This article provides some insight into the constraints on the potential of recognition of prior learning (RPL) to widen access to educational qualifications. Its focus is on a conceptual framework that emerged from a South African study of RPL practices across four different learning contexts. Working from a social realist perspective, it argues…

A myriad of personal and contextual factors are important in understanding how preservice teachers learn to teach and why they adopt or reject certain teaching practices. Activity theory was used a framework in understand preservice teachers' experiences teaching writing during a field experience at a juvenile detention facility. The purposes of…

This comparative case study, framed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory and sociocultural understandings of literacy, investigated students' online literate activity in two eighth grade English Language Arts classes taught by the same teacher--one with a scripted literacy curriculum and the other without. During a year-long research project, we…

Across the United States, a counter-network of teacher activists is engaged in the development of grassroots organizing structures to advocate for social justice, resist the privatization of public education, and increase union democracy. The United Caucuses of Rank and File Educators (UCORE) is a national network of more than 20 union reform…

This article considers formal and informal learning activities in massive open online courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are often broadly positioned as either cMOOCs (based on connectivistic pedagogies) or xMOOCs (based on cognitivistic/behavioristic pedagogies). In a recent "International Review of Research in Open and Distance" article, Anders…

This longitudinal case study suggests ways to move beyond the reflective process usually associated with post-lesson mentoring conferences by describing the modalities likely to generate real learning/development opportunities. Based on cultural-historical activity theories (CHAT) and using methodologies from sociodiscursive interactionism, this…

This paper presents a social practice theory of learning and becoming across contexts and time. Our perspective is rooted in the Danish tradition of critical psychology (Dreier, 1997; Mørck & Huniche, 2006; Nissen, 2005), and we use social practice theory to interpret the pathway of one adolescent whom we followed as part of a longitudinal…

In this essay, Sharon Subreenduth explores how social justice policies have both global-local and historical dynamics and maintains that, as a result, dominant Western models of social justice limit engagement with alternative modes of understanding social justice in non-Western locations. She uses the South African experience as a case study for…

Background/Context: Contemporary state and national policy rhetoric reflects increased press for "evidence-based" decision making within programs of teacher education, including admonitions that programs develop a "culture of evidence" in making decisions regarding policy and practice. Recent case study reports suggest that…

Increases in diverse clientele have caused counselor education to enhance its focus on multicultural pedagogy, using the Tripartite Model (TM) to impart multicultural learning. While knowledge and awareness are important, it also is important to enhance skill development in counselors-in-training. Counselor educators have a unique opportunity to…

This article considers how one may integrate ethnographic data generation with research questions and an analytic framework that are strongly theoretically informed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Generating data through participant observation of school-based, student teacher education activity and interviewing all those involved…

This article focuses on multilingual primary-aged children and their families in a post-industrial city in England. Such pupils, sometimes identified in education policy as "underachieving," often have rich experiences of learning that are hidden from their mainstream teachers and unrecognised in national assessment regimes. The article…

The following is a reflection on the clinical practice of consultation in the context of human diversity with particular attention to developing theories falling under the headings of "decolonization" and "multicontextuality". Related to descriptions of these theoretical perspectives, I make reference to the small yet promising…

Sociocultural theory is increasingly popular as a paradigm for research in education. A recent member in this family of theories is introduced--cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)--that shows much promise to complement and invigorate the field of educational change, a large, multi-faceted, and persistent problematic. In particular,…

Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities worldwide, the market-leading text owes its success to the unique way in which it combines an academically robust account of the major theories and models of leadership with an accessible style and practical exercises that help students apply what they learn. Each chapter of Peter Northouse's…