Due to the growing number of plurilingual learners in the world today (Hammarberg, 2010), the present multiple case study examines four plurilingual participants' beliefs toward first language (L1) and second language (L2) mediation in the acquisition of French as a third language (L3). During a 16-week classroom-based study in a French university…

Today, after many years of making it through new musical genres and trends, "rancheras" are not only about the appreciation of music, but also about the sociocultural issues present within the individual listening to this music. Whether it be the person who is driving down the street with the radio blaring and the car thumpin', the…

Background: Models of self-regulated learning have been used extensively as a way of understanding how students understand, monitor, and manage their own academic functioning. The regulation of motivation is a facet of self-regulated learning that describes students' efforts to control their own motivation or motivational processing. The…

Imitation requires the imitator to solve the correspondence problem--to translate visual information from modelled action into matching motor output. It has been widely accepted for some 30 years that the correspondence problem is solved by a specialized, innate cognitive mechanism. This is the conclusion of a poverty of the stimulus argument,…

Reconceptualists and poststructuralists increasingly criticize child-centered pedagogy as being overly reliant on outmoded notions of (developmentally appropriate) practices. Reconceptualists believe that developmental theories should be critically examined cross culturally, whereas poststructuralists work from a social perspective to reconstruct…

The PISA survey influences educational policies through an international competitive process which is not wholly rationally-oriented. Firstly, PISA league tables act normatively upon the definition of formal educational aims while the survey tests cannot evaluate the educational systems' relative strengths with regards to such aims. We argue that…

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), first proposed by the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky, is frequently cited as the theoretical basis behind Dynamic Assessment (DA). However, this concept has led to varied interpretations and practices in education. This paper outlines readings of the ZPD that motivate many current approaches to DA and…

In this paper, we review research on parental expectations and their effects on student achievement within and across diverse racial and ethnic groups. Our review suggests that the level of parental expectations varies by racial/ethnic group, and that students' previous academic performance is a less influential determinant of parental…

In this article I identify how developments in consumer culture, waged-work and health policy have informed our current interest in the body, before suggesting that Durkheim's and Mauss's methodological approach towards the external and internal dimensions of "social facts" provides us with a valuable basis on which we can analyse the…

Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the United States, and numerous and varied interested constituencies stress that preventive intervention with Hispanic families is imperative. Filial therapy as an intervention and prevention counseling approach shows promise as an effective way to help these families. This article…

This exploratory investigation of the professional development of Chinese English Language teachers (ELTs) was part of a collaboration between two teacher educators, one from the U.S. and the other from China, during the 2011-2012 academic year. We were involved in the professional development in three schools (elementary, middle and high schools)…

Using Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "habitus," this work analyzes five teachers' beliefs about English language learners' academic challenges. In reference to reproductive and inventive qualities of "habitus," this article argues that teachers' beliefs that are linked to their socio-cultural backgrounds can delimit or enhance…

This two and a half year study examines how non-native English-speaking Burmese refugee students from first to third grades made meaning of scientific informational texts. The study is framed by sociocultural theory and transactional theory. Primary data were drawn from 160 student retellings of scientific informational texts. Secondary data…

The role of power in an English-as-a-second-language classroom has yet to be fully explored by an action research practitioner, especially in a Malaysian higher education setting. This study aims to contribute to this gap by working within an academic literacies perspective to teaching academic writing, which propagates the understanding of…

The present study was carried out in the context of the recent (2012) introduction of Kreol in the primary school curriculum in Mauritius. The time-tabling of Kreol as an optional subject offered at the same time as the other existing ancestral languages, institutionalised Kreol as an ancestral language, despite its status as a national language.…