This paper explores the practices of division in operation in primary schools in England in response to the pressures of high stakes tests at age 10/11, known as SATs. Using data from interviews with 20 primary headteachers and information from a survey of nearly 300 primary heads, we argue that the organisation of pupils in preparation for SATs…

This narrative inquiry highlights the experiences of three high school students labeled Long-term English learners (LTEL) in a North Texas high school. This narrative inquiry study uses semi-structured interviews to restory the students' lives, emphasizing the emergent themes of family (the strongest pillar) and the language of the home (Spanish).…

While the scholarly work on the second generation of immigrants has scrutinised both high educational achievers and marginalised groups, less attention has been paid to those in between and their aspirations. In this article, we draw on interviews with 35 adolescents pursuing vocational education in Norway. Our analysis takes as its point of…

To address the needs of middle school students who experience difficulty with reading, students are often placed in reading intervention programs to improve literacy skills. This study explores the question: in what ways do students successfully and unsuccessfully use self-initiated comprehension strategies in their efforts to engage with…

Unjust racial disparities persist in the United States criminal justice system fueled by a school to prison pipeline which, through criminalizing processes, disproportionately and unjustly targets boys of color in our schools. This criminalization and the ways in which boys of color resist, remains largely under-researched on the elementary school…

Learning analytics is an emerging field in which sophisticated analytic tools are used to inform and improve learning and teaching. Researchers within a regional university in Australia identified an association between interaction and student success in online courses and subsequently developed a learning analytics system aimed at informing…

In the People's Republic of China (PRC), educational expansion together with the promotion of market competition is taken as a measure of addressing a structural rural--urban divide in educational inequality. In following the emotional journeys of pursuing a bachelor's degree for 32 rural students in four elite universities in Shanghai, this paper…

Stigmatization of students with disabilities is related to a variety of adverse long-term effects and many teachers experience challenges implementing empirically-based practices to address this stigma. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that predict teachers' efforts to address stigma in the classroom and barriers to…

Prejudice and bias are described as an embarrassing phenomenon of research work in social sciences. They concern both quantitative and qualitative research. Authors working in both antagonistic paradigms such as positivist, post-positivist and constructivism, interpretivism generally point to the main patterns showing the aspects of bias. They…

This article discusses a long-term theatre project that I run with mental health care users and staff in a forensic psychiatric hospital in South Africa. I argue that the values underpinning the project align with those of Mad Studies, a field that is located as an emerging academic discipline within disability studies. The article seeks to…

Identity research largely emerged from clinical observations. Decades of empirical work advanced the field in refining existing approaches and adding new approaches. Furthermore, the existence of linkages of identity with psychopathology is now well established. Unfortunately, both the directionality of effects between identity aspects and…

Special education is losing its identity--its visibility, distinctiveness, budget, and basic functions are all at risk. Special education functions include (a) sorting, categorizing, and labeling students who need it; (b) making the right comparisons; (c) honoring diversity but changing "particular" differences; (d) managing stigma; (e)…

Pedagogies of healing and critical media literacy are important, especially in the wake of racial violence when mainstream media work to stigmatize, characterize, and marginalize Black youth by projecting them as "dangerous Others." In this article, we offer an overview of how mainstream media reinscribe and reinforce white supremacy,…

Previous research in middle-class school districts has focused on "within-school" segregation but not "between-school" segregation. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 122 in-depth interviews with students, parents, and faculty in an affluent suburban school district, I find that students who struggle…

Using theories of positioning, emotion, and power as a lens, this study explores the lived experiences of a reader labeled as struggling who was enrolled in four different course contexts: traditional high school English, high school remedial reading, high school Young Adult Literature, and college English. Interview data suggests the participant…