More than 10 years ago, the author wrote her first version of "The Power of One" for the "Journal of Staff Development." She described her personal journey of discovering how one person could make a huge difference in the face of what appeared as insurmountable challenges. She described ways in which she had made such a difference and told,…

This paper explores the process of learning to become a social justice teacher, drawing in particular on Bakhtin's notions of dialogue in order to theorize pre-service teachers' identity negotiations. Interpretations of learning and identity are based on the content of pre-service teachers' narratives about community-based learning. Supported by…

Practice is not created and developed by individual teachers but is subject to what Kemmis and Grootenboer called "extra-individual conditions" and cultural histories. The "expectations" around teaching do much to create stereotypes and conformity around how to teach and how to act in schools. This paper explores a teacher's…

The ongoing research concerning African American males enrolled in teacher education programs is essential for a number of reasons. Research specifically addressing preservice teaching, teacher education, and the African American male student is needed to promote the well-being of any school of education. According to McCray, Sindelar, Kilgore,…

In recent decades, the Republic of Turkey has undertaken a program of reform aimed at modernizing its higher education system. This endeavor has included a comprehensive restructuring of the nation's public universities. In order to meet the urgent need for highly qualified faculty members to staff its state-run higher education institutions, the…

The present article draws from the biographical narratives of three South African high school female principals which are part of a larger research study in which 26 aspiring and practicing women school leaders were interviewed. Narratives were constructed from in-depth interviews with each participant and analyzed for themes that provided…

Teacher education programs (TEPs) are consistently challenged to respond to individual and collective growth. In addition, current demographic changes have forced these programs to address issues of quality and equity in measurable ways. As an African immigrant to the United States, I have been fortunate to be involved in these programs,…

In this report of a phenomenological study, the co-director of a U.S. early childhood program describes and reflects on the interrelationship of his collaborative work with teachers, staff members' documentation of children's work and school events, and his own professional development activities. The author presents and discusses three events…

Cross-disciplinary collaboration is being promoted in academic and professional circles as an important strategy for developing new avenues of scholarly inquiry and for generating knowledge that is immediately applicable to the resolution of real-world problems. This move toward cross-disciplinary work has translated into calls for enhanced…

This paper focuses on a little known Bernstein concept of "gender codes" developed in the study of schooling, suggesting that schools transmit hidden gender messages though a range of semiotic devices. Initially, the paper shows how Bernstein's 1970s' research provided a novel way of looking at some critical issues current in educational…

This study focuses upon the narratives of women educators ("educadoras") who contributed to radical democratic school reforms in post-authoritarian Brazil. We illustrate through three of the teachers' narratives how their professional identities and actions were shaped partly by their experiences of resisting the military regime and by…

This article explores the implications for teacher education and continuous professional development (CPD) of enquiry-based learning, by drawing specifically on data collected during a four-year curriculum development and research project, Enquiring Minds (2005-9). Within the partnership approach to curriculum design endorsed by the project,…

Arising from a longitudinal study examining the influence of school reform on teachers' knowledge communities and communities of knowing, this narrative inquiry traces the development of a workshop approach to reading and writing, principally through the introduction of a staff developer, to the school's professional knowledge landscape and to the…

Initiated in September 1994, "New Basic Education" first underwent a five-year Exploratory Research phase from September 1994 to May 1999, which was followed by a second five-year Developmental Research phase from September 1999 to May 2004. Thus during the past ten years, "New Basic Education" has undergone a complete research…

This article explores the process of meaning-making from within the "narrative" mode and in particular considers the difficulty or even impossibility, in certain kinds of organisational and social situations, of constructing viable narratives. This experience is sometimes referred to as "losing the plot", hence the subtitle of…