The history of the quinine synthesis can be used as a case study to emphasize that science is influenced by social and historical processes. The first efforts toward the synthesis of this substance, which until recently was the only treatment for malaria, were by Perkin in 1856 when, trying to obtain quinine, he synthesized mauveine. Since then,…

This paper reports and analyses findings from a qualitative study that explored the impact of organizational policy, cultures and support structures on the research pathways of early career researchers within one Australian university. The author captured the perspectives and experiences of six early and six senior researchers and examined the…

The conventional approach to youth transitions has focused on particular transitional points taking place after the completion of compulsory education. This paper focuses on the ways in which institutional regulations, individual agency, and emotions are related in bringing about such significant transitions that take place outside the traditional…

This dialogue, extracted from a conversation among some members of the Equity Special Issue Editorial Panel, concerns racism in mathematics education. It raises issues about the use of various terms; about fields of research outside of mathematics education; and about the kinds of racialization processes that occur for students, teachers, and…

Excellence in Research for Australia has a number of limitations: inputs are counted as outputs, time is wasted, disciplinary research is favoured and public engagement is discouraged. Most importantly, by focusing on measurement and emphasising competition, ERA may actually undermine the cooperation and intrinsic motivation that underpin research…

The South African higher education fraternity has experienced an outflow of senior research capacity during the past decade, resulting in a large influx of younger and less-published academics. More emphasis is therefore placed on the role of the central institution in ensuring research output. The Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at a…

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the uses of research in policy and practice, findings from recent empirical work, and early lessons from the field. The framework describes the ways policymakers and practitioners define, acquire, interpret, and ultimately use research. Relationships are vital conduits for acquiring…

This quantitative study investigated the interrelationships among faculty researchers, publishers, librarians, and academic administrators when dealing with the open access of scholarly research. This study sought to identify the nature of any relationship between the perceived attitudes and actions of academic administrators and an…

This content analysis of articles in the Social Science Citation Index journals from 1995 to 2009 was conducted to provide science educators with empirical evidence regarding the effects of scaffolding on science learning. It clarifies the definition, design, and implementation of scaffolding in science classrooms and research studies. The results…

In this article we study how members of an interdisciplinary research team use an online forum for communicating about their research project. We use the concepts of "community of practice" and "connectivity" to consider the online interaction within a wider question of how people from different academic traditions…

Increasingly, cognitive developmental researchers are forming partnerships with museums as a way to achieve both overlapping and distinctive goals. Such partnerships can further our understanding of cognitive development by providing opportunities to study children's learning within social contexts. At the same time, these collaborations can…

This paper makes a case for academic research and writing that looks beyond the learning potential of technology and, instead, seeks to develop social scientific accounts of the often compromised and constrained realities of education technology use "on the ground". The paper discusses how this "critical" approach differs from the ways that…

This article is primarily designed to provide a cultural analysis of the literature on achievement goals. First, an overview of the four dominant approaches to the study of culture--namely, cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology, indigenous psychology, and psychological anthropology--is offered. Second, we analyze the extant body of…

In his article, Critchfield ("Translational Contributions of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior," "The Behavior Analyst," v34, p3-17, 2011) summarizes a previous call (Mace & Critchfield, 2010) for basic scientists to reexamine the inspiration for their research and turn increasingly to translational approaches. Interestingly, rather than…

Higher education institutions are competing harder than ever for recognition as top colleges and universities. Nowhere does that competition play out more keenly than in the field of research, where successful researchers and programs can garner enormous prestige for an institution. For administrators interested in burnishing the reputations of…