Health education for socially marginalized populations challenges the efficacy of existing strategies and methods, and the pertinence of the educational and philosophical principles that underpin them. The Brazilian Community Health Agents Initiative (CHAI) hires residents of deprived marginalized communities to undertake health promotion and…

As US classrooms approach a decade of response to No Child Left Behind, many questions and concerns remain around the education of those labeled as "English language learners," in both English as a Second Language and bilingual education classrooms. A national policy context where standardized tests dominate curriculum and instruction…

Despite a growing awareness among teachers of the importance of recognizing and valuing a broader range of students' literate resources and experiences, including those that are culturally and linguistically linked, in many language arts classrooms students' literacy practices continue to be marginalized--remaining peripheral to, if not at odds…

In this paper we present a small-scale study investigating the use of the MicroWorlds Pro multimedia programming environment as an authoring tool for constructing models, simulations and multimedia applications with students of Senior High School. We implemented the cross-thematic educational scenario "Free fall simulation development"…

This ethnographic study examined middle school students engaged in a virtual learning environment used in concert with face-to-face instruction in order to complete a collaborative research project. Thirty-eight students from three eighth grade classes participated in this study where data were collected through observation of student work within…

This study examined a Korean immigrant adult learning program, the Reading Facilitator Training program, at a Korean immigrant church in Los Angeles, CA, in 2008. The purpose of this research was to discover how Korean immigrant adults learn in a way that has meaning and brings about change and how the local church can function as a safe learning…

This dissertation explores identity construction, mainly focusing on the ethnonational identity of "Japanese," in contrast to that of "non-Japanese" from ethnomethodological and social constructionist perspectives. Within these approaches, identity is not given "a priori" but emerges through sociohistorical contexts…

This qualitative research study utilized Noblit and Hare's (1988) meta-ethnographic approach to synthesize findings of five dissertations that focused on distance learning support services for adult learners. Noblit and Hare's (1988) meta-ethnographic approach consists of seven phases. Each meta-ethnographic phase guided the identification process…

This study asked how two white, in-service elementary school teachers within the context of their classrooms navigated the cultural gaps between themselves and students from whom they differed (e.g. racially, ethnically, socio-economically, and/or linguistically). Three sub-questions examined: 1) what life experiences shaped how the teachers…

"Fracturing Opportunity" demonstrates a simple yet profound idea--that educational opportunity is learned. And if it is learned, then it can be taught and taught more equitably. This book brings sociocultural theories of learning and development to bear on the persistent problems of inequality in college access, and presents an innovative…

In this study I sought to understand the complexities of the processes of reciprocity within a theater for social change service-learning project. My sample included three university students, one university faculty member, four high school students, one high school principal, and one high school teacher. As a participant- observer, I conducted an…

Grounded within an understanding of literacy as social practice, this dissertation interrogates the disconnect between the ways youth are positioning themselves in online spaces as text designers and the way they are viewed as literacy learners in many urban public schools. Using a connective ethnographic approach that blends place-based and…

This article examines the emergence of biliteracy in school-aged Portuguese-English bilingual children growing up within diverse family structures in Portugal. The ethnographic research investigated the premise that some children have the opportunity to acquire biliteracy, like their bilingualism, in naturalistic contexts. There are gaps in…

This paper reports on an ethnographic study conducted with two Year 1 classes in two different Norwegian schools. In total, 35 five- and six-year-old children were involved in the study and were observed over a two-month period as they engaged in learning activities that involved drawing. Building on Kress and Van Leeuwen's (1996) theory of a…

This article examines how majority-language teachers coping with additive education view their roles in a bilingual framework, how they perceive issues of culture and language in young bilingual children, and how they understand the term "bilingual education" in an L2 non-additive context. The study has been conducted in the context of…