The author accuses Wineburg of using intellectual shortcuts and selective presentations to support the argument against the self-fulfilling prophesy phenomenon. The prophesy does exist and is applicable to schools because it is interrelationships which hold together social systems such as schools. Teachers' beliefs have definite consequences for…

Theories of learning in social settings, no matter their philosophical orientation, must address issues of intersubjectivity (IS). This paper starts with the premise that IS is a fundamental and unavoidable aspect of social interaction, and that understanding its nature is necessary for developing reliable theories of socially mediated learning…

Psychologists and educators have often conceptualized motivation as an individual difference variable, something that some students simply have more of than other students. This view of motivation can underestimate contextual influences. In this article we consider how characteristics of the school and classroom may influence student motivation,…

Be it metaphysics, theology, or some other unifying framework, humans have long sought to determine "first principles" underlying knowledge. Larry Arnhart continues in this vein, positing a Darwinian web of genetic, cultural, and cognitive evolution to explain our social behavior in terms of human nature as governed by biology. He leaves it to us…

College students' bewildered reaction to September 11 demonstrates what's missing from their education: empathy and an ethic of care. Eleven genres of relational theories are examined; these theories of the "space between us" offer complex conceptualizations of democracy, globalization, connection, and difference. Deliberative…

School attachment is a robust predictor of adjustment in children and youth. Previous research has demonstrated effects of school context on student attachment, but individual-level contributions have not been explored. Our study examined the role of affiliative orientation in school attachment and aggressive behavior in children and youth from…

Purpose: The paper aims to follow social exchange theory and group social capital theory, to predict positive relationships between (informal) mentoring and various support resources for two types of performance (i.e. perceptions of individual and team performance). Design/methodology/approach: The associations of individual-level mentoring and…

This book explores the construction of subjectivity and advances a theoretical account of the processes through which subjectivities are constituted in the context of a two-fold study of black subjectivity. The first three chapters are devoted to the deconstruction of the black subject construed by scientific psychology, and the remainder is…

The author presents culture as a psychological construct. Since both intracultural and intercultural views mirror each other, all interpersonal encounters are cross-cultural in nature, requiring counselors to confront barriers in interpersonal understanding. Overcoming these barriers demands both an awareness of cultural processes and the…

In this article, the role of young children's emotional practices in science learning is described and analyzed. From the standpoint of performativity theory and social-constructionist theory of emotion, it is argued that emotion is performative and the expression of emotion in the classroom has its basis in social relationships. Arising from…

Social interdependence theory is a classic example of the interaction among theory, research, and practice. The premise of the theory is that the way in which goals are structured determines how individuals interact, which in turn creates outcomes. Over 750 research studies have been conducted in the past 11 decades on the relative merits of…

L. S. Vygotsky's and M. Bakhtin's theories of social interaction are so general that they are not always useful guides for classroom practice. A study of secondary school classrooms in Great Britain and the United States reveals that when teachers apply similar theories to everyday practice, important pedagogical constraints remain--both in terms…

Communal character, the ratio of credibility between a person's capacity in society for influencing others and the susceptibility to domination, is developed through continuous social discourse, and reflects an individual's or group's rhetorical status (the range of influence available through symbols within particular social standings and…

There is not much evidence that supports the notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy as applied to teachers' expectations of students. The "Pygmalion" study is often cited by courts and in the media; but it is highly criticized in scholarly circles, and its findings could not be replicated. (VM)

Utilizing an integration of social-cognitivist and socio-cultural approaches, this study--comparing the interactive processes among peers and their mentor in two contrasting groups--was designed to explore the reasons why two learning groups, engaged in an inquiry-based learning project with comparatively sustained discussion, produced vastly…