Quite diverse in their foci and specific themes, the seven articles collected in this special issue are unified by their common conceptual framework. Grounded in the premise that thinking can be usefully defined as self-communicating and that mathematics can thus be viewed as a discourse, the communicational framework provides a unified set of…

The papers in this special issue provide a comprehensive examination of the prevalence and implications of positive biases in perceived academic competence at different ages in different countries. Main results showed that marked positive biases were rare, were associated with performance goals, were more adaptive than negative biases, but were…

Vasily Sukhomlinsky (1918-1970) was arguably the most influential Soviet educator of the post-war period. He was a practising teacher, and from 1947 to 1970 was principal of a school in the Ukrainian village of Pavlysh. One of Sukhomlinsky's primary concerns was to inculcate in his students the values of compassion and service, combined with…

The two research projects described and discussed in the special issue provided much needed longitudinal empirical data to show the curricular influence on classroom instruction and student learning outcomes. The findings have helped to advance our understanding of whether the reform curricula can bring about positive changes in classroom…

This first article of the special issue presents theoretical and methodological considerations about longitudinally investigating curricular effects on the teaching and learning of mathematics in a cultural context. In particular, in this article, we discuss seven issues related to the investigation of curricular effects on the teaching and…

This introduction presents the case, and sets the scene, for five reviews of research on rural schools and their communities, arguing that educational research in this field is relatively rare, and decreasingly visible despite the significant population of the world's children who live in rural communities and attend rural schools. After…

This article presents a visual documentation tool for the observation of art classes. The documentation of an art class, like the documentation of any active class, is a complex task that requires focusing on clearly designated components. Quick structured sketching, as proposed here, is able to reflect varied simultaneous activities of teachers…

Active participation in university tutorials seems to be commonly argued as one of the learning difficulties of non-English-speaking background (NESB) Asian students enrolled in Western English-speaking universities. These students are often portrayed as being passive in class and this is commonly attributed to their background culture. Using…

This paper provides an account of the inter-psychological processes that constitute learning through work. It does this by drawing on deliberations about the relative contributions of the immediate social world (i.e., workplace setting) that individuals encounter and the personal premises for individuals' learning. This account is realised through…

I draw on two traditions of research: the social psychology of collaborative groups, and the ethnographic study of improvisational performance. I outline a general model of group creativity derived from these traditions. I show how the model can be used to better understand musical competence and performance, and I provide recommendations for how…

This paper illustrates how classroom discourse demands a multi-layered analysis. The first analysis focuses on classroom discourse and provides a picture of pupil participation in teacher-pupil interactions: who is inducted into discourse and who is not. However, this local micro-analysis does not afford interpretation at the level of the…

Progress in video technologies and developments in theories of learning have led to a surge of interest in the role of classroom culture in schooling. The studies presented in this special issue of the IJER on analyzing mathematics classroom cultures and practices contribute to our knowledge on the role of beliefs and norms in classrooms and the…

Beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, or what has been termed ''personal epistemology'', are related to learning and achievement in complex ways. These beliefs are also differentiated by discipline (e.g., math, science, history) as well as by judgment domains (e.g., personal taste, morality, meaning). This commentary on five…

With respect to the specificity and structure of epistemological beliefs, we contend that beliefs about knowledge are reflective of the multidimensional, multilayered, and interactive nature of knowledge. Here we present a model of the nested and reciprocal relations between domain-general and domain-specific epistemological beliefs. Additionally,…

This article explores the issue of domain generality of epistemological beliefs and world views of practicing teachers in the context of elementary school teaching. We describe ongoing research that examines beliefs held by teachers and their relationship to instructional practices. We examined the world views and beliefs of practicing teachers in…