This paper explores the evolving perceptions of community sentiments, for three teachers and 36 AS-level students on a week-long residential fieldtrip. For this in-depth study I adopted an ethnographic methodology in which I participated in, observed and recounted some of the complex and fluid spatial arrangements and processes, analysing their…

This study examines youth-led decision making (YLDM) among groups of youth who are providers or recipients of community development grants. Focus groups, interviews, and participant observation with 14- to 20-year-olds and supporting adults showed youth have a preference for consensus-based decisions. Youth used due process to reach decisions…

Literacy coaches are in the business of helping to create some kind of change--change in teaching practice, change in school policy, change in curriculum, or change in teachers and children themselves. But the social interactions necessary for change to happen, such as in-classroom consultations conducted by a literacy coach, are often fraught…

This qualitative case study examined the structures and conditions in one Massachusetts school district that supported new teachers. Data was gathered from semi-structured interviews with teachers and administrators, artifact analyses and participant observations of district meetings. While the existing literature on new teacher support focuses on…

Teachers have many methods available to them for instructing students. This article presents a teacher's perspective on conducting a discussion with a group of children who were gifted and talented. I studied one teacher using participant observation and ethnographic interviewing as he taught in a special program. I used the concept of…

Ralph LaRossa's (2012) thoughtful piece suggested that qualitative researchers' self-awareness (and clear articulation) of their conceptual and empirical goals can help their manuscripts in many ways, including during the review process. If authors self-consciously embrace particular orientations, then it will be easier for reviewers to evaluate…

When people recreate outdoors, they value the quality of the experience. This study examines rhetorical practices that sustain or undermine perceived authentic outdoor recreation experiences. I conducted a rhetorical analysis of my fieldnotes gathered through participant observation and interview transcripts of online and in-person interviews. I…

Dominant discourses in Germany portray children with a so-called "migration background" implicitly or explicitly as "the Other" in relation to a normative image of "German children." Family origins, language, and physical appearance act as important criteria in this process of ethnifying children. Embedded within this…

This paper reports the findings of a two-year design study exploring instructional conditions supporting emerging, bilingual/biliterate, four-year-olds' digital composing. With adult support, children used child-friendly, digital cameras and iPads equipped with writing, drawing and bookmaking apps to compose multimodal, multilingual eBooks…

The ways in which the language of reformers intersects with and informs reform implementation is important to our understanding of how education policy impacts practice. To explore this issue, we employed critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the language used by a 21st century skills-focused reform organization to promote its program…

This faculty development case study focuses on a team of 16 General Education faculty at an urban women's college during the initial 6 months of the college's comprehensive implementation of an iPad teaching and learning environment. This article traces the effectiveness of an iPad professional development program through analyses of critical…

Professional Learning Community (PLC) has steadily grown in importance over the last decade. The growing importance of PLCs lies in its potential to act as a lever for school-based curriculum development and innovation so as to provide diverse learning experiences to satisfy broader learning outcomes beyond academic achievements (e.g., the…

This ethnography documents how the message of sustainability was interpreted and communicated through a sustainable agricultural (SAG) program at an American higher education institution. The ethnography documents the evolution of the program as the program tackled obstacles and accomplished its goals during the initial phases of the program's…

This critical case study investigated the experiences of six White preservice teachers as they learned about race and racism during the first semester of an urban-focused teacher preparation program. The author identified two broad themes of "transgressive White racial knowledge" and "negotiated White racial knowledge" to…

Much research shows that students do not transfer learning well from one class to the next. This study was designed to investigate if students were transferring rhetorical strategies from their disciplinary courses to advanced writing courses. The findings suggest that business majors not only transferred rhetorical knowledge from their other…