In educational politics, Caroline Benn (1926-2000) played a leading role in the British comprehensive reform. Wife of one of the most prominent post-war socialists in Britain, the aim is to use Caroline's long campaign alongside teachers, trade unions, parents, progressive academics and activists as a starting point with which to explore a…

The idea of successful development is used as the conceptual platform for a proposal that three basic principles of developmental science be expanded. Specifically, we propose that (a) developmental science needs to be reframed as a guide for what successful development is and how it is manifested at different times of the life course; (b) that…

Youth organizing work benefits young people in myriad ways, equipping them with the skills and dispositions to organize around the systemic inequities and policy decisions that threaten their communities. The findings from this life histories study in the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) reveal that the organization's collectivist leadership model…

Historical memory is constantly being reframed though images and objects presented as capturing the past. In the USA, the nineteenth-century country or one-room school has come to symbolize an authentic American experience and seen as evidence of the lost pure and simpler time. Central to the work of the rural school was the teacher, and in the…

R. Freeman Butts was an American historian and philosopher of education who died in March 2010. This paper will investigate Butts' various roles and writings and ask the question: why is Butts important to the contemporary generation of teacher educators and teachers? This paper will argue that the breadth of Butts' work builds connections and is…

The educational theories and policies promoted by Ernest L. Boyer (1928-1995), who served as chancellor of the SUNY system, U.S. Commissioner (Secretary) of Education, and president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, were significantly influenced by his affiliations with the Brethren in Christ Church and the Society of…

This article presents a principal's story of social justice practice in a Hong Kong primary school. The narration accounts for the notion of social justice through his practice in various ways. Studying in a "rooftop" primary school located in a public housing area in Hong Kong was the principal's salient memory of his first year of…

Peter Medway was an exceptionally able teacher, researcher and thinker, and his work throws light on governments, inspectors and educators. In the early 1960s, Peter met a theory which "established language as a major means of constructing our realities". Later, after teaching English in secondary schools for two decades, he reflected on…

This paper provides a critical exposition and analysis of the work of an acclaimed Italian educator, Lorenzo Milani, and ideas that emerged from his experiences in two Tuscan localities. His work is well known in Italy and many parts of southern Europe. Despite the translations of his works into English and Spanish, in the early 1970s, and their…

Given that the expectation of the British Educational Research Association Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy Special Interest Group Scholar Lecture is to position yourself throughout the paper, I will start with sharing my academic/career biography, acknowledging that our biographies are inextricably linked to our work and life practices. I…

This comparative study examines the learning trajectories of two groups of Mexican novice language teachers, three locally raised and educated ones and three repatriates from the USA. The study makes use of a combination of retrospective life-history research and the analysis of academic documents to look at the interrelationship between teachers'…

The ideal-typical distinction of normal/choice biography has been adopted by many youth researchers over the last 17 years as a means of approaching how vocational adolescents take decisions in a context in which life transitions are reversible and unsafe. In this article, we aim to show that this distinction is overestimated, by focusing on a…

In the social sciences, public access to data is now the norm at a variety of federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation. This openness dramatically expanded the quality of research that social scientists can pursue, and it discourages unscrupulous practices such as inventing or manipulating data. It also means, essentially, that…

Michael Gove's personal tastes and priorities dominate the education landscape as he drives through reforms designed to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn "the best that has been thought and said" as a foundation for upward social mobility. This article examines the coherence and progress of the government's reform…

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Mary Sheldon Barnes emerged as a leading historical methods professor and history textbook author. Although men dominated the field, she wrote several articles and books alone or with her husband Earl Barnes about primary source materials and teaching. She lived during an era in United States history…