Physics teachers’ definitions of equity inform how they identify inequity and take action to transform it. In this paper, we adapted Gutiérrez’s framework from mathematics education research physics research. The defines in terms four dimensions: access , achievement identity power . We used characterize the conceptions shared by 23 teachers who participated an equity-focused professional devel...

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence typifies many international trends in curricular policy, through its emphasis on generic skills and competencies, its focus on pedagogy and its apparent extension of autonomy to teachers as agents of change. Such curricula pose considerable challenges to school systems, where prevailing practices are often at odds with policy aspirations. This article draws ...

Research in science education in the last thirty years has shown that students enter chemistry classes with many preconceived ideas about the behavior of the natural world (1). These ideas, derived from previous physical and social experiences, often lead them to make predictions and build explanations different from those derived by currently accepted scientific theories and practices. Moreove...

OBJECTIVE To understand school bullying from the perspective of teachers and reflect about the possible actions of the health area when coping with it. The guidelines of the School Health Program of the Ministries of Health and Education were used to reach that purpose. METHOD A qualitative study carried out with teachers of a public school in Minas Gerais. Focus groups were used to collect d...

We designed a professional development (PD) program to increase the teacher efficacy of mathematics teachers. We randomly assigned 106 grade 6 teachers in one school district to treatment and control conditions in a delayed treatment design. The PD explicitly addressed four sources of teacher efficacy information identified in social cognition theory (Bandura, 1997). Treatment teachers outperfo...