Interest in reflective practices, within the broader framework of teachers’ professional knowledge, has been ongoing in educational research for the past few decades. The idea from which reflection itself stems is that of teachers’ agency in their own professional development. The initial positivist approach viewed the relationships between teachers’ theoretical knowledge and educational practice in terms of hierarchical reductionism. We analyze the relationships between different types of knowledge from a historical-cultural perspective, which requires locating them in the context of the cultural activities. Our aim is to analyze the discursive interactions, which take place during collaborative seminars, within a reflective practicum, and to identify how the university tutors support and foster reflection on practice. We use a multiple case design in which each case is a classroom unit made up of a tutor and his or her students. An analysis of the tutors’ discourse revealed an ongoing promotion of students’ active engagement through highly structured classroom participation, a strong focus on interpreting students’ personal experiences during teaching practice and significant interventions aimed at establishing links with academic knowledge. Results invite us to rethink the ways in which we can contribute to processes of reflection among trainee teachers.

Various authors in the tradition of cultural psychology have analysed the idea of the existence of different ways of thinking. Several classifications about ways of thinking have been proposed, all of them referring to similar ideas. Bruner distinguishes between narrative and propositional thinking, while Scribner distinguish between theoretical and empirical or functional argumentation. Vygotsky also assumed the existence of different ways of thinking. Once the cognitive plurality and the existence of different ways of thinking has been accepted, we are left with two questions: what changes in the different ways of thinking, and why does it change? With regard to the first question, we must consider the differences in the means employed to mediate mental processes. As for the second issue, we refer to the activity settings and practices in which individuals participate. The empirical analysis is applied in the context of adult education. Individuals in the sample belong to two different levels of adult education: basic literacy and advanced literacy levels. Two different tasks are proposed: the first consists of preparing menus and the second is a classification task. Results related to the different ways of solving these tasks show a plurality of ways of thinking in individuals in the advanced group. Our data show how school experience allows the development of new ways of thinking and the adjustment of mental functioning to task demands. Heterogeneity of verbal thinking is here interpreted and discussed as a heterogeneity despite genetic hierarchy, instead of a non-genetic one or as a hierarchy of power. From this, it appears that development is not the replacement of one mode of discourse-thinking by another, but the differentiation and co-existence of different ways of thinking connected to different practices.

: Achieving adequate integration and success at school in the post-compulsory stages involving situations where there is a risk of social exclusion is a real identity challenge for adolescents. In this research, we used a convenience sampling and selected two high schools located in Areas in Need of Social Transformation in Seville (southern Spain). We studied the learner identity of all their students in the first and second grade of secondary post-compulsory education (N = 70). These students present a trajectory of resilience, as they remained in the education system despite facing many difficulties. In this exploratory research, their identity as learners was analysed through an interview applied in a focus group format (N = 12), where their supports, strengths and psycho-social obstacles that facilitate/hinder their stay in the education system in the post-compulsory stage were also identified. Results show that adolescents have a good attitude towards academic training, based on the conviction that, in the future, they will be able to achieve a higher quality of life and a rapid insertion in skilled jobs. The image students have of themselves combines a negative perception of their lack of work habits, the difficulty of self-regulation and the little effort made, with a more positive view of their agency in the process, highlighting their intellectual and academic capacity and their effort when they set out to do so. Family, teachers and peers play a role in the resilience and identity construction of the adolescents, through protecting them, developing positive perceptions and expectations, stimulating control and effort and attributing successes and failures to students. Programmes based on the participation of the target group are essential for the design and improvement of psychosocial intervention programmes in these contexts.

Our general aim is to study the construction of meaning in the classroom through the analysis of classroom activities and discourse. We adopt a qualitative methodology to study educational practices. Our results describe how teachers create an account to narrate certain events, how teacher and students use what they consider to be the culturally valid sources of knowledge, and how students appropriate collective constructions of meanings. Our work contributes to the understanding and description of how meaning is coconstructed in educational activities.

This work assumes the existence of a functional and dialectical relationship between activity settings, modes of discourse and ways of thinking. A research is developed to study the influence of schooling and the cultural origins in concepts formation. The participants were border residents from Brownsville (Texas, United States) and from Matamoros (Tamaulipas, Mexico). They belong to two different educational levels (primary and university education). Participants solved a task on concepts formation related to border and citizen on the border notions. Results showed that the subjects from a basic educational level and the Mexican citizens on the border used the most concrete values of the categories studied. We stand that different learning contexts generate different ways of argumentation and concepts, which are valid both for school activities and for everyday life in one side or other of the border.