The focus of this article is on Finnish pre-school curricula from the early pioneering years to the start of the new millennium (1972-2000). Pre-school has been part of the Finnish education system for nearly 40 years. It has been undergoing a challenging reconstruction process and changes influenced significantly by the increasing call for…

This article presents an ongoing study of educational policy enactment in Singapore lower primary English classrooms. It explores how teachers react to and interpret educational reforms in their classroom practices against a backdrop of traditional cultural values. Using a prescribed coding scheme, the article presents the instructional…

The phenomenal growth and subsequent increasing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovations has led to an increase in their use in higher education over the past decade. Past research has criticised e-learning (compared to traditional face-to-face lecturing) for its failure to engage students in their learning. However, King…

Many educators understand how to gauge learning by paying close attention to student talk. Few know how to interpret and attend to student silence as a form of participation. In her new book, Katherine Schultz examines the complex role student silence can play in teaching and learning. Urging teachers to listen to student silence in new ways, this…

This paper reflects on some changing contexts of the discussion of curriculum and pedagogy since the late 1960s, and it draws on three research projects in which the author has been involved to illustrate why pedagogy and curriculum have again become issues of evident public and political concern and to show some particular points of tension in…

In this rejoinder to Bryan Brown and John Reveles, we highlight the facts that (a) sociocultural theories of learning do not go far enough because they fail to address a number of issues and (b) we require concepts such as power and positionality to understand science learning.

What is the role of the teacher in developing learner autonomy? The limited research in this area is seldom situated in theory and often based on self-reported data. This study is situated in sociocultural theory and draws on two constructs, the zone of proximal development and imitation, to explain the teacher's role in developing autonomy. The…

There is an alternative to conventional teacher mentorship. The authors describe and analyze a promising model of mentorship where multiple mentees and mentors, each with varying levels of experience, engage collaboratively in the study of teaching practice. They have found that well-designed contexts in which beginning and experienced teachers…

We develop a new theoretical framework that explains the engagement in child labor of children in developing countries. This framework distinguishes three levels (household, district and nation) and three groups of explanatory variables: Resources, Structure and Culture. Each of the three groups refers to another strand of the literature;…

This qualitative study examines educational and socio-cultural experiences of seven Kenyan women pursuing higher education in the United States. The study uses in depth interviews to explore the participants' socio-cultural experiences, how they negotiate their multiple identities, and their transformative learning experiences. Three theoretical…

This study investigated Korean children's cultural adjustment during transition to South Australian junior primary school settings. Using case-study methodology to provide a sociocultural perspective, data were collected during interviews with a sample of South Korean international students aged five to eight years, their mothers and teachers. All…

This longitudinal study asks 2 questions. The first one is: What patterns of pragmatic development can we observe among different pragmatic functions and attributes in a second language (L2)? The second question is: In what ways do individual differences and learning context affect the course of pragmatic development? Forty-eight Japanese college…

Teachers bring a complex array of beliefs and attitudes to the teaching of literacy. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to investigate the nature of teacher attitudes towards the learning and teaching of writing in the first year of school and to identify any broad underlying attitudinal dimensions. The secondary aim was to…

According to Vygotsky, we use tools both to shape and make sense of the world and to exercise control over others and over ourselves. Importantly, the very use of those tools to mediate and regulate our actions has developmental repercussions in our cognitive capabilities. From a sociocultural theory perspective on second language learning, these…

This article explores young women's agency in relation to the body and the possible role of women's studies in interpreting body experiences and constructing agency. The article is based on written accounts of one's body experience written by Finnish students of women's studies. The young women's accounts manifested two types of agency: the…