The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex relationships between educational policy and classroom practice. By employing a sociocultural perspective, we examine formulations inscribed in socio-material artifacts about what students should learn and how they should engage with knowledge. We explore how these formulations are mobilized in…

Behavior management in the classroom is well known for being a challenge and a source of stress for preservice and experienced teachers alike. This means it may not only impact teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, but teachers' efficacy perceived by their students too, engendering effects on the social learning environment and vice-versa. This article…

This paper presents a multi-informant study on school climate with the aim of (a) comparing students', teachers', and parents' perceptions of several school climate dimensions and (b) examining the associations between dimensions pertaining to classroom practices and school atmosphere in both students and teachers. Participants comprised 105…

Previous studies examining attitudes towards performance heterogeneity have focused on attitudes among teachers. However, positive attitudes towards the school environment are also assumed to be conducive for students. The aim of this paper is to examine students' attitudes towards performance heterogeneity with a sample of 784 5th-grade students.…

Early childhood educational centers (ECEC) are contexts where young children make their first contact with specific, culturally determined rules, practices, and values. Only a few studies have analyzed in-depth the practices through which the educators direct the children's action and attention while they are performing routine educational…

The aim of this qualitative study was to identify central attributes of positive relationships with teachers from the adolescent students' perspectives that could help delineate the meaning of student-teacher connectedness while exploring to what extent its main attributes were similar or different in England and Spain. As part of the EU-funded…

In this longitudinal study, we examined teachers' self-efficacy as a long-term predictor of their mastery goal orientation and three dimensions of instructional quality: supportive classroom climate, effective classroom management, and cognitive activation. Mastery goal orientation was also analyzed as a predictor of instructional quality.…

Can teenagers' self-efficacy be improved in a short time? Previous research has shown the positive effect of cooperative learning methods, including "jigsaw classrooms" (Aronson and Patnoe, 1997), on various outcomes (e.g., the liking of school, self-esteem, and reduction of prejudices). The present practice report investigated the effects of…

This study examined the extent to which observed teaching practices and self-reported teacher stress predict children's learning motivation and phonological awareness in kindergarten. The pre-reading skills of 1,268 children were measured at the beginning of their kindergarten year. Their learning motivation and phonological awareness were…

Wishing to explore the complexity of the conceptual, didactic and institutional aspects of learning a scientifically defined object of knowledge, we chose to study the link between the personal relation to numeration developed by six-year-old pupils in first grade ("cours preparatoire" the first level of primary school in France), and…

It is argued that an epistemic authority would induce greater influence in transmitting knowledge to students when there is a correspondence between the (authoritarian vs. democratic) style of the authority and students' perceptions of their relation to the authority (high vs. low epistemic dependence). In two studies it was predicted, and found,…

Reports on a study of teacher regulation of classroom activity and teacher-student behavior. Focuses on two types of regulatory strategies: (1) regulating the social structure of participation; and (2) regulating the content development and learning task. Identifies and analyzes the second type of strategy. Includes references. (CMK)

Investigates whether pairing unpopular five- to six-year old children with more popular peers would promote more effective collaboration. Examines the differences in verbal and nonverbal communication of the popular and unpopular children. Explains that the children were filmed playing a collaborative game. (CMK)

Reports on a study in which music teachers were asked about their design of music tasks in the classroom and factors that affected those decisions. Presents another study that investigated the effects of friendship, gender, and previous musical experience upon the processes and musical outcome of children's collaborative compositions. (CMK)

Reports on a case study of formative evaluation of the materials and procedures used in a distance-learning French-language course. Identifies and evaluates key teaching design features of the draft audiovisual and print packages. Discusses teaching design in relation to revisions made to the course materials. (CFR)