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This thesis is a phenomenology of understanding in the context of development practice in East Africa. It is framed by stories of my life and work, experiences rooted in European traditions and provoked and expanded in encounter with African traditions. My question began with methods for dealing with poverty and suffering. Even with all my goodwill and education and the might of large institutions behind me, I found myself part of a series of analytical interventions that seemed to make the problem worse. Yet I would like to contribute to a world where people live together well. This thesis is the story of how I laid siege to this conundrum, working on it from various angles until I saw development intervention for the incoherent prejudice that it was. How could something as co-operative as living well with others be achieved by something so domineering as methodical intervention? Western development consciousness has not noticed that other cultures cannot and will not bear such hubris. So I questioned the notion that a good method (or a good institution, analytical technique or moral code) is the first requirement for fair co-existence. Development, I realised, is conversations that we join, not instructions that we give. I asked instead how I and others come to agree, a question that many people in my profession have never asked. In a close examination of the way I have come to understandings in my own life, I draw on the work of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. His philosophical hermeneutics bring together multiple aspects of understanding: its consciousness, historicity, eventfulness, and linguistic and conversational nature. With the help of African thinkers, I gain more perspective - I take part in understandings that are held, provoked and renewed in conversation across time, geography and entire societies. Through the journey represented by this thesis I have come to understand that understanding speaks the world, its history, diversity and potential. I have come to know that from understanding comes method, not the other way around. It is an insight that has profound implications for those of us who work in the development field.

Capacity, the emergent combination of attributes that enables a human system to create developmental value (Morgan, 2006, 2008), is the point of arrival of an inquiry journey through a personal territory and the Portuguese non-profit world. Inspired by the metaphor of the Portuguese golden age of the maritime discoveries, and by Action Research, in line with Reason and Bradbury’s notion of inquiry into the “quality in our acting” (Reason and Bradbury, 2001), the author defies several borders in her exploration of answers to the question of “how to build capacity?”. This multi-level question is unfolded in three – the individual, the non-profit organisations and the society, in a journey that find points of connection. The author defies the border of her worldviews, embracing a participatory worldview that offers her an extended epistemology, which she explores in its multiple-level understanding of knowing comprised of experiential, practical, propositional and presentational knowing, in a process of personal and professional development in a concrete project – the Acreditar project. Through stories, another border the author defies, meaning is explored through layers of personal reflections and through shared meanings in a Learning History developed by the Acreditar team members. The stories presented are a result of a commitment to highlight the learning in capacity-building endeavours. In a particular story, and in a twist of irony, the learning emerges from an experience of dis-capacity. But that experience would serve as the departing basis for another re-start the author initiates, in a process of forgiveness that acknowledges the past as irreversible but redeemable. It is my intention to engage you in this journey from the beginning, and I hope this is also a useful journey for you. Ultimately its account is here to serve as basis for further dialogue I would be very glad to engage with you.

This thesis seeks to elaborate the inner qualities of integrity and presence in professional practice. It is offered as a contribution to the growing body of literature that shifts the emphasis in professional development from the transfer of skills and knowledge to the transformation of practice. Professional education has been viewed as the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required to address the presenting problems of daily practice. It has been assumed that the answers to these problems can be identified, codified and passed on to others, resulting in a kind of professionalism by protocol. But, as Dreyfus & Dreyfus (2005) have pointed out, there is a qualitative shift in the practice of experts when compared to novices and beginners. The expert evidences a deliberative skill that does not rely on the application of protocols but on extensive case by case experience. Indeed professionalism may be understood as the quality of practice that is evident at the very moment when protocols no longer apply (Coles 2002).Professional practice is not a simple concept as Kemmis (2006) has shown. The thesis contributes to this field by suggesting that professionalism is acquired through prolonged inquiry into the contingencies of quotidian practice and that this shapes the inner qualities the practitioner brings to their practice. It is offered as a first person inquiry (Reason 2001) that probes fractals of my own professional practice over a five year period. In telling my personal story, I give an account of an emergent methodology that engages with action research and narrative inquiry. A narrative mode of knowing (Bruner 1986) notices the complex, many sided and sometimes conflicting stories of professional life resulting, not in a set of propositional claims, but in an account that provides the reader with the imaginal space to enter the process and participate, with me, in making sense of professional practice.

abstract: International schools and international education initiatives are experiencing tremendous growth as the world’s economy continues to globalize. International schools operating outside of the traditional boundaries of state and national contexts have become havens noted for their diverse and multicultural staff, student bodies and school communities. However, the challenges facing international education have only recently begun to be studied independent from their traditional teaching counterparts. International schools, and any study associated with them, require an individual approach for identifying and solving the challenges unique to their context. “I’m Leaving!” is an action research study which incorporates phenomenological hermeneutics, action research, and a transformational innovation to examine the social structures associated with the decision-making process of the “I’m Leaving!” phenomenon and the administrative action developed in response. Guided by Transformational Leadership Theory (TLT), this study combined the latest action research methodological perspectives with hermeneutic tradition and Professional Learning Community (PLC) theory to provide a deep and unflinching view into the real and lived experiences of the one subject often forgot about in educational research: the teacher. The study results confirm previous study findings that teacher feelings and perceptions of the leadership effectiveness, teacher-leader relationships, and teacher professional growth opportunities were all improved after teachers participated in an action research communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2018

This study explores how governments use knowledge to inform telecommunications policy-making and policy-implementation in regional development. It focuses on epistemological aspects and assumptions made within the parameters of Enlightenment thinking or the Newtonian paradigm, also known as the classical scientit1c paradigm. It argues that lmowledge formed within this paradigm, usually generated at a distance, has been individ,uated, detached, segmented and abstracted. 'Individuation' focuses on individuals and things rather than communities and processes. 'Detachment' separates the subjective mind from the objective environment to produce reliable information. 'Segmentation' produces validity of information by parsing the objective environment from its social and historical context. 'Abstraction' allows objectivity and systematisation of information. When used to inform policy, such knowledge creates a narrow 'standardising gaze' that 'disciplines' communities to conform to dominant social behaviour and beliefs. Case studies are used to demonstrate that the two major models of development, as products ofthis paradigm, employ this gaze rendering replicability difficult ifnot impossible. These models are the top-down and bottom-up approach that are epitomised by the Silicon Valley model and telecentre moveluent respectively. How this gaze inhibits/facilitates development in policy implementation is then examined in the Goldfields Esperance region in Western Australia. An holistic approach using cotnplex adaptive systems is used to understand the multidisciplinary aspects involved in development. This is combined with action research, a reflexive methodology. Action research has the ability to access local knowledge to provide data and evaluation in situ rather than on a post hoc basis. The findings demonstrate that complex systems analysis and action research provide a modus operandi that: a) recognises the interplay of various factors (such as power relations, economic cycle, social and political institutions) at different levels of the system; b) recognises time, context and path-dependence of regional development; c) provides a filter that minimises the 'standardising gaze' and d) gives an access to knowledge and insight to local issues, which can facilitate policy implementation of development that is sympathetic to regional communities.

This thesis investigates the teaching of statistical literacy in the first two years of secondary school mathematics. The teachers involved in the research aim to make changes to classroom practice in the teaching and learning of statistics and statistical literacy in response to changes in the New Zealand curriculum. An action research methodology is adopted by the research. A group of three teachers and the author undertake an action research cycle of planning, observing, acting and reflecting in three different Year 9 and 10 mathematics classrooms. The research documents the designing and implementing of strategies by a group of teachers in a mathematics department for integrating statistical literacy into teaching programmes. The research adopts framework for improving practice that utilise models for statistical literacy and thinking and principles for teaching with a language learning or literacy focus. Data is collected through discussions with teachers, observations of lessons and interviews with teachers and students. Themes emerge from the data. They include the significance of teacher and student concepts of statistics and statistical literacy, the importance of language and literacy in the statistics classroom, the adoption of teaching principles to facilitate statistical literacy and the challenge of adopting a critical literacy stance in the statistics classroom. The study highlights the importance of literacy and language skills in statistical literacy. The research concludes that the important changes needed for developing statistical literacy are about classroom methodology rather than content knowledge and shows that adoption of language learning principles into the teaching programme may achieve this.

This exegesis follows the development and application of an informal learning model for marginalised young people frequenting the inner city area of Melbourne, Australia. The Melbourne Youth Learning Opportunities (MYLO) project emerged in response to an increasingly visible community of young people frequenting the city campuses and a simultaneous wave of public concern about young people's options in Melbourne around the turn of the millennium. The application of an action research model was central to the research and is reflected throughout this exegesis. The recurring steps of reflection, planning, analysis and action are witnessed throughout the life of the MYLO project on both micro and macro scales. The research methodology reflects action research principles of consultation and continual improvement whilst simultaneously catering for traditional academic principles of rigour and validity. Combined qualitative and quantitative data collection was supported by careful data reduction and display before the determination of findings and according actions. The exegesis follows the creation and trial of an innovative youth learning model. In turn, the work explores the evaluation of the trial, the dissemination of project results, efforts at forward planning and the eventual piloting of the model. Throughout the document the reflections of the project team and, more particularly, the author (as primary researcher) are closely considered. The exegesis concludes with an analysis of developments in literature since the time of MYLO's creation, the contribution of the project to this body of knowledge, the long term outcomes for the MYLO model and the long term outcomes in terms of the author's own personal and professional development.

The action research methodology and several of its methods have previously been highlighted and described by the authors as a fitting and rigorous framework approach for complex waste management systems.  This was in response to criticism of the ex ante selection of traditional empiric systems analysis tools to provide decision support and ‘sustainable improvement’ in such complex systems which often involve strong human and political factors.   Several of the action research methods described have recently been utilized in a case study around mineral (aggregate) construction and demolition waste in the Stockholm region.  These methods were integrated through a series of workshops and work areas undergone together with project members from several private and public sectors.  Leaving the problem fuzzy (loosely defined) in the beginning; utilizing convergent interviewing, rich pictures and focus groups allowed the researchers and partner stakeholders to identify not one but several problem areas within the system of focus.  Indicator creation and a dialectic processes were then used to identify qualitative and quantitative aspects of salience around these problem areas.  These resulting indicators were strengthened through a process of verification.  Each indicator was then analyzed by what was deemed to be appropriate and transparent means.  It is argued that this approach may create better communication, transparency, and understanding by the stakeholders.  These factors in turn allowing stronger stakeholder ownership of the process and assisting in more informed decisions and help to provide stability for desired change. However the process was not without its drawbacks such as intense communication and time requirements. / QC 20120110 / Project BRA