The Ozark Mountains occupy a large area within the state boundaries of southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and northeastern Oklahoma as well as the southeastern-most tip of Kansas. Missouri and Arkansas make up the bulk of the Ozarks, while Oklahoma and Kansas straddle their outer rim. From 1800 to 1865 the Ozarks region was in constant flux, as…

This study examines our experiences as female junior scholars with multicultural backgrounds teaching at the same Hispanic-serving institution. As education scholars with mixed-heritage families, we identify with the commitment to serving Latinos and the number of mixed-heritage people in the USA. The election of Barack Obama, whose racial…

Globalization makes living in the world more complex. Many children live as social cyborgs attached to the digital spaces of the virtual play worlds of television, video and computer games rather than connected to their own local places. The impact of this change may well be that children lack acquaintance with their local places and may never…

This article has two purposes. At the theoretical level it is intended to contribute to debates about how learning happens over time. At the methodological level it is intended to suggest how a complex understanding of time can enrich both ethnographic methods and linguistic analysis. It uses the concept of timescapes to interpret ethnographic and…

This article contributes to a body of work that addresses the process of "becoming a teacher" and focuses on the relationship of the higher education (HE) (theoretical) component of the teaching qualification to the (practical) placement experience that student teachers undertake. This study approaches the data through the concept of…

This article investigates the premise that literary texts use language in aesthetic, imaginative and engaging ways that have considerable potential to extend the learning of bilingual pupils. It draws on research findings from a qualitative study that examined the value of developing pedagogic practices for emergent bilingual learners at the…

A substantial body of research has collectively concluded that encouraging students to draw flexibly on multiple aspects of their linguistic repertoires is positively associated with developing bilingualism, metalinguistic awareness, and academic skills. However, most bilingual education programs--including transitional and dual-language--limit,…

This study examined the effects of Sharing the Environment (STE), a situated professional development pilot program that uses an inquiry-based approach to teaching Environmental Education (EE) to elementary students in the US and Trinidad. Inquiry is difficult to incorporate in both cultures because proficient performance on national tests is a…

This is a qualitative study of two English-dominant mathematics teachers, who I refer to as "monolingual" because they speak only English and do not speak competently or extensively the cultural language of their students. This study explores how these teachers plan, implement, and reflect upon lessons with respect to their bilingual,…

This discourse-oriented ethnographic case study, using constant comparison, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and cultural-historical-activity theory (CHAT) within a Foucauldian framework, investigates how the pedagogical practices of 2 teachers of English learners were (trans)formed over the course of 1.5 academic years, and how their…

The dissertation project is a study of how childrens' increasingly skillful use of certain language forms ("stance forms") help them to more effectively perform culturally salient social identities in discourse. Although scholars have long claimed that language use helps to position speakers in terms of socially recognizable identities,…

This is a quasi-ethnographic (qualitative) interview examination of understanding teacher professional development for urban and suburban high school mathematics teachers. Since teacher professional development has been found to be critical in improving student learning such as mathematics achievement, and teacher professional development is…

In an increasingly competitive world economy, America's economic strength depends upon the education and skills of its workers. In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate's degree are projected to grow twice as quickly as those requiring no college experience (White House Summit on CC, 2010). Community colleges appeal to…

There have been ongoing discussions about the most recent curriculum reform in China. The new curriculum aims at a more quality-oriented ("suzhi") education and producing more well-rounded citizens to meet the challenges of global competition. However, it is questioned how "suzhi" education is possible with entrance examination…

Social networking sites have seen tremendous growth and are widely used around the world. Nevertheless, the use of social networking sites in educational contexts is an under explored area. This paper uses a qualitative methodology, autoethnography, to investigate how social networking sites, specifically Facebook[TM], can help first semester…