Pedagogy is an inherently spatial practice. Implicit in much of the rhetoric of physical space designed for teaching and learning is an ontological position that assumes material space as distinct from human practice, often conceptualising space as causally (and simplistically) impacting upon people's behaviours. An alternative, and growing,…

The study critically explored the case of Pangasinan learners' physics learning process using culture and language-influenced curriculum materials in physics (CLI-CMP). Case research using cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) designed the study to provide unique ideas on how socio-cultural theory, a recent field of study of Physics Education…

In discussions of work-based learning in anglophone countries, a relatively new question concerns different learning opportunities for differentially positioned novices in the workplace. Basil Bernstein relates learners' positioning with respect to knowledge and within a community of knowers to variations in a discourse underlying and regulating…

While a science of design (and theory of learning) is certainly useful in design-based research, a participatory design research framework presents an opening for learning scientists to rethink design and learning as processes. Grounded in the autoethnographic investigation of a grassroots organization's design of a local campaign, the author…

The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding and use of the theory of communities of practice. In order to clarify terms, explore applications for education and reflect on various critiques of the theory in the literature, two educational researchers conducted a series of interviews with the theorist Etienne Wenger-Trayner. The…

The most attractive thing in queer theory is the social movement energy that's been in it, the sense of excitement and boundary-breaking, the sense of new perspectives. Given the social anxieties and manipulated fear and right-wing triumphalism around today, people need that excitement and boldness--in education and in society at large. In this…

Contemporary critiques of student learning research call for new theoretical and methodological approaches. This article proposes a social realist approach to this research, using the morphogenetic theory of sociologist Margaret Archer. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated by reference to an empirical study of engineering students at…

Over the last two decades, a sense of awareness has arisen that universities are facing important challenges. This article focuses on the challenge that could be broadly termed as "the digitisation of academic work", yet without assuming that this digitisation would be an explanatory factor clarifying the precise nature of contemporary…

While there has been an increasing number of graduate students who enter teacher education after obtaining a higher research degree (e.g., PhD or EdD), scant attention has been paid to their professional learning as prospective teacher educators in higher education. To fill this gap, this study, informed by the social theory of learning,…

This paper draws on a research study into multiple capitals in independent schooling in Scotland. We examine gender discourses and practices in the specific inter/institutional space created within school and research group relations. A three-level conceptual framing of physical, social and intellectual space is used together with theorizations of…

In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in applying actor-network theory (ANT) to educational research and analysis. This article presents an account of how an ANT analysis of socio-material practices with a focus on objects can bring informal learning and identity formation to view. It is based on a doctoral study of the everyday…

This article presents analysed data from the first year of the Rural Teacher Education Project (RTEP 2007-2009) with a view to illustrating how a generative theory of rurality as education research was developed, and for which ends it might be utilised. The article suggests that data from projects in rural communities, which take the rural as…

The purpose of this study was to investigate faculty development from the perspectives of program administrators in different colleges of a Division I research institution. The participants were administrators of faculty development programs from eight different colleges at the institution. The research questions were (a) How do the administrators…

This article discusses the way in which social identities structure the learning processes of students in two subjects in the Dutch secondary school curriculum--Care and Technology. It analyses interviews with 23 students and their teachers with a view to explaining the disappointing results in these subjects in terms of breaking through gender…

Background: Research on PE indicates that the subject is marked by rather stable gendered patterns of behaviour and perceptions of the subject. This paper marks an attempt to outline a theoretical approach that makes it possible to interpret what is going on in the gym in a way that might challenge the reproduction of gender. Purpose: To…