During the past decade, researchers in special education have begun to investigate the unique and complex challenges encountered by novice special educators. These investigations have documented numerous factors in special education settings that contribute to the stresses of the first year of teaching for them, including: role ambiguity, students…

Three issues emanating from the Bulterman-Bos article (2008) form the core of this commentary. First, the issue of relevancy is addressed from the standpoint of action research and other forms of practitioner inquiry. From this perspective, the divisions between the cultures of university and school are addressed both ways: Each can potentially be…

When students ask for a study advice, many professors would say something like this: "Read carefully. Write down unfamiliar terms and look up their meanings. Make an outline. Reread each chapter." That's not terrible advice. Some scientists would say that professors left out the most important step: "Put the book aside and hide the notes. Then…

Educational researchers and practitioners have paid considerable attention to the use of multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) in recent years in order to support learning across curricula. Among MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular environments, with over 18 million account-registered users as of May 2008. This paper reports a…

Arthur Levine's (2007) recent report on the academic preparation of education doctoral students, Educating Researchers, http://www.edschools.org/EducatingResearchers/educating_researchers.pdf is highly critical of both AERA and the scholarly training of education doctoral students. One criticism Levine (2007) offers is his view that educational…

A stage model of Black adolescent racial identity from the perspective of its use by educational researchers in the United States who employ it to explain the academic and social decisions that Black youth make in secondary schools was examined. Researchers often draw on stage models to explicitly challenge forms of White dominance in studies…

This article is a tribute to Graham Nuthall's contribution to classroom research from his early experimental studies through to his recent work on theory integration. It also explains the potential of the methodology, findings and theory building in our collaborative work to make a substantial positive difference for diverse students. The article…

This article draws on the author's experience as Director of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), the UK's largest coordinated educational research initiative, to review some recent developments in the field and, in particular, some major contemporary challenges. In response to critiques of educational research of the late 1990s,…

In contrast to Jean-Francois Lyotard's classic warning, postmodern society in the United States seems increasingly influenced by metanarratives--religious metanarratives. This article examines the implications of this religious resurgence for educational researchers. It offers a competing analysis of the postmodern that draws on Harold Bloom,…

This study revisits a classic yet still intriguing question regarding information technology (IT): what difference does IT "really" make, in terms of people's thinking? In order to explore this question, the effects of IT in authentic research settings were studied through retrospective interviews with 24 academic researchers. Analysis of the…

For more than 50 years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been instrumental in developing an analytical model for understanding the relationships between educational policy (the intended curriculum), classroom and instructional practices (the implemented curriculum), and educational learning…

Since the introduction of the Coleman Report (1966), the focus on closing the achievement gap has been a critical component of educational policy for political leaders and field research by educators. The economic crisis which California and the nation at large currently face creates a challenging situation in attempting to narrow the gap.…

Since the publication of the Dearing report (1997) there has been an increasing emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning provision within higher education institutions (HEIs). This focus on provision has in turn generated much educational research into "approaches" to both teaching practice and student learning within higher education…

The passing of Emeritus Professor Kevin Majoribanks on the 29 April 2006 occurred at a time of continuing high level scholarly productivity. The present paper celebrates some of the accomplishments from his long career. It takes a developmental orientation, beginning with the early stages of his career in education and his choice of inequalities…

While British educational researchers have given considerable attention to issues of racism, little attention has been given to how pupils themselves perceive differential teacher treatment and how such views relate to pupils' claims of teacher racism and racial discrimination. This article employs ethnographic data gathered from one English and…