Drawing on a year of participant observation in an untracked, diversifying middle school, I examine how sixth graders positioned themselves and were positioned by others as "smart" or "not smart." I focus on peer interactions during cooperative small group instruction, identifying the material, relational, and ideational…

I theorize teaching and researching as practices of "blurred translating" that center antioppressive education (Kumashiro, 2002) and storytelling (e.g., Frank, 2010; Zipes, 1995, 2004). Based in listening, research and teaching as blurred translating are relational, contextual, and ongoing processes oriented toward transformation and…

To address teacher isolation in schools, more reform leaders are finding hope in establishing professional communities as a way to promote continuous school improvement. This case study presents one approach for developing teacher professional community: a teacher work circle. Using the characteristics of professional community created by Kruse,…

Educational research on videogames has demonstrated benefits of using videogames as instructional tools in classrooms because learning becomes meaningful and interesting for students because it incorporates student's needs. The aim of this study was to explore the benefits and meanings of implementing videogames in a Puerto Rican public school…

This article explores how ethnography allows for an understanding of the way children are empowered through the use of popular culture during sociodramatic play. The study discussed was conducted in an inner-city Primary school in regional New South Wales, Australia. The participants were a composite fifth-to-sixth grade class, and the research…

Identity studies relating to writing in educational setting have tended to focus on the analysis of non-fiction texts. Aligning a Bakhtinian view of language with the concept of identity as participation in "figured worlds" [Holland et al. 1998, "Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds". London: Harvard University Press], this…

This study was carried out with 2 students with mild mental deficiency, one in 5th grade and the other in 6th grade of Turgut Özal Secondary School in Bulanik County of Mus Province. It was done during the spring semester of the 2014-2015 school year in order to observe the effect of multimedia-assisted instruction on listening skills of…

In the current schooling climate, literary competence is increasingly viewed as students' ability to read fiction and nonfiction texts, and then articulate their comprehension of surface-text features (e.g., plot, character, setting, and conflict) through structured settings, such as standardized tests. As a way to argue against the privileging of…

For this study, 119 middle level teacher candidates identified, observed, and documented their interactions with middle school "ghost children" as part of their field placement activities. About two thirds of the 124 ghost children identified for this study were male. The teacher candidates documented additional characteristics of ghost…

This article draws on scholarship in educational and linguistic anthropology to explore awareness of Spanish-English code-switching among bilingual Chicana/o and Latina/o students in a sixth-grade English Language Arts classroom. Analysis of qualitative data gathered via participant observation, video/audio recording, and semistructured interviews…

The present study explores the outcomes of teaching empathy and critical thinking to solve environmental problems. This investigation was done throughout the duration of an environmental education course within a primary school located in central Chile. A community-based research methodology was used to understand the formation of empathy and…

The information and communication technologies of Web 2.0 are arriving in our schools, allowing the design and implementation of new learning environments with great educational potential. This article proposes a pedagogical model based on a new geometry technology-integrated learning environment, called "Geometry 2.0," which was tested…

In this study, through the observation of mathematically promising students in regular classrooms, relevant learning environments and the learning needs of promising students, teacher approaches and teaching methods, and the differences between the promising students and their normal ability peers in the same classroom were investigated.…

This article argues that multiculturalism, especially when it is led and controlled by Whites, and in the absence of collective anti-racist struggles, can reproduce the ontologies, epistemologies, and practices of white supremacy. I use a case study of a reenactment of Atlantic black slavery, produced by white teachers to investigate whether…

The article focuses on pedagogical practices of recognition and esteem (Wertschatzung) and on the question of how those practices can be appropriately studied and epistemologically grasped. The investigation involves an inner-city elementary school in a socio-economically problematic district. With regard to the communication forms in this…