This paper reflects upon student teachers' conceptions of inter-community relations and the preparation they receive to address issues of diversity and mutual understanding. The study in Northern Ireland is set against a backdrop of political, social and educational change, where a shared, peaceful future appears possible. Student teachers at a…

Self-direction has been identified as a potential key to the success of professional development of teachers, especially those working in deprived environments. This paper develops a model for self-directed professional development using interview data from 55 Zimbabwean A-level Science and Mathematics teachers. It focuses on teachers' decisions…

Offering an alternative to normative teacher education that excludes meaningful sexuality and gender education from its curriculum, this article presents a critical teacher education multicultural curriculum based in the United States that included an autoethnographic narrative assignment as reflective space for teacher candidates to consider…

Creating a positive working atmosphere in the classroom is the first concern of many student and beginning teachers in secondary education. Teaching in multicultural classrooms provides additional challenges for these teachers. This study identified shared practical knowledge about classroom management strategies of teachers who were successful in…

This article examines relationships between various dimensions of teachers' professionalism, that is, pedagogical content knowledge and personal characteristics. Using Shulman's notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) we explored the practical knowledge of twenty sex education teachers using in-depth interviews. It appeared that both core…

A well defined line of research has been conducted on the role of self-efficacy (Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. "Psychological Review", 84, 191-215.) in teaching and learning environments. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Laboratory-Based (LB) and Field-Based (FB) practicum…

This article reports findings from a study of 100 headteachers of very small Scottish primary schools. The main aim of the research was to follow up a sample of those schools that had participated in a larger study of all small schools in Scotland in 1996 to explore the role of the "teaching headteacher". Evidence for this follow up study was…

This study took place in the United States and explored teacher perspectives on the situational factors that influence their professional development using Engestrom's (Engestrom, Y. (1987). "Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research". Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit Oy) four levels of inner contradictions in…

To maintain a professional identity, teachers are to some degree dependent on their student's mental representations of, and interactions with, them. This affords students' relational power over teachers possibly invoking a unique form of attachment dependence and responding in some teachers. Data reported in this paper were drawn from a larger…

The author examines an inquiry-based teaching/learning model involving diverse members of learning communities. A triad of cooperating teachers, student teachers, and a college supervisor engaged in ongoing and purposeful discourse to explore the teacher-learner (expert-novice) reciprocity, school culture and social relations. In their efforts to…

Students' reactions to the intersection between ongoing experiences in the university classroom and student teaching constitute the formative component of learning assessment called "self-assessment." Student reactions, captured via file cards and reflective journals, constituted evidence for final "self-evaluation," the summative component of…

The teacher-student relationship is viewed as integral to successful teaching and learning but, outside of a few exceptions, ethical boundary issues in this relationship have not been explored. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' perspectives of their relationships with their students as well as how they described and negotiated…

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their "student…

The study analyzed a conversation among a group of teachers responsible for teaching the concepts of mean, median, and mode. After reading an article describing some specific student difficulties in learning the concepts, teachers were asked to discuss how the teaching of the concepts could be improved. Several claims pertinent to improving…

This study examines preservice teachers' conceptual understanding of global education subsequent to participation in an asynchronous web-based multinational project to discuss issues related to cultural diversity and global challenges. Data included 59 preservice teachers' online messages and reflective essays. Six perspectives emerged from this…