This study shares the story of a mentor teacher and student teacher during a yearlong student teaching experience. It looks at how working with an educative mentor (prepared and supported to enact this role) can make a difference in the instructional practices and beliefs of a novice teacher, specifically by providing the student teacher with the…

In this study, we assessed how Finnish teachers' professional actions support their students' engagement and positive self-image at school. This qualitative multimethod study is comprised of three sub-studies: (1) the research Data Set A included pedagogical reflective journals, observations of, and interviews with, two Finnish teachers and their…

As a predominant discourse of the early twenty-first century, the new capitalism (and its companion cultural system, neoliberalism) privilege flexibility, risk, emotional intelligence, and the enterprising self. New capitalist discourses exert powerful and pervasive effects across all dimensions of human experience and activity from personal…

Describing students with disabilities as presenting "challenging behavior" is common in US schools. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the discourse utilized by teachers in order to understand their beliefs and practices surrounding young students considered to present challenging behavior. This study examines teachers' language in…

This qualitative case study reports on a three-year writing enrichment program among second, third, and fourth graders at a public urban elementary school in a medium-sized midwestern city. Designed as teacher research, the inquiry is a phenomenological examination of the experience of the workshop for its participants, including more than one…