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Although Brazilian governmental documents have conceived language teaching from a critical perspective, the recent scenario points to a backlash towards critical perspectives on teaching, which have been socially perceived as indoctrination. Since we understand critical pedagogy in additional language classrooms as a necessary emancipatory perspective, this article aims at discussing possibilities for promoting critical language development. More specifically, it draws on two doctoral studies in which teacher-researchers implemented critical task cycles that aimed at promoting critical language development by fostering elementary and high school students' reflections on gender issues. In both studies, tasks were developed to promote learners' communicative and critical development following task-based principles. The comparison of the results, derived from the analysis of learners' interactions during implementation, responses to questionnaires and interviews, and of the teacher-researchers' self-report diaries, revealed not only the feasibility of teaching critically through tasks, but also the positive role of: (1) A critical needs-analysis in designing and implementing critical tasks; (2) the use of critical dialogue for fostering knowledge co-construction; (3) the development of final projects to challenge common-sense discourses. These findings indicate, thus, relevant principles for teaching critically through tasks, emphasizing possibilities and challenges for promoting social transformation.

This article uses an existing poem, "Árvore" (Tree in Portuguese), coupled with our diary entries, as a methodological innovation in poetic self-study. The self-study aimed to understand the aesthetic link in the development of being a teacher-researcher. This was a departure from positivist rationality and affirmation of an anthropoforming paradigm that connects research, action, and formation via a transdisciplinary systemic epistemology. The context of this self-study is a relationship between teacher-researchers from one high school and two higher education institutions in the Brazilian northeast. Using a reflective anthropoetic (an opening for ethical and aesthetic creation, critical possibilities and pedagogical reinvention) diary, two physical education teacher-researchers developed a critical friendship in a collaborative self-study process on the complexities of beginning teaching for one of them. We share our learning in a diary with excerpts organized in three lines of thought, or what we call reflective flyovers, regarding: life history, teacher education, and pedagogical practice of being initiated into the teacher-researcher profession. Thematic categories were represented by excerpts from the "Árvore" poem. The three reflective flyovers explored included the teaching knowledge of the teacher-researchers, which in turn converge and diverge, impacting the other, the methodology, and the context of practice. Our critical friendship contributed to the self-study process of initiating into the teacher-researcher profession through interactive and creative communication. This poetic self-study points to different paths of learning and professional growth, increasing the value and impact of using poetry to make sense of research findings.

It is through the daily construction of teaching supported by research strategies that the teachers constantly learn and promote their professional development. As they teach, they learn about themselves, their students and the social context. By taking on the task of investigating their own practice, the teacher also learns the art and challenges of being a researcher. Self-study of Teacher Education Practice methodology was used to identify and analyse the challenges and obstacles perceived by a physical education teacher when acting as a researcher of her own teaching. The instruments for producing information were records created by the teacher-researcher: videos, photographs, observation recorded in field notes, interviews with the collaborating teacher and with the children, audio recording and transcription of the collaborative processes understood in the self-study as critical friends, and the teacher's reflective narrative about the research process. The information produced was analysed in a thematic form, identifying units of meaning according to the purpose of the study. The analysis of the results indicates that the teacher-researcher perceived barriers and methodological difficulties to act simultaneously in the management of the class and in the production and analysis of the information about her teaching, constantly dealing with the complexity of the school's everyday activities. The perceived challenges emerged in three moments: in the research planning, in the production of information and records, and in the information analysis. The study allowed us to understand that the teachers' research on their teaching practice is a challenging process of learning, and that their improvement as researchers is a major factor also to the improvement of teaching.

In this article, we focus on students and teachers as practitioners of learning, a powerful notion seminal to Exploratory Practice, which is a form of practitioner research developed by working to understand local puzzles, by integrating research and regular pedagogic activities, and by emphasizing practitioners' understandings of the quality of their lives in educational settings. Exploratory Practice conceptualizes students "and" teachers as learners and puts forward Five Propositions about Learners: Learners are unique individuals who learn and develop best in their own idiosyncratic ways, they are social beings who learn and develop best in a mutually supportive environment, and they are people capable of taking learning seriously, of independent decision-making and of developing as practitioners of learning. We also claim here that teachers, students of all ages, future teachers, teacher educators, and research participants are lifelong learners (Barreto, Miller, and Monteiro 2015; Miller and Cunha 2017). We support this claim by drawing on instances of Exploratory Practice work developed in Brazilian and British language classrooms, teacher education settings, and academic research contexts in which those involved perform their learner identities. In our discussion, we interweave the Five Propositions with the Exploratory Practice principles.

Research on statistical education in childhood is recent in Brazil. The research has been mainly driven by curriculum reforms and the creation of research groups that investigate teaching, learning, and teacher education practices. The present paper emerges from this scenario and has the aim of investigating practices of creative insubordination of teachers proposing and acting on problems of statistical and probabilistic literacy under a problematizing perspective. The intention is to ask: 'What evidence of statistical and probabilistic learning emerges when teacher-researchers participating in collaborative groups narrate their actions of creative insubordination?' The term 'creative insubordination' refers to professionals acting counter to rules and directives when seeking to protect those to whom they provide services and in order to provide better conditions. In the case of Brazilian teachers, it is argued that they can be creatively insubordinate by proposing problems in statistics and probability, listening to the children and encouraging them to problematize and create strategies and procedures for solving statistical problems, in a perspective that encompasses their social practices. From the analysis emerged a common aspect of the teachers' practices that refers to the fact that they provide an investigative atmosphere in which children discuss, question and reflect, proposing creative solutions to statistical problems. Children learn to defend their views and rights. Thus, the statistical and probabilistic learning becomes more significant for children.

This article discusses the scientific research work on environmental education presented during the last decade in three Brazilian conferences: the meetings of the National Association of Graduate Research on Education (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Educação, ANPEd), the National Association of Graduate Research on Environment and Society (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ambiente e Sociedade, ANPPAS), and the Environmental Education Research Meetings (Encontros de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental, EPEA). It analyzes the authors, institutions, and regions whence the studies came from, as well as their main research subjects. Our findings indicate the prevalence of women in all academic degree segments; of PhD holders and candidates; of professors in public higher education institutions located in the Brazilian Southwest and South regions; and of environmental education in formal teaching as the main subject in all three conferences. Based on these results, we discuss how this body of research relates to the development of Brazilian academic and educational policies, and indicate some of the challenges involved in building a research tradition in this field, in close dialogue with the arduous political and pedagogical path of environmental education in Brazilian schools.

We reflect on methodological issues arising in two of our own research projects as a form of practice, as a way of engaging in a praxis of project research. The projects chosen for this purpose are themselves concerned with teacher education and curriculum development in environmental education: they include participatory "reflective practice" processes in exploring issues relating to formal education in schools and informal education in communities and are grounded in the specific contexts of developing countries. We discuss issues in participatory research such as: (1) Whose research agenda gets to be explored?; (2) The importance of project partnerships; (3) Participants' preconceptions about the nature of research; (4) What is "rigor" in participatory research in environmental education?; (5) The Colonialist Dilemma: Avoiding the "package or perish" mentality; and (6) The Bigger Picture: Technocratic Rationality and Participatory Research. (Contains 2 notes.)

Although women's representation in higher education nears parity with men at the undergraduate level, this representation diminishes as one ascends the academic ranks. Because gender gaps in the "elite" activity of international research collaborations might contribute to the underrepresentation of women in the upper ranks, we ask if gender differences exist in participation in international collaborations and if family responsibilities constitute a glass fence--a gendered obstacle that keeps women from this engagement. Using an international data set, we find that women engage less in international collaborations than men, and that complex gendered patterns exist regarding the impacts of partner employment status and children. Both men and women benefit from having an academic partner, although men benefit more. Partner employment status matters more than children in certain family arrangements, suggesting that the former constitutes a glass fence, potentially impacting women's access to cutting-edge international knowledge production and elite academic positions.

This paper is related to an investigation carried out by researchers from a Brazilian public institution (Federal University of São Carlos) and experienced elementary school teachers. It adopts a research and intervention methodology developed in an online continuing teacher education programme, whose aims were the development of mentoring activities to help novice teachers to lighten their everyday professional difficulties. The intertwined research questions could be formulated as: (a) what contributions the participation of mentors in a research group could offer in their professional development processes? (b) How these mentors appropriate the current knowledge in the area in order to have theoretical and methodological tools for their management of beginning teachers? and (c) How they make explicit their professional practical knowledge? The online mentoring programme has promoted the establishment of professional and affective bonds among the participants, the broadening of professional knowledge, the collaboration among peers, the mastery of online adult education technologies and the participants' professional growth. It should be noted that it has been a much more complex enterprise than a face-to-face equivalent programme would have been because it demands entirely new logistics and some challenges. This text focuses on the learning of mentors as well as the potential of the investigative tools used considering the professional development of mentors, as well as a way to comprehend such process.

Focuses on the key mechanism of "puzzling" in Exploratory Practice (EP), a form of practitioner research, and the critical issue of sustainability in the context of volunteer teacher development work in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Investigated puzzles (concerns) of language teachers and grouped them into six categories; motivation, anxiety, teaching, institutional lack of interest, discipline (behavior), and EP itself. (VWL)

Illustrates Exploratory practice (EP), a form of practitioner research, in action in two classrooms in Brazil. Examines a key mechanism of EP--puzzlement--and presents two different puzzling processes. (VWL)

Describes the implementation and evaluation of a constructivist course for science teachers in which teachers are inducted into "critical constructivism" through their own action-research projects. Illustrates the induction process and professional development of one biology teacher of 13- to 15-year olds in Brazil. Contains 23 references. (Author/WRM)

It is through the daily construction of teaching supported by research strategies that the teachers constantly learn and promote their professional development. As they teach, they learn about themselves, their students and the social context. By taking on the task of investigating their own practice, the teacher also learns the art and challenges of being a researcher. Self-study of Teacher Education Practice methodology was used to identify and analyse the challenges and obstacles perceived by a physical education teacher when acting as a researcher of her own teaching. The instruments for producing information were records created by the teacher-researcher: videos, photographs, observation recorded in field notes, interviews with the collaborating teacher and with the children, audio recording and transcription of the collaborative processes understood in the self-study as critical friends, and the teacher's reflective narrative about the research process. The information produced was analysed in a thematic form, identifying units of meaning according to the purpose of the study. The analysis of the results indicates that the teacher-researcher perceived barriers and methodological difficulties to act simultaneously in the management of the class and in the production and analysis of the information about her teaching, constantly dealing with the complexity of the school's everyday activities. The perceived challenges emerged in three moments: in the research planning, in the production of information and records, and in the information analysis. The study allowed us to understand that the teachers' research on their teaching practice is a challenging process of learning, and that their improvement as researchers is a major factor also to the improvement of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Aula Abierta. Revista de Investigación, Formación e Innovación en Educación (RIFIE) is the property of Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Paradigma is the property of Universidad Pedagogica Experimental Libertador and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to understand how social roles are typified by professors of stricto sensu postgraduate courses in Business Administration in Brazil. A qualitative research was conducted, adopting a multiple case study with 29 interviews with teachers from 27 programs. Role typification occurs when the actor, as a collective being, acts in a certain context with knowledge common to a certain collective of actors. As a result, it was evidenced that teachers assume a multiplicity of roles in higher education institutions and graduate programs, when carrying out the daily activities. Thus, they play the role not only of teacher, but also of researcher, advisor, and coordinator, among others. These multiple roles, sometimes complementary, sometimes dissonant, force the teacher to deal with different institutional pressures to perform these roles, which causes the teacher to end up repressing certain activities, or postponing them until what should be their leisure periods. The main contribution of this study is to understand the intricacies of the teaching profession and the challenges of the production of scientific knowledge in the country, since, at this level of education, it is through this knowledge that future teachers and researchers of higher education are trained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Práxis Educativa is the property of Revista Praxis Educativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The introduction of makerspaces in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education caused new challenges in research: learning in this innovative environment and the exchange of knowledge. The collaboration is the essence of most parts of activities in these spaces, and the exchange of information is the way to learning. It is usual to analyze the collaboration only among human actors. It is also usual to forget the role of non-human actors in this process. This paper analyzes the role of human and non-human actors in a maker activity. The teachers and researchers proposed a challenge to High School students in Brazil where the students were instructed to build a bag to transport some screws. During the process, some videos were made and later tools of video analyses and Social Network Analyses were used to produce topologies of information exchanges among the teacher, students, and artifacts. The results showed that both artifacts and environment layout play an important role in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trends and principles of Action Research (AR) methodology as a qualitative alternative in applied Social Science are discussed within the context of education and teacher formation. Emancipatory pedagogical activities linked to universities and to continuous education are taken into account. Contrastingly to the unifying tendency derived from the neoliberal model of management and education, the insistence on cultural diversity of people, groups, behaviors, forms of expression, knowledge and learning is outlined. The methodology, when well-managed, ensures diversity due to participation and autonomy of those involved in the process. Within such a perspective and particularly involved in the Brazilian conditions, current analysis provides an overview on action research; emphasizes its contribution in favor of contra-hegemonic groups; discusses the specifics of action research in education and teacher formation; and lists items to strengthen action research in education and especially in teacher formation. Keywords: action research, teacher formation, cultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Educação is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Electrónica de Enseñanza de las Ciencias is the property of Revista Electronica de Ensenanza de las Ciencias and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)