Findings are presented from a small-scale longitudinal study of first-year psychology students' learning. Three developmental hierarchies were derived in the analysis of the interview data, which described different aspects of the variation in students' accounts of their conceptions of essay writing. Although the findings did suggest that the…

The growth in science understanding and reasoning of 12 children is being traced through their primary school years. The paper reports findings concerning children's growing understandings of evaporation, and their changing responses to exploration activities, that show the complexity and coherence of learning pathways. Children's responses to…

This article focuses on these key themes: (1) the value of education as learning to be fully human, (2) the value of education as learning to be fully human with others and for others - inviting us to consider the concept of "social capital" as a way of tapping into and releasing this value; and accordingly, (3) a number of practical…

In this investigation, we examined children's knowledge of cosmology in relation to the shape of the earth and the day-night cycle. Using explicit questioning involving a choice of alternative answers and 3D models, we carried out a comparison of children aged 4-9 years living in Australia and England. Though Australia and England have a close…

Objective: To investigate the effect of a nutrition education intervention and four hours of related teaching on the nutrition concepts of a sample of 9 year-old children. Design: Prepost test design. Children's food classification concepts were assessed before and after the intervention and nutrition teaching. Setting: Year 4 class of a suburban…

The literature on teacher leadership suggests that the notion has developed over time and some have argued that this development comprises three stages or "waves" that progressively delink the idea from the formal organizational hierarchy. The third wave emphasizes that teacher leadership is a process rather than a positional concept and notes…

Evidence from several media illustrates the ways children attempt to fit their observations into their own, known constructs. The contrast is drawn between adult concepts and children's misconceptions and the argument made that children would have more control over their learning with a "bottom-up" approach to teaching rather than the…

This paper considers the contribution to understanding educational inequalities offered by post-structural theories of power and the subject. The paper locates this consideration in the context of the ongoing endeavour in education studies to make sense of, and identify ways of interrupting, abiding educational exclusions and inequalities. The…

The curriculum field in the USA has existed in a chronic state of disarray, even crisis, for many years. This study considers whether the field's "reconceptualization" has alleviated the signs of crisis articulated some 30 years ago by Joseph Schwab. It concludes by suggesting that four issues should be examined in order to establish a vital sense…

In their paper, Martinez, Solanto, and Jiminez compared a number of methodologies used to describe students' understandings of scientific conceptions. One of the issues raised by the authors was the lack of a theoretical platform based in the area of cognition upon which the data were analysed. This paper investigates students' understandings of…

The study reported in this article is derived from a critical analysis of the work of 28 pre-service teachers enrolled in the course "Teaching elementary language arts" in a Bachelor of Education concurrent program in a southern State university. The pre-service teachers were taught how to use an innovative knowledge-building framework based on…

We investigated the nature of graphic formulas in 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children when they were asked to draw a house and a television in a free condition, and then to draw from photographs of these objects. Assuming that the frequency of occurrence of a feature in children's drawings reflects its semantic weight, we studied the relations between…

This paper proposes a new way to integrate history of science in science education to promote conceptual change by introducing the notion of historical microworld, which is a computer-based interactive learning environment respecting historic conceptions. In this definition, "interactive" means that the user can act upon the virtual environment by…

The author will attempt to demonstrate that the concept of culture is no longer appropriate for describing present-day cultural diversity. Indeed, cultures can no longer be understood as independent entities, but need to be contextualized in terms of social, political and communication-based realities. When contemplating cultural pluralism, it is…

The notion of competence has received sustained and ongoing critical attention. Despite this, many important matters remain unclear. This article argues that much of the confusion can be traced to both proponents and opponents of competence variously sharing highly questionable assumptions about learning that revolve around viewing it as a…