What do adolescents find meaningful in their exposure to spiritual education organised by religious or spiritual institutions? A qualitative study of adolescents participating in summer school events organised by the Religious Society of Friends and Sahaj Marg meditation system was carried out and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological…

Currently, in New Zealand, unprecedented numbers of teachers are involved in professional development activities, with, in essence, practice as the major focal point. In recent years, however, an increasing trend for primary teachers to undertake academic study towards a degree qualification has emerged. Although study towards a degree…

One of the recent imperatives in higher education worldwide has been internationalization of the curriculum. The object of this article is to explore student perceptions of internationalization across diverse course offerings within one school of the University of South Australia (UniSA). UniSA is notable in the Australian context as a university…

This article examines the scope for state intervention in the training and learning environment of young people in initial employment. It reports on the findings of a qualitative study of 11 teenagers entering full-time employment in New South Wales, Australia relating to the breadth and depth of the young people's learning in their jobs, and the…

The effects of recent moves toward national testing regimes are being felt at the classroom level, where teachers feel compelled to "teach to the tests." Thus, they are now accountable in two ways: to students (and their understandings) and to the public and to the school boards (for improving overall student test scores). It is important to…

In many teacher preparation programs, student teaching serves as a culminating event that bridges academic coursework and the realities of classroom teaching. Therefore, it represents a significant aspect of preservice teacher education. This study explored student teaching as it was experienced by 13 middle and secondary science preservice…

This paper takes as its central thesis Martha Nussbaum's normative proposition that social arrangements should be evaluated primarily according to the extent of freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value. Using this as a lens the paper explores the housing circumstances of older people in the UK. The paper makes three…

This article analyses the relationships between the perspectives of stakeholders involved in the development of the 1998 New South Wales Stages 4-5 history syllabus. It examined four key issues that emerged in the debates about history education during the review and found that stakeholders' views diverged significantly on three of these issues.…

A teaching programme based on relational pedagogy (Baxter Magolda, 1993a) was implemented to foster the development of epistemological beliefs in twenty-nine pre-service teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. Epistemological beliefs are those personally held beliefs about the nature and structure of knowing.…

This article presents research methodologies and findings from a qualitative practitioner study that examined initial constructs of a new model of counseling supervision, tentatively named the Regenerative model (R. Neswald-McCalip, J. Sather, J. Strati, & J. Dineen, 2003). Findings include the emergence of cultural and spiritual awareness and…

This study investigated young children's reflections about their learning experiences through Student-Created PowerPoint Presentations (SCPP). The study was conducted in a K/1 classroom in a university-affiliated school while the children completed a project titled "Who Measures What in Our Neighborhood?" The participants were 14 children (five…

Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) is an effective and interactive approach to teaching mathematics and science. This approach involves the course instructor and peer leaders working with teams of students in weekly workshops. In this article, the authors state that peer leaders play a key role in the success of the peer learning teaching method. They…

The purpose of this study is to examine how power relations among stakeholders, especially between the human resource development (HRD) practitioners and others, affect evaluation outcomes. Using a qualitative case study design, a managerial leadership development programme in a Korean company is analysed. This study shows that the HRD…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there were commonalities in the approaches of 10 elementary school principals in the state of Florida identified as "success stories" in leading reading improvement in their schools in 2002, shortly after enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act at the national level and the Just…

This article outlines certain problems and challenges facing the qualitative researcher who enters fields that are either extremely difficult to access or potentially hostile towards outsiders. Problems and dilemmas in such contexts are highlighted by reference to fieldwork research among PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party) guerrillas in North…