The findings from this qualitative case study reveal how a principal' demonstration of compassion and deep care towards his teachers was influential in the participants' renewed desire for a greater commitment to and improvement of their craft. Understanding how school leaders can nourish and sustain passion and commitment is an essential area of…

The purpose of this study was to examine how my reading instruction had been situated within my school's literacy program. As a way to investigate this study, I employed qualitative teacher research. I used reading theory (Whole Language and Direct Instruction) as the analytical lens for my analysis. The results illustrated how the Direct…

This paper portrays the activity system of eight classes of Grade 6 children with special educational needs in an Intensive French as a second-language education program. Classroom norms and tools reflected a social-interactionist and social-constructivist approach with scaffolding, social interaction, multiple modes of representing, holistic,…

Bullying is a widespread phenomenon that affects many children and adolescents in Brazilian schools. A pilot research study was carried out in four schools (one private and three public) located in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. A combination of self-administered questionnaires and focus groups with students as well as interviews with teachers were…

The purpose of this study was to explore Grade 11 students' perceptions of programs related to the prevention of alcohol use in high school settings through an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data elicited from student questionnaires (n=452) and focus groups. It was found that students felt a need for increased information on alcohol…

This research was aimed at highlighting the decision-making processes of Italian teachers; in particular, we have focused on individual and collaborative decisions developed both during meetings and in the classroom. The study has underlined the features of teachers' decisions when decisions are made in groups and individually. A questionnaire was…

The Fraser Institute "Report Card" of school rankings has won the hearts of parents and the press. For over a decade, the rankings have been particularly burdensome for low-ranking (usually low socio-economic status, high-poverty) schools when parents of high-achieving children move them to higher-ranking schools. In February 2010, after defending…

We propose a practice-based focus for professional learning communities in schools. We start with a brief historical review of the approaches that have deemed peer collaboration as crucial for school improvement and explore how teachers' practices have been characterised in past reform initiatives. Second, we highlight the importance of "teacher…

Growth curve modeling was utilized to examine change in the educational aspirations of adolescents from early high school through to three years beyond high school, as a function of gender and other adolescent characteristics. Significant gender effects were found for level of education aspired to, rate of growth, and degree of acceleration: boys'…

This article draws on interviews with a recent graduate of an inquiry-based initial teacher education program, and on video data collected in his Grade 6 classroom, to explore the extent to which he was able to enact inquiry-based teaching approaches in his teaching of mathematics and to consider the kinds of resources (administrative and…

This case study sought to determine the professional development circumstances in which a preservice teacher learned rules of practice (Wittgenstein, 1996) on practicum while interacting with a cooperating teacher and university supervisor. Borrowing from a theoretical conceptualization of teacher professional development based on the postulates…

Formative assessment is a potentially powerful instructional process because the practice of sharing assessment information that supports learning is embedded into the instructional process by design. If the potential of formative assessment is to be realized, it must transform from a collection of abstract theories and research methodologies and…

This paper provides an overview of the recursive process of initiating an action research project on literacy for students-at-risk in a Canadian urban elementary school. As this paper demonstrates, this requires development of a school-wide framework, which frames the action research project and desired outcomes, and a shared ownership of this…

Despite societal imperatives for equity--whether espoused by nation states or transnational agencies like UNESCO--current models of higher education are unequivocally failing to provide universal access. This paper seeks to explore the (cyber)spaces (un)occupied by higher education, specifically in the area of curriculum studies, arguing that the…

Canadian institutions of higher education are major players on the international arena for educating future generations and producing leaders around the world in various fields. In the last decade, Canadian universities have seen an influx in their incoming international students, who contribute over $3.5 billion to the Canadian economy (Madgett &…