This is a methodological critique of research by the Best Practice in Grouping Students (BPGS) project claiming teacher bias in allocating students to first-year secondary school mathematics teaching sets ("British Educational Research Journal," 45(4), 873-897 [EJ1223692]). The research assumes that bias could be shown by non-random…

Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor and Director of the Migration Studies Project, Departments of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Having a BA with a major in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, Professor…

Reverend Father Professor Amechi Nicholas Akwanya is one of the towering scholars of literature in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world. For decades, and still counting, Fr. Prof. Akwanya has worked arduously, professing literature by way of teaching, researching, and writing in the Department of English and Literary Studies of the University of…

Research shows that various pharmaceuticals can offer modest cognition enhancing effects for healthy individuals. These finding have caused some academics to support liberal use of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) in schools and universities. This approach partially arises from arguments implying there is little moral justification for…

In this response to Lingley's (2016) article "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," the author invites the framework of (a)spiritually responsive curriculum to include a more direct engagement with a culturally relevant curriculum as well. The author agrees with Lingley's postulation that (a)spirituality is deeply…

This article explores how multicultural discourses impact the reception of Aboriginal teachers, and the Aboriginal knowledge, history, and experience they bring into Canadian public schools. The author argues that what happens to Aboriginal teachers in Canadian public schools as they attempt to include Aboriginal content and perspectives is a…

This commentary to the special issue on teacher motivation began by considering certain educational truisms that were reinforced by the findings of the contributed articles. For instance, contributing authors strengthened commonly held perceptions that teaching is a challenging profession and that those challenges are both internal and external in…

In the literature dealing with L2 teacher training and education numerous references are made to the concept of reflective teaching and teachers and teacher educators are encouraged to engage in reflective practices. The present paper, however, argues that in our attempt to empower teachers to become more efficient practitioners, we have lost…

This book reflects upon the ways in which contingencies of identity and location shape the writing of academic argument and the living of an academic life. Experimenting with a mode of writing called "narrative criticism," the book interweaves the personal and the theoretical, anecdote and text. It is organized around a number of…

There has been, and remains, much criticism of the external monitoring of the quality of universities' learning and teaching by bodies such as the QAA largely on the grounds that it is essentially a bureaucratic collection of data that does little, if anything, to help in improving or enhancing the learning and teaching. In this article, while…

Teachers read student papers with both eager and anxious expectancy about discourse they have caused but not written. Whatever the teachers may have said about what they will look for as they read, they still measure each paper against their ideas about appropriate performances in each of the categories of textual analysis. They are not reacting…

What can be learned from two films with "rock" and "school" in their titles, about rock in school and about music and schooling more broadly? "School of Rock" (2003), a "family comedy," and "Rock School" (2005), a documentary, provoke a range of questions, ideological and otherwise, surrounding the inclusion of rock in formal instructional…

Examines three assumptions underlying the "interpretative fallacy"--that a work of literature may be subjected to any number of interpretations. Illustrates the dangers of having English teachers embrace the interpretative fallacy. (RL)

Considers the burgeoning field of poetry and verse for children now compared to the beginning of the twentieth century. Explores if there is genuine poetry in today's abundance of children's verse. Considers what critics and poets consider to be genuine poetry and where the children themselves stand on the subject of poetry. (SG)

Examines the recent phenomenon of educators attacking their own on the issue of professionalizing teachers and improving teacher education. Explores the issue of the professionalization of teaching and discusses the role of teachers in educational reform. Concludes that teacher "bashing" may hamper attracting potential teacher education…