Legislation in the United States has increasingly led to limitations on what and how educators are able to teach in the classroom. These measures, often deemed divisive concept laws, can lead to a host of challenges for music educators, impacting student/teacher relationships, repertoire selection, pedagogical practices, and student and teacher…

For decades, student ratings of university faculty have been used by administrators in high stakes faculty employment decisions such as tenure, promotion, contract renewal and reappointment, and merit pay. However, virtually no attention has been paid to the ethical questions of using ratings in employment decisions. Instead, the ratings…

We explored the experience of biology faculty who completed the Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching (FIRST IV) program as postdoctoral fellows up to 13 years previously to better understand teaching professional development benefits for future faculty, and what departments can do to advance learner-centered teaching. We describe…

Multilingual learners in the United States are often segregated for parts of the school day in ways that limit their learning opportunities. Given a resurgence in monolingual and anti-immigrant language policy, the role of educators in promoting multilingual learner integration is increasingly important. We draw from four qualitative studies…

Teacher retention is a growing concern for schools in the United States (Berry & Shields, 2017; Saylor & Kerkhoff, 2014; Wronowski, 2017). One reason teacher retention is suffering could be due to the loss of autonomy. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education reported that teachers "enjoyed a high degree of professional…

Despite recognizing the importance of critical incidents (CIs) in teachers' professionalism, there is a need for more research on novice teachers' CIs, especially emotional CIs. This study describes the emotional CIs of a novice language teacher during her first year of teaching by relying on Schutz et al.'s (in: Schutz, Hong, Francis (eds)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the dynamics and considerations of professionals regarding the sharing of tacit, personal knowledge in their practice. Design/methodology/approach: Adopting a social-constructivist ontology, the qualitative design deploys semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Data were coded, and…

Although the nature of the academic profession and related career advancement has been well documented, little empirical evidence has been provided on the professional agency that academics employ to advance from one academic rank to another. Adopting an agency focus, this study therefore investigates what strategies academics adopt when seeking…

The problem of the socio-cultural integration of minorities is a pressing issue for nation states. The position of the post-Soviet Baltic countries is quite peculiar because of the collective memory associated with annexation and the many traumatic events it caused. Education systems are particularly liable for integration programmes. The case of…

Professional learning (PL) encompasses the complexity of teacher learning and teacher agency in the process of learning. This paper aims to shed light on this complexity and proffers a conceptual meta-model of PL grounded in pragmatism to inform action in the design and evaluation of PL. It will firstly explore the aim and implications of the…

This paper aimed to elucidate teachers' perceptions of using autonomy support in Singapore's classrooms. Science and mathematics teachers (N = 10) were gathered for semi-structured interviews after a 10-week autonomy support intervention. Interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis with emerging themes pre-conceived from the…

Education policies are generally designed by specialist ministries that define key strategic lines, long-term objectives and national standards, often in collaboration with international TFPs (technical and financial partners). These policies are then passed on to the decentralised levels, such as regional or departmental educational directorates,…

Job crafting is the process of individuals redefining and adjusting their job in personally meaningful ways to improve their work experience. In this multiple case study, we explore how a group of kindergarten teachers conducted job crafting and examine its potential outcomes. Based on criterion sampling and purposeful selection, we recruit 28…

This study explored the development of teacher leadership in collaborative online spaces, also called virtual communities of practice (vCoP). Employing a phenomenological research design with semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection method, participants were drawn from a single vCoP. The findings underscored the pivotal role of…

The success with which minority teachers cope with socio-cultural integration indicates their transformative agency. However, teachers' ideational projects, which are converted into a set of established practices, are tightly connected with their ideologies. In this case what they transform is not a matter of integration for them but is…