Research on school improvement tends to assume that school improvement is a school-wide process. Nonetheless, some researchers have also proposed that secondary schools are comprised of subcultures centered on subject area departments. It has further been suggested that variations in the sociocultural organization of subject departments could…

Against a backdrop of globalised higher education (HE)--one in which a number of British universities are setting up campuses overseas--China represents a vast and lucrative market. This paper presents data on the perceptions and experiences of 20 Chinese students who are currently studying at a British university's campus located in China.…

The paper deals with the problem of historiography, presented in three stages: the first stage (50-90s of the XX century) is characterized by the introduction of a scientific apparatus expertise creating the preconditions of differences between concepts, the release of an independent direction of history of social and cultural activities. In the…

The advancement of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has challenged the traditional notion of literacy as print-based reading and writing. In this article, I discuss why integration of ICTs into language and literacy curricula is important from the perspectives of the pedagogy of multiliteracies and sociocultural theories of…

This article has two purposes: (a) To argue that didactically designed teaching and learning materials as content in teacher education can meet two well-known challenges of teacher education: linking theory and practice and linking individual subject areas; and (b) To present the results of an empirical study carried out in connection with the…

The purpose of this study was to explore whether preschool teachers' self-reported beliefs could predict their self-reported practices about developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). A related purpose was to examine whether classroom size and teachers' experience are significant predictors of their self-reported beliefs and practices. A total…

This comparative study examines the way in which preschool teachers support children's science learning in a Chinese and a Norwegian kindergarten. The study takes an ethnographic approach. Preschool teachers from one kindergarten in Shanghai and one in Bergen were asked to videotape educational activities that focused on science in their…

This article presents an ethnographic description of parents' and other community members' participation in the everyday life of two rural schools in indigenous Mexican communities. Adults and children, together with school authorities, transform their schools by introducing a collective orientation that contrasts with the emphasis on individual…

The rapid advance in technological tools and their expansiveness, has made their impact on different aspects of life undeniable. Education has also been a field in which technology has found a fertile ground to grow. Technology has made education much easier for both teachers and learners and provided a more autonomous and amusing ambiance for…

Health is essential for social and economic development of any country. Nearly 10 million children in developing countries die each year before reaching the age of five from ailments, mostly pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria. The socio-cultural belief about the causation of disease and its curability has direct correlation with the treatment…

Because few teacher education programs are truly rooted in the philosophical aims of multicultural and social justice education (Asher, 2007; Banks, 2008; Hayes & Juarez, 2012; Miller, 2014), many pre-service teachers (PSTs) remain unpracticed--and unable--to teach in culturally responsive ways (Sleeter, 2012). But what structures and forces…

Using a qualitative research methodology, we interviewed 20 Southeast Asian undergraduate students from Malaysia and Indonesia attending universities in northern Jordan to identify any adjustment problems they may have been facing. These international students experienced pressure to succeed from their sponsoring agencies and families, a very…

Within the frameworks of Sociocultural theory, particularly Vygotskian sociocultural theory and ZPD, Lave and Wenger's CoP, and contemporary sociocultural theory, this paper seeks to examine the unfavourable scholarly portrayal of learners and their identities based on learners' behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs about the social element of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the dialectical interplay between centralisation and decentralisation forces so as to understand how schools leverage on its autonomous pedagogical space, influence the diffusion of innovations in the educational landscape of Singapore and how a centralised-decentralised system supports (or…

This study investigated, by means of an ethnographic approach, what exactly occurs when Japanese novice writers are socialized into the undergraduate thesis genre and how the processes differ among disciplines. Data were collected from 10 undergraduate students enrolled in various humanities disciplines at two Japanese universities. The study…