This article provides a model for teachers to expand students' thinking about the liberating nature of literacy. Literacy is not just about making kids smarter or preparing them for future careers. Neither is it passive, neutral, or innocent. It is infused with values and ideology. It can be used by people to promote freedom or support tyranny. It…

How do young children portray and describe their relationships with nature? In what ways do young children's relationships with nature vary by grade level? These two research questions guided this phenomenographic study, which investigated developmental differences in children's relationships with nature. A total of 176 children, aged 6-11, from…

Because schools place such high importance on text-based analysis often devoid of opportunities to draw on home knowledge, diverse ways of making meaning from books are often ignored. This qualitative study of a bilingual second-grade classroom examined the manner in which four young Latina students told stories about their life experiences in…

We present data collected from the research project funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain entitled "Audiovisual Narratives and Intercultural Relations in Education." One of the aims of the research was to determine the nature of thought processes occurring during audiovisual narratives. We studied the possibility of…

This paper presents narratives from two parents about the exclusion of their disabled children within early childhood and primary school settings. Interpretations of particular "kinds of participation" that appear to be accepted as inclusive are explored. We argue that these interpretations have disabling effects on the children's…

This paper is part of a research study undertaken with Portuguese teachers. The main objective is to understand the impact of recent educational legislation on the quality of teaching and the professional development of teachers. In this context the following research questions were formulated: "Do the education policies of the government…

This article describes what followed after a mother wondered if the school in her neighborhood was the right elementary school for her gender nonconforming young child. It includes collective and individual narratives from four key players: the mom and teacher educator (Slesaransky-Poe), the school's guidance counselor (Ruzzi), the principal…

I examine pre-service elementary school teachers' process of defining diversity as part of a state-mandated, high-stakes, teacher education portfolio benchmark; metaphors' roles in their defining process; the evaluation mechanism, and the literal and metaphorical bench-mark boundary these pre-service teachers must reach to enter the profession.…

By examining the potential of purposefully implemented critical bicultural pedagogy (CBP) for student empowerment, this article responds to "Culture and Power in the Classroom: Educational Foundations for the Schooling of Bicultural Students" by Antonia Darder (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2012). Using a theoretical framework based upon…

The article reports the findings of a survey, conducted among primary school English language teachers in Slovenia, aimed at revealing their attitudes towards the use of narratives in teaching English as a foreign language to children aged from eight to nine years (3rd and 4th grades respectively). The research results show that most teachers use…

A passion to ensure the educational and life success of all children, particularly young African American men, has propelled my work for all of my professional life. Although following one's passion can make for a fulfilling life, passion is not enough to create a successful and sustainable nonprofit organization. Like many leaders in the…

A three-year-case study funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) from the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education was designed to study a 30-year project of music and drama in primary schools in Madeira. This article reports on the narratives of the three main figures in the project as they elaborate on its…

The paper reports on professional experience opportunities experienced by school leaver pre-service primary teachers. It will emphasise the experience of one pre-service teacher (PST) in particular, Anna. Recommendations highlighted could contribute to university preparation of pre-service primary school teachers particularly during professional…

This article discusses the risks and possibilities of communicating and educating the child's emotional self in a formal classroom environment. Through designing and implementing an expressive arts curricular intervention in a Scottish primary school classroom, my research produces an example of how therapeutic notions focused upon health and…

When one says "writing about teaching artist practice," what exactly does that mean? In the first two sections (EJ1039315 and EJ1039319), the authors considered different ways to frame a story by either zooming in closely to a specific moment or zooming out to provide more context in an effort to address complex issues. The stories in…