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Gives an account of the issues surrounding the attempts of two teachers to integrate literature into the science curriculum of a second-grade classroom. Argues that children's intellectual development is best served by curricula based on inquiry. (HB)

An intercultural perspective on language learning and teaching has become prominent over the past three decades. As a result, diverse theoretical frameworks, methods, and approaches have been developed to understand and explore interculturality in foreign and second language classrooms (e.g., Byram, 1997; Byrnes, 2002, 2008; Dervin, 2009, 2011; Kramsch, 1998, 2011; Liddicoat, 2004; Risager, 2007). As a goal of foreign language instruction, interculturality has spurred significant research in second and foreign language education. For example, extensive scholarship has explored how telecollaboration projects and experiences abroad can enhance students’ development of interculturality (e.g., Alred et al., 2003; Basharina, 2007; Byram et al., 2001; Blyth, 2011; Chen, 2017). Another line of research has delved into teachers’ and students’ different conceptualizations and understandings of interculturality (e.g., Castro et al., 2004; Collings, 2007; Moore, 2006; Ortaçtepe, 2015; Sercu, 2006; Young & Sachdev, 2011). From a pedagogical perspective, research has explored the procedures, methodologies, and core practices that pre-service and in-service teachers use to foster interculturality in high school and college foreign language curricula as well as the challenges teachers face when aiming to do so (e.g., Byram & Kramsch, 2008; Díaz, 2013a; Ghanem, 2017; Kramsch, 2011; Kearney, 2015, 2021; Kohler, 2015).Even though the existing research has shed light on the development of interculturality and the beliefs both learners and teachers hold about this concept, research about how teachers teach for interculturality in public high school classrooms and the contradictions that emerge in this process remains limited. Diverse scholars (Díaz, 2013a; Kramsch, 2011, 2013; Kearney, 2015, 2021; Kohler, 2015; Liddicoat, 2011) have argued that there is a need to delve more deeply into the practices teachers use to teach for interculturality in their classrooms and the limitations that

This investigation of teacher agency addresses the dual concerns of reduced teacher agency in an era of accountability tied to high stakes testing and a reduced conception of the professional role of teachers to that of an instrumentalist, restricting teachers' decisions regarding curriculum and instruction . This study has three goals: the primary goal is to understand the dynamics associated with the development of professional teacher agency; a secondary goal is to understand benefits and the detriments resulting from the exercise or denial of teacher agency; and a third goal is to describe teacher agency as it is practiced across a career span. This study answers questions about the forms of, conducive conditions for, challenges to, and impacts from the assertion or denial of teacher agency. The participants are twenty teachers, ten veteran retired teachers and ten practicing teachers. The participants include a diverse ethnic and gender demographic of both elementary and secondary teachers. The veteran teacher cohort participants' use of agency was investigated through phenomenological methods (Husserl, 1931). The practicing teacher cohort was studied through grounded theory methods from a constructivist perspectivist (Charmaz, 2014), and included a participant action research (PAR) component. Data sources for both cohorts included interviews and a survey. The practicing teachers also participated in observations and related discussions. A critical theory lens was used as an aspect of the data analysis. The findings and implications reveal teacher agency to be a developmental process. Teacher agency is linked to teacher identity formation and sense of professional ownership. Forms of agency are reflective of teachers' teleological sense of purpose, vis-à-vis individual student autonomy and democratic and social justice visions. Implications for pre-service teacher education, teacher learning, and future research possibilities are discussed.

This study investigated the use of information and communication technology (ICT) within the Al-Ula school district of Saudi Arabia. This study was guided by the Tearle’s (2004) theoretical and instrumental framework for implementing change in ICT, which focuses on the individual, organizational, practical/material, and change implementation process factors relevant to ICT usage within organizations. Participants for this study were teachers and principals in the Al-Ula school district who had experience using ICT within their schools. Data consisted of interviews and surveys with these participants, which were analyzed qualitatively. The central questions of this study were: In what ways do teachers use or not use technology in Al-Ula schools? What do teachers and principals identify as the challenges to implementing educational technology in Al-Ula schools? What are teachers’ and principals’ recommendations to these challenges? Findings showed how district employees currently used ICT, ways they felt ICT use could be improved, and multiple barriers to ICT implementation at the organizational, practical/material, and individual level, including a lack of resources, training, policy, and plan for ICT implementation.

For those with interest in the making of modern China, the lives and thoughts of Chinese intellectuals provide a crucial dimension to understand the history and culture of Chinese society. Among a series of sociopolitical movements in the twentieth century, the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign notably redefined and reshaped the intellectual’s social identity, cultural and political obligations. Out of the crucible of political persecution and thought remolding through labor, Chinese intellectuals’ endurance through the catastrophe and their continuing presence throughout today’s Chinese society offers an impetus to approach the significance and limitation of personal transformation through suffering. This dissertation contextualizes the examination of Chinese intellectuals’ transformative experience in the fields of literature, history, and sociology. Based on the textual analysis of six fictional works by three rightist writers, Cong Weixi, Zhang Xianliang, and Wang Meng, the dissertation argues that the personal transformation brought about by historical and personal tragedies motivated and carried many intellectuals through hardships and adversities. It also reveals the subtleties and complexities of personal transformation through suffering, which further provide insights into the dynamics and tensions of the experiences of imprisonment, thought remolding, and literary production.