Heteronormative culture and heterosexism is experienced by many LGBT students and queer individuals in their daily interactions with their environment. Icelandic upper secondary schools are no exception in this respect. This article draws on interview data with five LGBT students supported by semi-participatory observations at two upper secondary…

This article draws on data from qualitative research that was conducted with children between 6 and 13?years of age as a part of an 18-month project that explored respectfully engaging with cultural diversity in Australian primary schools. We used persona dolls as a research tool to enable children to explore and articulate their knowledge of…

This paper examines how some Swedish parents constructed meanings of parenthood. The parents had completed a state-sponsored parenting programme and were interviewed about their experiences of the programme, their everyday lives, their need for support, ideas about the societal context, and their understandings of "good" and…

Schooling has been the main approach for transmitting knowledge and skills in both Eastern and Western cultures. The conservatory, for instance, has been the main cradle of great musicians. However, traditional folk arts in the East relied on apprenticeship using an oral approach for transmission. Applying Lave and Wenger's theory of…

This paper addresses a niche in studies on immersion programmes for English as second language learners. While studies on the impact of the experience of studying abroad are replete with reports about the enhancement of participants' language proficiency or intercultural skills, the present study investigates the types of language and culture…

The article proposes an approach, broadly inspired by culturally inclusive pedagogy, to facilitate international student academic adaptation based on rendering tacit aspects of local learning cultures explicit to international full degree students, rather than adapting them. Preliminary findings are presented from a focus group-based exploratory…

The principal questions raised in this article are: what does it mean to bring up the topic of gender in a space where it is not known, and how can this moment of bringing up gender--or not bringing it up--be conceptualised? The article departs from the thoughts and questions that were provoked by an interview conducted with a Gender Studies…

This study was an inquiry to explore the notion of using a more critical pedagogy to educate young male Latino high school students of low socioeconomic status. Using the tenets of critical pedagogy as a guide, eight students who did not complete high school were asked how they might have felt about a different classroom dynamic and an environment…

This paper discusses the effects of children's exposure to violence against their mothers. It particularly considers the sided-effects of this violence on the children's behaviour, self-image and school performance. The research indicates that (1) violence against women victimises not only the mothers but also their children, even if the…

Recent worldwide trends in curriculum policy have re-emphasised the role of teachers in school-based curriculum development. Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence is typical of these trends, stressing that teachers are agents of change. This paper draws upon empirical data to explore school-based curriculum development in response to…

When actualised in a concrete school, the official discourse of inclusion and equity often encounters a series of obstacles that research strives to identify and address under the imperative to eliminate them. Through the exploration of classroom episodes, teacher interviews and field notes from a German secondary school, we take failure not as a…

The aim of this research was to explore the way in which talk is used in teacher focus group discussions. The data from these discussions belong to a wider study on the challenges teachers face when introducing foreign-language mediated education. The research presented here provides a careful analysis of the talk between teachers drawing on…

This article reports the results of a one-year longitudinal study examining a teaching intervention designed to enhance students' learning of critical thinking in Hong Kong. Seventy participating students (age 16-18) learned how to make reasoned arguments through a series of collaborative activities, including critical-thinking modelling…

Critical discussion of the social conditions that shape educational thinking and practice is now embedded in accredited Australian teacher education programmes. Beneath beliefs that critique of educational inequality is desirable, however, lie more problematic questions around critical pedagogies, ethics and power. Emotional investments can work…

In the current economic order, the basic duty of citizens is to find placements in the internationalising labour market. Internationalism has been a common educational objective throughout Europe. Previously associated as a feature of middle-class subjectivities and academic education, it is implemented in the agenda of vocational education as…