The article explores how space for professional agency is structured and used by teachers in collaborative professional development. Taking an ecological perspective on teacher agency and using a case study of with multiple data sets, the analysis identifies two patterns of agentic orientations. The conclusions discuss limitations associated with…

The school context, like other influences, affects the development of students' epistemic beliefs (EBs), with theoretical conceptualizations suggesting a distinction between EBs related to professional and school science. However, empirical studies rarely address this distinction, and instruments separately assessing these EBs are not available.…

This article explored conceptions that teachers hold about classroom assessment and how these conceptions influence their classroom assessment practices. The qualitative study employed a case study approach. Semi-structured interviews, observations and document analyses were used. The study utilized Brown's (2004) conceptual framework on…

The aim of this study was to explore how "Narrative Theatre," a narrative-centered digital learning environment, supported the writing processes of 3 struggling adolescent male writers. We utilized a multicase study approach to capture 3 sixth-grade participants' experiences with the digital learning environment before, during, and after…

This paper synthesizes findings from the Research Alliance's investigation of teacher turnover in New York City's public middle schools. These years are widely recognized as a critical turning point for students, and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) is pursuing a range of middle school improvement initiatives. The stability of the middle…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the wind band classroom as a social context and examine its influence on middle-school students' identity constructions. The integration of sociologically based identity theory and social identity theory from social psychology suggested by Deaux and Martin as well as Stets and Burke proved…

The purpose of this case study was to explore a previously theorized construct, Collective Classroom Efficacy, through student voices. We interviewed nine former sixth-graders a decade after their classroom experience as they articulated at a reunion the importance of their former cohesive classroom community. To provide data triangulation we…

In science teaching, metaphors are important tools for understanding meaningful learning and conceptual formation by the help of daily life language. This study aims to evaluate how the concepts of heat, temperature and energy are perceived by students in secondary school science classes and how the perceptions of these concepts vary in terms of…

This project analyses the prevalence and social construction of science in the everyday activities of multicultural, multilingual children in one urban community. Using cross-setting ethnographic fieldwork (i.e. home, museum, school, community), we developed an ecologically grounded interview protocol and analytical scheme for gauging students'…

Purpose/Objectives: A national trend to improve school breakfast participation is the integration of breakfast within the school day. Breakfast in the classroom programs increase student access to school breakfast. Service models include "grab and go," distribution of breakfasts to each classroom, and mobile breakfast carts in hallways.…

Online environments can cultivate what have been referred to as 21st century skills and capabilities, as youth contribute, pursue, share, and interact around work and ideas. Such environments also hold great potential for addressing digital divides related to the development of such skills by connecting youth in areas with fewer resources and…

This case study examines the role of playful talk in negotiating the "how" of collaborative group work in a 6th-grade science classroom. Here we develop and test a Vygotsky-derived hypothesis that postulates playful talk as a mechanism for identity exploration and group status negotiation. Our findings indicate that students utilized the…

This qualitative case study (N = 24) analyzed in what ways school-based interpersonal relationships may have helped to set the foundation for young adolescents' belonging within 1 large, diverse urban sixth through eighth grade middle school. Eighteen students (11-14 years old), 5 teachers, and 1 administrator were individually interviewed in the…

Research and theory suggest several instructional practices that could enhance student self-efficacy. However, little is known about the ways these instructional practices interact with individual students to create opportunities or challenges for developing adaptive self-efficacy. In this study, we focused on two sources of efficacy, mastery…

The present study explores young learners' awareness of foreign language learning and of their learning conditions. The participants were 76 Catalan-Spanish children who were learning English at primary school. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal data were collected by means of two different interviews that contained questions related to pupils'…