As co-editors of this theme issue of this journal, the authors have accepted that knowledge systems and teacher education programs are deeply interconnected. Further, they claim that teacher education programs must incorporate in theory and practice the fact that knowledge systems are a determining factor in the effectiveness of a teacher…

This article provides a critical reflective analysis of my life growing up in Jamaica where I attended colonial school, to making the transition to high school in the Canadian context. I examine the elements that have influenced my cultural/racial identity as a person of African ancestry living in the diaspora. I ask questions such as how has…

This article examines how academic knowledge and power have shaped the discourse on human classification and how political authorities use academic knowledge producers to legitimize public policy. Specifically, the article draws on the role of John M. MacEachran, a former academic at the University of Alberta, in the implementation of the Alberta…

Data from ESL students' records in Vancouver are examined in the light of the BC Ministry of Education's claim that ESL high school students are more successful than students whose first language is English. We argue that the academic achievement of well-to-do students whose parents are skilled workers or entrepreneurs may mask the completion…

A 2003 study about the lives of retired leaders in teacher education reminds us of the significant role that others play in the academic development of professors of education. That study also reveals significant changes in the nature of our work as teacher educators. The authors stress the need for universities to pay greater attention to the…

In this article I explore the gendered assumptions in the new generation of dress codes that have swept through North American schools in response to how girls are dressing these days. Through a feminist poststructural examination of a particular case in Langley, British Columbia, I locate three contradictory discourses in one school's dress code…

This article looks at the importance of student-generated analogies, metaphors, and similes as an entry point into their understandings of HIV/AIDS. In addition, it argues that analogies, metaphors, and similes are good tools for eliciting students' prior understandings of HIV/AIDS, especially matters relating to sexuality that are often…

Accountability structures and processes have become such an integral part of education policy development and implementation that Ranson (2003) argues, "accountability is no longer merely an important instrument or component within the system, but constitutes the system itself" (p. 459). This argument is supported by the growth of an orientation…

This article on pedagogy in the classroom seminar combines the basic principles of dialogue and liberation as expressed especially by 20th-century thinkers Bakhtin and Freire. It argues for a pedagogy of educational growth and facilitation of ideas. Through learner-centered knowledge, dialogic interaction, open exploration, mutual respect, and…

It is an established matter that the total information in multivariate data is defined as the sum of eigenvalues of the variance-covariance matrix. In this article, we challenge this time-honored tradition and look at another definition of the total information in data from a dual scaling perspective. This proposal is a step toward unifying the…

Educators are often caught up in the problem of political agendas or funding driving educational research. Projects and proposals congruent with current trends or some agency's priority are often those that are funded. Institutional recognition in the form of promotion and salary increments is frequently focused on funded research. What, then, is…

Native Americans have oral traditions that are distinct from the European literacy consciousness, having different modes of discourse, different kinds of metaphorical thinking, and different conceptions of teaching as storytelling. Storytelling is important in children's education, but to be effective and respectful of Native culture, school…

Recently, universities and other research institutions have increased the number of regulations concerning research "ethics." Driven by fears of litigation or political unpopularity and acting in an authoritarian manner, many institutional ethics boards are exceeding their purpose and are threatening both the validity of their faculty's research…

Describes a panel discussion on the acceptability of fiction in academic discourse. Gives advice to scholars wondering whether fiction should be considered as knowledge: stop taking yourself so seriously; embrace "scholartistry", the application of the artistry of imaginative powers to scientific inquiry; know that truth changes; explore the…

The author's doctoral dissertation started out as qualitative research--interviews with beginning women teachers exploring the transition from teacher education into the classroom. She explains why the material could be better conveyed in the form of the bildungsroman, a German term for a novel of formation or education. Chapter five of the…