Western teachers working in China often experience cultural conflicts arising from, for instance, the ways that Chinese students perceive face and express criticism. To better understand these face-concerned conflicts, this paper explores the role and significance of email for a group of Chinese students to communicate pedagogical criticism with…

International field experiences in Kenya and Nepal supplied data for two collaborative ethnographic research projects that analyze, using the concept of contextually appropriate practice (CAP), how minority-world early childhood preservice teachers define "quality" practices. The term "minority-world" is used for educators who…

The aim of this article is to explore how male students learn to practice nursing and the role of technology in their training process. The study is inspired by Bruno Latour's understanding of social interaction as an interplay between humans and technology. The students' use of the washcloth and the stethoscope, two significant nursing tools, is…

Albeit fragmented and largely uncoordinated, there is currently considerable debate regarding the nature and rationale of university chaplaincy provisions in England and Wales. Clearly chaplaincies have repositioned themselves from an exclusively Christian ethical and service-based provider to cater for the challenging demands of a multi-faith…

The authors discuss their participant observation study with the 10-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl who collaborated on making digital videos at home. Major themes that emerged from this research include appropriation of popular culture texts, parody, gender play, and managing self-representations. These themes highlight the benefits of video…

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine the role a rural community college plays in the development of its community, using a holistic, community-based lens that considered college and community context, interactions and results to answer the question: "How does the rural community college impact the development of the…

The issue of language, specifically access to English, has emerged as a key concern for both U.S. policy-makers and immigrant communities alike. Many of these debates are framed by neoliberal and human capital perspectives, which view English as a set of skills and linguistic capital that are inextricably tied to employment opportunities and…

There is a continuing emphasis in the United States on improving students' mathematical abilities, and one approach is to better prepare teachers. To investigate the potential usefulness of Lesson Study to better prepare teachers, one author set out to conduct action research on his classroom practice. Specifically, he sought to determine whether…

This paper presents the results of a research, which proposes the introduction of the teaching by Research and Study Paths (RSPs) into Argentinean secondary schools within the frame of the Anthropologic Theory of Didactics (ATD). The paths begin with the study of "Q[subscript 0]: How to operate with any curves knowing only its graphic…

We investigate how different mealtime situations help shape teenager and staff subjectivities in two Swedish residential care homes and a special school for girls and boys, 12-15 years old, with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Three mealtime networks are analysed using concepts from actor-network theory, treating architectural…

This paper focuses on children of refugees and migrant workers from 48 countries who study together in one multicultural school in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel. The context of our study is the current ethos of globalisation and within it the phenomenon of vast migrations and creation of intercultural social realities. The aims of the study were to…

From 2005 through 2008, we undertook a participatory research project involving graziers from 8 farms in Southern Wisconsin, all of whom practice management intensive grazing. We used semi-structured interviews and participant observation during research and field days to investigate graziers' engagement with university research. Grazing farms…

In the current schooling climate, literary competence is increasingly viewed as students' ability to read fiction and nonfiction texts, and then articulate their comprehension of surface-text features (e.g., plot, character, setting, and conflict) through structured settings, such as standardized tests. As a way to argue against the privileging of…

This ethnographic study examines the negotiation of the value of critical thinking by a group of community college students and their instructor in a required general education literature course. Using a sociological analysis, the authors explore how the students situated themselves as both learners and consumers in the classroom, a social field…

This article explores the parenting practices of wealthy Danish families and offers insight into the workings of dominant parenting norms within contemporary Danish society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among 15 families living north of Copenhagen, Denmark, this article identifies the parenting strategies of people with ample…