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…

This paper asks how a teacher transforms from constrained and controlled to an independent yet dialogical agent. We analyse and describe the transformation of a teacher in the Finnish rural north in one school semester from a "conforming" teacher to a "transformative teacher," examining the narrative of her personal journal and…

The paper thematises children's engendering and sexualisation in new media environments, and their ambivalent attitudes toward commercial (porno)sexuality constructions. The inquiry into adaptation to dominant gender identity and sexuality prescriptions in spite of children's ambivalences is contextualised by the critical analysis of grand…

Drawing on concepts developed in actor-network theory and postphenomenology this article shows how material objects in the science classroom become part of epistemic configurations and thus co-shape science education. An ethnographic study on epistemic objects in science education is the basis for the analysis of two of these objects: experimental…

During the last two decades, professional standards describing competencies for teaching staff have emerged in nation states all around the world. This article reports on a pilot-study that applies a sociotechnological "lens" to examine this standardisation process in educational policy. In line with ethnographic analyses drawing on science and…

This study researches the role prayer plays in a class at a faith primary school in Slovakia in terms of reproducing the traditional elements of school organisation/schoolwork, such as accepting authority, conforming and competing. It looks at non-religious elements of school socialisation as a consequence of the practice of praying. At the same…

The widespread turn towards "collaboration" in qualitative research methodologies warrants careful and continuous critique. This paper addresses the possibilities and the challenges of collaborative methodology, and in particular what happens when the line between pedagogy and methodology is blurred in classroom-based ethnographic research.…

In this paper, the author shows that the issue of whether toleration promotes coexistence is controversial and therefore needs careful consideration in light of the complexities that are involved in understanding and teaching toleration in the schools of conflict and post-conflict societies. In particular, this paper offers a critique to the…

Narratives of power that purport to represent the "truth" of others need to be challenged by the individual stories of those who are silenced by "authority" and "expert" opinion. This paper utilises research data from an open-ended ethnographic study of 32 Australian high school students at the turn of the twenty-first century. In its entirety,…

This article examines the emergence of biliteracy in school-aged Portuguese-English bilingual children growing up within diverse family structures in Portugal. The ethnographic research investigated the premise that some children have the opportunity to acquire biliteracy, like their bilingualism, in naturalistic contexts. There are gaps in…

This study is based on field data originally collected for a PhD research project in a small district of Zimbabwe. The study attempts to answer the question about how AIDS orphaned children in a selected context in Zimbabwe construct their concept of self as members of their changed and recomposing families, and as members of their school and…

This paper seeks to explore how a group of children, the majority of whom were of minority ethnic heritage, experienced starting nursery school in a setting where the majority of staff were of white indigenous heritage. The nursery is in a small town in the north-west of England, and the children were aged three and four. Observations were carried…

Media educators and researchers call for learner-centred, bottom-up pedagogical approaches, which take into account learners' own cultures, knowledge and experiences. Nevertheless, there seem to be gaps between traditional, authoritarian school culture and the interactive, creative media culture that is a significant part of youngsters' lives…

In this article we are concerned with how young women's subjectivities are constructed within relations of power, particularly in the context of schooling and the transition to adulthood. We focus on the possibilities and limitations for agency to be exercised by women in the education system and more generally, the resources that they can draw…

The principles of many international language teacher education programmes are grounded in a relatively homogenous set of "Western" cultural values, even though their participants come from a wide range of different cultural backgrounds. This paper addresses some of the issues surrounding the role of culture in language teacher education and…