The last decade has seen, in the policy arena, a broad global push for children to be treated as active participants in society rather than as the passive recipients of adult decisions and interventions. The topic of literacy learning and teaching has, however, been absent from much of the policy and literature on children's social participation.…

Children attending early childhood education and care centres spend a lot of time fitting in with institutional routines. This paper uses ethnographic methods and sociocultural activity theory to describe and analyse the processes whereby young children in an early childhood centre collectively created meaning and interest during potentially…

This self-reflexive personal narrative charts the autoethnographic journey of an adult educator, exploring her own practices, values and beliefs about teaching. Drawing upon postmodern scholarship in reflexive literary methodologies, the author uses personal memoirs as a research text for engaging in a process of interpretation and…

Background/Context: In the United States, the percentage of schoolchildren planning to become high-status professionals is grossly disproportionate to the percentage of such jobs comprising our division of labor. As in a game of musical chairs, it is not structurally possible for everyone to remain a contender. Focus of Study: Various adults who…

The aim of the study was to examine teachers' didactic projects in connection with constructing co-narratives with very young children during mealtimes. As a genre, co-narrative practice has a special quality for didactic work with children from one to three years old. Yet it is not always common in preschools for the teachers to talk to children…

The following critical ethnography interrogates what it means for urban students to learn in multicultural ways, given the oppressive historical and present contexts of their newly desegregated urban district. By retelling events that occurred in the district and the classroom, I present a picture of urban students who are willing to learn and…

This article addresses the ambiguity of the child's "voice" in social research. Drawing on a recent research project on young children's communication difficulties, the author argues that the currently popular discourse on "listening to children" is beset with practical and ethical ambiguities that result from the "socialness" of human…

In this paper we investigate whether the distance between school and the pupil's home is related to social background in a six borough area of East London. Also investigated is the extent to which schools in the area perform in line with expectations on the basis of the social composition of their intake. The research involves analysis of the…

Risks of life on the street caused by inclement weather, harassment, and assault threaten the unsheltered homeless population. We address some challenges of enumerating the street homeless population by testing a novel capture-recapture (CR) estimation approach that models individuals' intermittent daytime visibility. We tested walking and…

Why are many teachers around the world moving toward task-based learning (TBL)? This shift is based on the strong belief that TBL facilitates second language acquisition and makes second language learning and teaching more principled and effective. Based on insights gained from using tasks as research tools, this volume shows how teachers can use…

This article examines the communication barriers and relationships between hearing and non-hearing college students in a classroom setting. Twelve college students, six female and six males, between 18 and 22 years of age took part in this ethnographic study during a sixteen week course in public speaking, conducted at the University of Colorado,…

When organizations employ professionals it is critical to comprehend the nature of professional identity as it relates to learning in the workplace. These findings indicate ways that professional identity influences workplace learning behavior in doctors of veterinary medicine. Using grounded theory, ethnographic investigation and analysis…

This brief considers the policy implications of the college experiences of African American women at a predominantly White, research institution. The findings of this ethnographic study indicate that first-generation Black women grappled with academic and financial barriers to both their initial and continued transitions through college. Their…

The education and care of young children has been rooted in Indian culture as reflected in ancient scriptures and documents, and has continued to be a significant engagement during the pre- and post-independence period and in the contemporary realm of education. Yet, in the present situation, the progress and understanding of early childhood care…

This article details the struggles that principals faced as they sought to enact an equity oriented agenda. Utilizing a qualitative approach combined with principles of autoethnography, seven urban principals described the resistance they faced "at every turn" in their pursuit of equity and social justice. This resistance was produced by such…