This paper explores the potential for conducting collaborative and critical research in higher education which problematises the role and practices of the academy in maintaining exclusion. It begins with a brief discussion of UK government discourse on widening participation, and contrasts this with the research literature which indicates the…

In Western countries, discourses concerning "boys failing school" are circulated in media as well as in schools. Research is conducted that offers sweeping sociological, societal or biological explanations, or context-sensitive ethnographic or social psychological and variable explanations on the relation between boys and school life. In…

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through "Mr A's" story. Mr A is head of English at "Grange College"--an all boys' school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and "the masculine" within Mr A's…

Cooperative behavior is important for well-functioning high school classrooms in which students trust their teachers and actively engage in academic tasks. Yet, discipline referrals for disruption and defiance are all too common and can result in lost instructional time and increased teacher stress. As such, more needs to be understood about…

Authority is an important component of adult-youth relations. Little work has been done exploring authority outside of families and classrooms. This article consolidates findings from two studies of urban after-school programs. The article examines youths' experiences of authority in after-school programs, compares those with their reports of…

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the discourse of evidence-based practice presented in official written documents of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Documents were analyzed with respect to how language was used to convey a sense of certainty about the profession's official position on evidence-based practice, what…

This article elaborates the impact that crises of authority provoked by animal magnetism, mesmerism, and hypnosis in the 19th century had for field formation in American education. Four layers of analysis elucidate how curriculum history's repetitive focus on public school policy and classroom practice became possible. First, the article surveys…

In this article I respond to the analyses of "Educating the 'Right' Way" and "The State and the Politics of Knowledge" that were given by Stephen Ball, Russell Fox and Antonio Novoa. I situate the development of the kinds of argument that these books make, in the larger corpus of my work and in the growth of neoliberal, neoconservative,…

The authors have chosen to move together in examining the issue of social justice because they both struggle with the pedagogical implications of what it means to be in this world. As the authors seek to embody the dialectic process of creating new understandings in their lives, and thus in their classrooms, they seek also to create this through…

This paper synthesizes two perspectives on essentialism: cognitive and social. The cognitive essentialist perspective argues that our bias to appeal to the psychological belief that categories have innate essences enables us to make inferences about social categories such as race, caste, and gender. The social essentialist perspective argues that…

In this article, we revive work redesign theory, specifically Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model (JCM), to examine distributed leadership initiatives. Based on our early observations of six schools engaged in distributed leadership reform and a broad review of literature, including empirical tests of work redesign theory, we retrofit…

The student teaching practicum is the capstone event of a new teacher's sequence of formal education and shapes the beginnings of one's foray into to the teaching profession. Vital to that experience is the influence of the cooperating teacher. This study sought a better understanding of that influence, particularly the various aspects of…

For many, it is far from clear where the prerogatives of parents to educate as they deem appropriate end and the interests of their children, immediate or future, begin. In this article I consider the educational interests of children and argue that children have an interest in their own well-being. Following this, I will examine the interests of…

The purposes of this investigation were to explore power and literacies in and surrounding local, Christian fundamentalist faith-based education space and to show how empirical data can be used to assemble literacies in a manner that is outside typical research frames and ways to display research. This qualitative space study addresses the…

"The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader" is an essential collection of readings for students of Applied Linguistics. Divided into five sections: Language Teaching and Learning, Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, Identity and Power and Language Use in Professional Contexts, the "Reader" takes a broad…