An essential understanding of the uses and practices of algebra remain out of reach for many students. In this book, award-winning researcher Dr. Nicole Fonger addresses the issue of how to support all learners to experience algebra as meaningful. In a highly visual approach, the book details four research-based lenses with examples from 9th-grade…

The purpose of this article is to show how instruction that supports both mathematical learning (ML) and social and emotional learning (SEL) creates opportunities for equity. In fall 2020, the first author observed the co-authors, Ms. Wong and Mrs. Silverstein, providing instruction that supports ML and SEL in their hybrid ninth-grade algebra 1…

In the field of education concerning cultural diversity it has been recognized as vital to address justice in social structures. Although justifications for religious education in non-confessional contexts are heavily based on religious diversity, their advocates have paid little attention to justice and power relations. In this article, I analyse…

This study investigates the hopes of a group of Finnish of ninth-graders and how hopeful they are. This study also explores how to teach in a way that promotes hope. The theoretical framework of this study combines two different theories of hope, C. R. Snyder's psychological hope theory and Paulo Freire's philosophy of hope. This study holds that…

Recognizing the prevalence of low literacy achievements of secondary students with disabilities despite numerous mainstream reading interventions' attempts to alleviate the issue, this dissertation considers an alternative path to literacy. To begin, this study theorizes knowledge, literacy, and learning as mutually constituted person-world…

Teachers constantly struggle to get students actively engaged and invested in their own learning. It can be even more difficult to engage those students in critical thinking and 21st century skills. Problem-based learning (PBL) provides a student-led format with real-life learning experiences, offering a purpose for instruction. By relinquishing…

This qualitative multiple case study assesses two locally designed instructional artifacts created to support teacher enactment of culturally relevant educational (CRE) practices. Attention is paid to artifact's ability to support collective teacher use of CRE and the ways that artifacts acted as proxies for instructional leadership. Findings…

Globalization, in the case of science education, leads not only to an increase in homogeneity but also to an increase in cultural encounters. In this study, researchers from 2 distinct cultures, South Africa and Finland, used a qualitative approach to probe student teachers' perspectives on chemistry education. Participants were 1st-year chemistry…

This dissertation builds on and extends research on the relationship between equity-minded mathematics teaching, specifically teaching mathematics for social justice, complex instruction, and project-based learning, and students' learning and identity development. Although different in their structures and strategies, equity-minded mathematics…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…

This yearlong ethnographic study explored the work of two Latino teachers who identified themselves as critical literacy teachers and who taught ninth-grade Latino students whose scores on standardized reading tests fell in the bottom 20th percentile. Framed in critical pedagogy and multimodality, this study sought to answer the following…

In this paper we draw on theories of teaching English as a second language (L2) to examine ways in which a teacher taught a novel to Grade 9 students whose home language is not English. How this second language English-speaker engaged with and spoke about her teaching highlighted her understanding of the challenges students seemed to experience…

Authority, a fundamental part of the teaching-studying-learning process, is a problematic and poorly understood component of classroom life. It can be said, in practical terms, that pedagogical authority is constructed in classrooms, in teacher-student interaction and in the spirit of their physical presence, confidence, appreciation,…