negotiate their multiple identities, and their transformative learning experiences. Three theoretical…

This study investigated Korean children's cultural adjustment during transition to South Australian junior primary school settings. Using case-study methodology to provide a sociocultural perspective, data were collected during interviews with a sample of South Korean international students aged five to eight years, their mothers and teachers. All…

This longitudinal study asks 2 questions. The first one is: What patterns of pragmatic development can we observe among different pragmatic functions and attributes in a second language (L2)? The second question is: In what ways do individual differences and learning context affect the course of pragmatic development? Forty-eight Japanese college…

Teachers bring a complex array of beliefs and attitudes to the teaching of literacy. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to investigate the nature of teacher attitudes towards the learning and teaching of writing in the first year of school and to identify any broad underlying attitudinal dimensions. The secondary aim was to…

According to Vygotsky, we use tools both to shape and make sense of the world and to exercise control over others and over ourselves. Importantly, the very use of those tools to mediate and regulate our actions has developmental repercussions in our cognitive capabilities. From a sociocultural theory perspective on second language learning, these…

This article explores young women's agency in relation to the body and the possible role of women's studies in interpreting body experiences and constructing agency. The article is based on written accounts of one's body experience written by Finnish students of women's studies. The young women's accounts manifested two types of agency: the…

At the current historical juncture in which differences and inequalities are surfacing greater than ever in the world, societies, and schools, the main goal of this essay is to revisit the aspects of structuralism that can potentially contribute productively to understanding the invisible structures and forces that everyone carries (mostly…

This research draws on sociocultural theories of learning and activity theory to explore the challenges faced by an innovative community of teachers in Central Finland. The aim of the teacher community was to develop a stream of foreign-language (FL)-mediated teaching and learning in the locality from kindergarten to upper secondary level. To…

What is the role of the teacher in developing learner autonomy? The limited research in this area is seldom situated in theory and often based on self-reported data. This study is situated in sociocultural theory and draws on two constructs, the zone of proximal development and imitation, to explain the teacher's role in developing autonomy. The…

There is an alternative to conventional teacher mentorship. The authors describe and analyze a promising model of mentorship where multiple mentees and mentors, each with varying levels of experience, engage collaboratively in the study of teaching practice. They have found that well-designed contexts in which beginning and experienced teachers…

We develop a new theoretical framework that explains the engagement in child labor of children in developing countries. This framework distinguishes three levels (household, district and nation) and three groups of explanatory variables: Resources, Structure and Culture. Each of the three groups refers to another strand of the literature;…

This study, aimed to determine the variables that have a role in the emergence of individual demand for postgraduate educational sciences programs, is a descriptive one. The sample of the study consisted of 222 postgraduate students from Ankara University, a developed university, and Gaziosmanpasa University, a developing university. The data was…

Literacy is changing significantly alongside the prolific emergence of new technologies. The emergence of these new technologies has been so rapid that teachers may often not be as competent as their students in the use of new media or in the specific linguistic features of the growing range of text types. In this project, overseas trained…