This paper reports on empirical research into formative assessment conducted in a blended learning environment within a professional doctorate in education (EdD.) programme in an English university, focusing primarily on peer discussion forum activity. This was conceptualised within sociocultural learning theories, where learning entails processes…

For David E. Kirkland, the New English Education locates English language arts in the realities of youth, where texts emerge from students' lives, and the notions of reading and writing in English classrooms are open to revision. Kirkland reflects on how "postmodern Black experience, especially as seen in hip-hop, gives English teachers one way of…

In a number of personal communications and now in her article in "Educational Researcher", Mary Juzwik repeatedly observes that some elaborations may be needed for fuller understanding of the notion of "identity-as-narrative", introduced in the article this author co-wrote with Anna Prusak "Telling Identities: In Search of an Analytic Tool for…

This article deals with the potential of school-based teacher education for creating a professional community of learners. Learning to participate in the social and cultural practices with regard to education is assumed to be crucial for developing a professional identity as a teacher. From the perspective of socio-cultural theory, we have made a…

Through an analysis of a contemporary rite of passage--the final stage of teacher preparation--I develop a new theory of liminality that both builds on and extends Victor Turner's enduring insights. The analysis focuses on how preservice teachers in an undergraduate education program engage in a process of identity formation within an…

Experts from the White House to the Ivory Tower agree--and real teachers of real children concur--that reading is the most important skill young students must acquire. Whether they learn through whole language or phonics, children must leave the elementary grades competent in the art of decoding written text in their native language. Even…

Looking back at the past 15 years in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), the authors select and discuss several important developments. One is the impact of various sociocultural perspectives such as Vygotskian sociocultural theory, language socialization, learning as changing participation in situated practices, Bakhtin and the…

This book offers a broad view for a varied audience of what the vision expressed in all three National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Standards documents will look like when aligned with practice and outlines ways in which desired changes can be realized. Six sections and 21 chapters in the book are: Section I--History: (1) "Paths to the…

Contemporary themes of youth alienation and isolation are explored as they are exemplified in St. Exupery's "The Little Prince" and Billy Pilgrim of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five". (EH)

Uses a time sequential design to investigate the impact of age and time of measurement on personal time perspective in adulthood. (Author/SDH)

Sociolinguistics is a multidisciplinary field that studies language in temporal and spatial contexts, and observes language functions, identity and design, and considers the process of language learning and social controls on language. (CK)

This paper describes and analyzes population trends in countries in the Caribbean which were British colonies before the move to independence. It begins by examining past trends in each of the major components of population change, mortality, fertility, and international migration. Following this is a summary of the assumptions that have been used…

A social organizational theory is outlined, and how types of data drawn from it may be useful in an evaluation context is indicated. Anthropological ethnography is proposed as a more powerful tool in those evaluations undertaken from a phenomenological perspective. Naturalistic/qualitative evaluation lacks a theoretical perspective on how groups…

This dissertation suggests that persistence in concert with the force of resistance, exists within individual educators and the educational subsystem, and operates to maintain existing sociocultural structures. Anthropological explanations of the change process were examined with an indication that within the wider cultural milieu the educational…