Le bâti ancien est aujourd’hui confronté à des enjeux normatifs, environnementaux et patrimoniaux qui favorisent sa réhabilitation et engagent une multiplicité d’acteurs dans cette activité. Ces engagements mettent en débat les savoirs, les mondes professionnels et les attachements que ces acteurs tissent autour des espaces édifiés. La thèse explore ces dynamiques autour du cas particulier du bâti ancien en pisé (bâtiments construits en terre crue damée dans des coffrages) dans le département de l’Isère. L’objectif de ce travail est de comprendre et de décrire comment et par qui ce bâti est mis en projet et réhabilité, dans un double sens d’amélioration physique et de revalorisation d’un objet aux significations multiples. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que les projets de réhabilitation, par les multiples formes d’engagement qu’ils construisent, participent à détacher l’expérience de ce bâti d’une expérience ordinaire. Ces projets mettent à l’épreuve les attachements que leurs porteurs développent autour du bâti existant et de la matière terre qui le constitue autant que les savoirs et les pratiques constructives qui s’y appliquent. Ces épreuves participent à l’émergence de collectifs qui tissent un maillage politique au sein duquel se composent des espaces de dialogue et d’appropriation des usages, de la pratique et du devenir du bâti existant.Pour explorer cette hypothèse, la recherche s’inscrit dans une perspective interdisciplinaire qui articule ressources théoriques et méthodes développées en architecture, en ethnologie et en sociologie. Elle développe une anthropologie pragmatique des cultures constructives qui compose une problématisation commune entre ces disciplines autour des questions soulevées par la réhabilitation du bâti ancien. L’exploration de ces questions se base sur un travail d’enquête qualitative multi-située. Il décrit les mondes de la réhabilitation en action, en suivant des parcours de projet portés par plusieurs catégories d’acteurs (habitants, professionnels, institutions). La thèse revient d’abord sur les différentes formes d’engagement qui participent à mettre le bâti ancien en projet, de l’intervention sur un bâtiment spécifique à sa mise en valeur de manière générale. Ces expériences de réhabilitation portent l’attention sur différentes qualités du bâti et contribuent à le faire sortir de l’ordinaire. Le bâti ancien en pisé est ainsi engagé – et engage lui-même – dans de multiples réalités. À la fois maison, lieu de vie, lieu de travail, patrimoine local ou architecture de terre, il fait agir, réagir et rentrer en relation les acteurs qui s’y intéressent. La deuxième partie de l’analyse décrit comment la difficulté d’appliquer des protocoles de réhabilitation entraine les porteurs de projet à s’engager dans des épreuves et à chercher des prises leurs permettant de mener à bien leurs projets. Ces épreuves entrainent les acteurs qui s’y investissent à ajuster leurs relations entre eux et avec le bâti au fur et à mesure du processus de projet. À mesure qu’ils s’approprient les savoirs de la réhabilitation, ils développent différentes formes d’attachement autour du bâti. Les projets de réhabilitation contribuent alors à l’émergence de collectifs plus ou moins pérennes qui se réapproprient les modalités d’intervention sur le bâti et les décisions qui le concernent. La thèse s’attache finalement à mieux comprendre les dimensions plurielles (matérielle, constructive, architecturale et interactionnelle) des cultures constructives du pisé et de sa réhabilitation et propose les éléments d’un dialogue à poursuivre avec les acteurs de terrain autour de l’intérêt et des conditions permettant de faire tenir un espace politique autour des usages et du devenir du bâti existant. / Ancient buildings face today normative, environmental and patrimonial issues which foster their renovation and engage a great diversity of actors. This multiplicity initiates a debate around knowledge, professional worlds and attachments which are woven around existing buildings. This thesis delves into these dynamics focusing on the case of ancient rammed earth building (raw earth compressed into an external formwork) in the French department of Isere, France. It aims at describing how and by whom rammed earth buildings are involved in retrofitting projects, considering both their physical and representational improvement. We make the hypothesis that retrofitting projects, through the multiple ways of engagement they imply, help to free the experience of this buildings from an ordinary experience. Indeed, they put on trial the attachments developed by the actors around existing buildings and earthen material as much as the building knowledge and practices. These trials bring out collectives that weave a political meshwork. At different scales, this meshwork composes spaces for dialogue and appropriation of uses, practices and futures of existing buildings.The exploration of this hypothesis follows an interdisciplinary perspective that connect theoretical resources and methods developed in architecture, ethnology and sociology. It develops a pragmatic anthropology of building cultures composing a common problematic for these disciplines to discuss ancient building retrofitting. The investigation is based on multi-sited qualitative ethnography. Following projects paths carried by different actors (inhabitants, professionals, institutions), it describes the retrofitting worlds in action. First, the thesis describes the various forms of engagement in retrofitting projects, from the intervention on a specific building to its evaluation as heritage. These experience draw attention on different qualities of the buildings and bring them out of their ordinary status. Ancient rammed earth buildings are therefore engaged – and engage themselves – in multiple realities: house, place of life, workplace, local heritage, earthen architecture. It makes the actors act, react and interact. Then, the analysis shows how the difficulty of applying strict rehabilitation protocols leads the actors to engage in trials and to develop holds to carry out their projects. As the project progresses, these trials lead them to adjust their relations with each other and with existing buildings. As they grasp knowledge about retrofitting, they develop different attachments. Therefore, retrofitting projects contribute to the emergence of collectives, more or less durable. At their own scale, these collectives reclaim the methods of interventions on buildings and the decision that concern them. The thesis eventually aims to better understand the plural dimensions (material, constructive, architectural and interactional) of rammed earth building retrofitting and propose components for a dialogue to carry on with local stakeholders around the interests and conditions that would make possible to hold a political space around the uses and futures of existing buildings.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-05-29T17:29:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Luiza Mara Mattiello Rossetto.pdf: 7890077 bytes, checksum: d50f6845f991bda932cd42f65b72ede3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-29T17:29:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luiza Mara Mattiello Rossetto.pdf: 7890077 bytes, checksum: d50f6845f991bda932cd42f65b72ede3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-01-31 / Nenhuma / Esta pesquisa procura relacionar o Design com Comunidades de Prática. Comunidades de Prática são grupos espontâneos que se reúnem entorno de um objetivo em comum com ou sem objetivos comerciais (BETTIOL et al, 2011) como, por exemplo, um grupo de amigos que se encontra para trocar ideias sobre algo que agrada ou incomoda a todos. Criam-se comunidade entorno de áreas propícias pra desenvolver projetos, porém fora das estruturas de organizações tradicionais. As dificuldades enfrentadas por esses grupos muitas vezes não são resolvidas de maneira satisfatória por não utilizarem métodos ou alguma forma sistematizada de chegar às soluções. O Design, como disciplina, tenta auxiliar na solução de problemas e pode ter seus métodos deslocados para as necessidades sociais. Nesta pesquisa, utilizamos o conceito de Design Estratégico e sua abordagem metodológica como uma forma de resolver problemas deste tipo. Neste trabalho, foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória com o objetivo de identificar e analisar uma Comunidade de Prática em rede, no caso, de ciclistas da cidade de Porto Alegre, e entender de que forma pode-se propor cenários de Design Estratégico para ajudá-la a alcançar seus objetivos. Trata-se de um grupo formado por pessoas de idades variadas que tem a bicicleta como meio de transporte alternativo em comum. Este grupo busca discutir como incluir essa forma de mobilidade de maneira igualitária e, assim, ser respeitado no tráfego diário, conquistando seu espaço. Com essa finalidade, utilizou-se um método de projeto do Design Estratégico adaptado a elementos próximos do dia a dia das pessoas, desenhando-se um processo mais acessível. Sua aplicação junto a uma Comunidade de Prática implica na atuação do designer como um mediador (CELASCHI, 2008) que tenta conciliar as ideias geradas, sintetizando-as e criando especulações de respostas. Mais do que um método fechado, imagina-se um conjunto de ferramentas adaptáveis às necessidades frente a cada resolução de problema (CELASCHI, 2007). Neste processo ocorre a aprendizagem através da reflexão na ação (SCHÖN, 2000) a qual é enriquecida pela troca de experiência dos participantes. Por isso, o processo multidisciplinar e transdisciplinar de busca de informações para a inovação é essencial e encontrado frequentemente nas Comunidades de Prática. Foi realizado um exercício projetual com algumas pessoas pertencentes a este grupo. Foi gerado um conjunto de dados que foram analisados com o objetivo de apontar indícios de como o método estudado deve ser adaptado à situação da Comunidade. Neste exercício, foram apresentadas e exercitadas as habilidades criativas a partir de vídeos e impressos com instruções sobre as ferramentas da metodologia. Depois, analisou-se o processo, o papel dos atores e o aprendizado, bem como as dificuldades encontradas. As respostas obtidas ajudaram a propor correções metodológicas relacionadas à melhor compreensão da aplicação das ferramentas para obter resultados mais satisfatórios. / This research seeks to relate Design to Communities of Practice. Communities of Practice are spontaneous groups who gather around a common purpose with or without commercial objectives (BETTIOL et al, 2011), for example, a group of friends who meet to exchange ideas on something that pleases or annoys everyone. Those are created around areas proned to develop projects, but outside the structures of traditional organizations. The difficulties faced by these groups are often not satisfactorily solved because of using no methods or systematic way of getting to the solutions. The Design as a discipline attempts to assist in troubleshooting and its methods may have shifted from industry to social needs. In this research, we use the Concept of Strategic Design and its methodological approach as a way to solve such problems. To check if this is possible or not, we developed an exploratory research with the goal to identify and analyze a Community of Practice network, in this case, of cyclists in Porto Alegre, and understand how you can propose Strategic Design scenarios to help them achieve their goals. It is a group of people of varying ages that has the bicycle as a means of alternative transportation in common. This group discusses how to include this form of mobility equitably and thus be respected in everyday traffic, conquering its space. For this purpose, the Design method was synthesized in elements around everyday peoples life, drawing up a methodological process more accessible. Its application along with a Community of Practice implies the role of designer as a mediator (CELASCHI, 2008) which attempts to reconcile the ideas generated, synthesizing and creating speculation responses. More than a closed method, it was imagined as a set of tools adaptable to the needs facing every problem solving (CELASCHI, 2007). In this process learning occurs through reflection in action (SCHON, 2000), which is enriched by the exchange of experience of the participants. Therefore, the process of transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary information in search for innovation is essential and often found in Communities of Practice. It was performed a projectual exercise applying the synthetic methodology with a test group. It was generated a set of data that were analyzed with the aim of pointing indications of how the studied method should be adapted to the situation of the Community of Practice. In this exercise were presented and exercised creative skills from videos and printed instructions on the tools of the methodology. After the process, we analyzed the process, the role of actors and learning, as well as the difficulties encountered. The answers helped propose fixes related to methodological understanding of the application of the tools to get better results.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Beatrice M Carola Gropp.pdf: 487473 bytes, checksum: 589849e1e5cb32783ccc44387c2c9de2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-09-21 / The starting point of this research is a lifelong personal question: how does spontaneous learning occurs in workplaces? To this question follows: Is it possible to assimilate the tacit knowledge sphere in workplaces practices? Aiming to answer those initial questions, the ethnographical approach is presented as a possibility to capture the embedded and non-articulated knowledge among multiple people acting together in workplaces settings. The ethnographical research done on a 11 months field research at a chemical plant located in the area of Campinas, in Brazil, became of historical reference, both as a pioneer ethnographical research done on entrepreneurial context and as a first approach to the nature and presence of communities of practice in workplaces. Theoretical background of this research is based on a literature that emphasizes the situational and experiential nature of learning as proposed by Dewey and other learning in practice authors. The community of practice perspective is based on the early 90´s work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger developed at the Institute of Research on Learning in Palo Alto, California. The social and negotiated character of tacit and implicit knowledge of spontaneous learning in action is explored through two problem-situations related to the productive processes occurred during the ethnographical research. The situated character of learning is presented through the participation on a one-month in company course structured to prepare a group of 20 recently hired chemical operators which we attended as regular student. By placing the anthropologist as a research subject and apprentice of a dated and situated productive activity, the ethnographical approach identifies the social organization and the access structure of apprenticeship on the production process, aiming to reach a relational point of view of social determinants that improve or inhibits learning processes in workplaces. Key words: Ethnography, communities of practice, social learning, tacit knowledge / O ponto de partida desta dissertação esta na pergunta que me persegue de longa data: como ocorre a aprendizagem espontânea em ambientes de trabalho? Como corolário indagamos: É possível captar a esfera do conhecimento tácito e implícito atuando na prática do trabalho? Com o objetivo de responder a estas duas perguntas iniciais, a abordagem etnográfica é apresentada como possibilidade de conhecer este conhecimento submerso e não articulado que se constrói entre atores múltiplos desenvolvendo atividades produtivas conjuntas, situações encontradas no contexto empresarial em que a pesquisa se insere. A pesquisa etnográfica de referência histórica efetuada ao longo de 11 meses numa unidade de produção da indústria química localizada nas proximidades de Campinas inclui 62 horas de registros em vídeo, 74 fotos e 35 fitas em áudio, e veio a se constituir em duplo marco: no âmbito da antropologia, esta imersão etnográfica é pioneira no contexto empresarial brasileiro. No universo da aprendizagem organizacional, é datada como a primeira abordagem de comunidades de prática em locais de trabalho. O horizonte teórico está na perspectiva de comunidades de prática tal como desenvolvida nos trabalhos iniciais de Jean Lave e Etienne Wenger junto ao Institute for Research on Learning de Palo Alto, tendo como pano de fundo a noção de experiência e interação propostas por Dewey e outros teóricos que tratam da aprendizagem na prática. O caráter social e negociado entre o tácito e o implícito no processo de aprendizagem espontânea e em ação, é explorado através da análise de duas situações-problema ocorridas no processo de fabricação de uma matéria prima para indústria química, vivenciadas no decorrer da pesquisa etnográfica. O tema da aprendizagem organizacional, onde a prática é considerada fenômeno gerador, tendo como característica a aprendizagem, é abordado através do Curso de Formação de Operadores da Indústria Química do qual participamos como parte integrante da etnografia. Desta situação de aprendizagem formal, extraímos proposições quanto a um modelo de aprendizagem socialmente situada. A pesquisa se insere na corrente dos teóricos da ação que enfatizam a natureza situacional e coletiva da aprendizagem. Ao inserir o sujeito pesquisador e antropólogo atuando como aprendiz de uma atividade produtiva, a abordagem etnográfica identifica a organização social do espaço e a estrutura de acesso do aprendiz no fluxo das atividades de fabricação, procurando extrair um ponto de vista relacional sobre os determinantes sociais que facilitam ou impedem a aprendizagem em locais de trabalho.

This dissertation study explored the practices that foster teacher development in a community of practice (Wenger, 1998, 2010) of teachers of English as an Additional Language in a large federal university in the south of Brazil. The community is part of a big internationalization effort in Brazilian universities, named Languages without Borders (LwB). In summary, the goal of the program is to teach additional languages for university students, faculty and staff. For that, the local LwB center has fifteen student teachers, from sophomore to senior year, who are pursuing a teaching certification in English as an Additional Language. Although the community has teaching as its end goal, and not teacher development, teacher development has emerged as an epiphenomenon, for student teachers need to learn how to teach in order for the community’s goals to be attained. The objective of this study was to observe, describe and analyze the practices that foster professional development for these student teachers in order to understand in what ways (and if) the experiences in their everyday life of the community become professional learning. While previous research has shown that communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) can be sites of learning, and has explored communities among teachers and students in a variety of contexts, there is a scarcity of studies about community among these additional language teachers (Costa, 2013; Merril, 2016) With the theoretical framework of Practice Theory (Wenger, 1998; Young, 2009; Ortner, 1983), this interpretative study (Erickson, 1990) examined history-in-person interviews with focal participants as well as intensive participant observation – recorded in the form of field notes, audio recordings and photographs – and collection of artifacts. The research participants consist of fifteen student teachers, two former student teachers, three Fulbright English Teaching Assistants, and two of the three coordinators of the program at this university. Out of these, five student teachers were chosen for the interviews. Results revealed that this community has both formal and informal practices that cultivate teacher development. The formal practices are planned by the coordinator and enacted in weekly pedagogical meetings, and include practices such as microteaching, workshops and lectures. The informal practices emerge from teachers’ everyday interactions in the teachers’ room, and include practices such as sharing materials, requesting help, sharing classroom stories, sharing specialized concepts and literature in the field of AL teaching, and planning classes together. In conclusion, the landscape of practices that student teachers experience throughout their trajectory in the program helps them develop as teachers through the profession (Nóvoa, 1992) and integrate both technical and practical aspects of the job.

This doctoral thesis is a practice-led and corporate-grounded enquiry into the role of design research methods in a global technology company. The work aims to understand and communicate through a series of case studies how locally conducted participatory action research can be integrated into the processes of an in-house design team at the global NCR Corporation. It questions the current approaches taken in the design and development of consumer transaction technologies in the context of a global organisation and new markets. The thesis starts by introducing the reader to the global corporation in which the study is focused and author employed, the NCR Corporation. The contextual grounding of the corporate environment, its heritage, history and continued evolution will illustrate the dynamic yet traditional role design has played within the corporation. As a senior member of the Consumer Experience Design (Cx Design) team in the corporation the author is well placed to evaluate the role of design and how it can evolve. The immediate contextualisation is then followed by a broad examination of the literature in the field of design in a corporate culture, research methods and socially-led innovation. This will define the boundaries of interest and influence in the thesis. A participatory action research approach was taken to address the research questions. Informed by a series of hyperlocal and global community engagements framed and directed from within the corporate culture, the author defines an understanding of the levels of community engagement through design research. The resulting outputs are then applied within the context of the NCR Corporation where the impact and influence on such engagements can be understood. The author concludes that his contribution to new knowledge, the development of a Participatory Action Based Strategic Design Process, can be applied within a global technology company. The process adapts McNiff’s and Whitehead’s (2011) seven phases of action research reporting and Ravi Chhatpar’s strategic decision-making process. The thesis demonstrates the value and influence of design research methods in the design of consumer transaction technologies. The thesis provides an understanding of how design research methods have been applied in a corporate environment, how the insights are applied, and demonstrates how the research has influenced the author’s practice and therefore the wider Cx Design group.

This study contributes an original, practice-based analysis of knowledge brokering in inter-organisational communities of practice in the not-for-profit sector. Defining characteristics of the not-for-profit sector include its social values, principles and practices. Existing literature understates or overlooks the significance of values and principles that are manifested in and enlivened through every day social practices and practitioner encounters. The study contributes by presenting knowledge brokering as a knowledge sharing intervention which integrates people, processes, values and principles into practice. Knowledge brokering and other practice interventions in the not-for-profit sector have to align with its social mission, if they are to be compatible and effective. This is especially so in multi-agency partnerships and inter-organisational communities of practice where collaboration and co-existence rather than assimilation are the primary objectives. This study finds that values-compatible knowledge brokering interventions, boundary bridging, co-creation, common artefacts and knowledge sharing, enable inter-organisational communities of practice to evolve without sacrificing individual autonomy. Foundational knowledge brokering literature emphasises the structural position of the knowledge broker, their knowledge superiority and the benefits they accrue by operating on the periphery of a social network. The study contributes by arguing that knowledge brokering processes and roles can be examined through an alternative practice lens with the knowledge broker as an internal co-practitioner located within a network. The study was carried out in a new, time-limited multi-agency partnership project in the not-for-profit sector. The partnership constituted an inter-organisational community of practice comprising advice, information and support agencies that had agreed to work collaboratively to improve local services. The author was employed as the project s Knowledge Management Officer and carried out the study over a two year period using an insider action research approach. As an insider practitioner-researcher, the author contributed to the project s objectives, worked collaboratively with practitioners and gathered rich data. Action and research occurred simultaneously and the iterative processes enabled the cumulative learning to inform, develop and analyse the practice. The combination of using insider action research approach, an examination of knowledge brokering as a practice intervention and a multi-agency, not-for-profit setting, makes this a unique practice-based study untapping knowledge management lessons from the not-for-profit sector.

With the increasing use of social media by students, researchers, administrative staff, and faculty in post-secondary education (PSE), a number of institutions have developed guideline and policy documents to set standards for social media use. Social media platforms and applications have the potential to increase communication channels, support learning, enhance research, and encourage community engagement at PSE institutions. As social media implementation and administration has developed in PSE, there has been minimal assessment of the substance of social media guideline and policy documents. The first objective of this research study was to examine an accessible, online database (corpus) comprised of 24, 243 atomic social media guideline and policy text documents from 250 PSE institutions representing 10 countries to identify central attributes. To determine text meaning from topic extraction, a rotated latent semantic analysis (rLSA) method was applied. The second objective of this investigation was to determine if the distribution of topics analyze in the corpus differ by PSE institution geographic location. To analyze the diverging topics, the researcher utilized an iterative consensus-building algorithm.Through the maximum term frequencies, LSA determined a rotated 36-factor solution that identified common attributes and topics shared among the 24,243 social media guideline and policy atomic documents. This initial finding produced a list of 36 universal topics discussed in social media guidelines and policies across all 250 PSE institutions from 10 countries. Continually, the applied chi-squared tests, that measured expected and observed document term counts, identified distribution differences of content related factors between US and Non-US PSE institutions. This analysis offered a concrete analysis for unstructured text data on the topic of social media guidance. This resulted in a comprehensive list of recommendations for developing social media guidelines and policies, and a database of social media guideline and policy documents for the PSE sector and other related organizations. Additionally, this research stimulated important theoretical development for how organizations socially construct a semantic structure within a community of practice. By assessing the community of practice, comprised of PSE 250 institutions that direct social media use, a corpus of documents provided unstructured data to evaluate the community. The spontaneous participation and reification process of the social media guideline and policy document corpus reaffirmed that a corpus-creating community of practice can instinctively form a knowledge-sharing organization that provides meaning, values, and identity. These findings should stimulate further research contributions, and provides practitioners and scholars with tools to measure, understand, and assess semantic space for other artifacts developed within a community of practice in other industries, organizations, or distributed associations.

Instructional coaching has been a professional learning opportunity that many school districts have employed to support teacher practice. Pairing instructional coaching with on-going workshops is a relatively new approach to professional development. Participants for this study include fourteen middle school teachers that teach either mathematics or collaborate with special needs students. This study examines the effect that pairing instructional coaching with on-going workshops (with a primary focus on proportional reasoning) has on participants’ content knowledge and their perceptions of coaching. Drawing on Wenger’s community of practice theory and post-modern theory of power, this study employs mixed-methods design. Pre- and post-tests for proportional reasoning were administered to analyze the extent to which content knowledge changed over the course of the study. Pre- and post-interviews were conducted with each participant to determine any misconceptions each had on proportional reasoning and their perceptions of coaching (before and after the study’s instructional coaching). Grounded theory and thematic analysis was employed on the pre-and post-interviews to examine the role that power played in the participants’ perceptions of effective coaching attributes. Results suggest that (a) instructional coaching coupled with on-going professional workshops can change content knowledge in participants; (b) perceptions of coaching can change as the result of experiencing a coaching relationship and (c) power dynamics in the coaching experience determine the extent to which participants see the effectiveness of coaching as a professional development activity.

Novice teachers do not have sufficient opportunities to troubleshoot real-world teaching situations prior to having their own classrooms. Antiquated professional development (PD) models lack the collaboration element that provides authentic application of concepts. This qualitative case study was conducted to fill a gap in research on novice teachers' voluntary participation in an online community of practice. The study explored how the situated learning in this virtual community addressed the cognitive and social needs of early career teachers as they made the theory to practice connections. The community of practice framework and the social learning theories supported socialization as essential in early career teachers' growth. Research questions in the study examined five teachers' beliefs about collaboration- in promoting community engagement, the influence of voluntary participation on the quality of teacher engagement, and teachers' perceptions of the use of Web 2.0 technology to build community. A priori codes were created using the theoretical frame and research questions to guide the analysis of audio, transcriptions, observations, and other coded artifacts to find themes and patterns promoting internal validity. Findings revealed teachers' belief in collaboration impacted their level of engagement virtually. While voluntary participation motivates teacher participation, it does not guarantee high quality engagement without accountability. Since attrition is a continual threat to the teaching workforce, study results validate recommending the use of virtual resources to facilitate CoPs to remedy the mentoring and coaching void for early career teachers. Also, innovative use of Web 2.0 tools should be used to expose new teachers to diverse experiences that bridge theory to practice gaps and encourage teacher leadership, which promotes retention.

This thesis explored the introduction of a new physics curriculum in New Zealand secondary schools. It was part of a nationwide overhaul of the whole school curriculum from primary to secondary schools, initiated in the early 1990s. The study of curriculum change is inextricably woven with teacher change, as the teacher is seen as central to any real change in curricula in the classroom. Some theories of teacher change are reviewed here and synthesised into a list of criteria relevant to bringing about effective change in teachers and their practices. A sociocultural perspective emerged as being a useful theoretical approach in analysing and explaining these processes of curriculum change and teacher change because it takes a holistic approach that deals with 'people, places and things' and the discourses involved therein. In particular, Wenger's sociocultural theory was used to study the introduction of a new senior physics curriculum. His terms 'reification' and 'participation' were seen to apply to this research: the curriculum document was taken to be a reified communication artifact, and 'participation' is involved in every stage of its development and implementation. In the context of this theorising, data was procured from in-depth interviews with the three curriculum writers and ten physics teachers in and around a provincial city in New Zealand. The teachers were interviewed three times over a period of three years: before, during and after the first year of implementation; namely 1996 to 1998. The interviews showed that most of these ten physics teachers did not undergo any significant change in their teaching because of the introduction of 'Physics in the New Zealand Curriculum'. The reasons or barriers identified, such as lack of guidelines and clarity, and contentment with their own existing practice, were aligned with factors that have been identified by other researchers as important influences on teachers undergoing change, such as clarity of change and need for change. Three key elements were identified from these issues emerging from the data as necessary conditions or resources for teacher change: knowledge, support and time. In the present study, there was very limited knowledge held by the teachers about 'what', 'how' and 'why' changes were being implemented. Secondly, there was little social and system support for the curriculum change. Finally, teachers had little time to focus on and reflect on the change. A model of curriculum change, incorporating Wenger's notions of 'reification' and 'participation', but extended to include 'dereification' emerged from the data. 'Dereification' highlighted an important stage whereby the curriculum document as an artifact, needed to be incorporated into the plane of lived experiences of teachers. The introduction of the term 'dereification' supported the development of this model of curriculum change incorporating teacher change whereby the model outlined processes of reification and dereification involved in a mandated curriculum change. The model of curriculum change developed here also contained a screen that symbolises the lack of intersubjective linkage between teachers and the designers of the new curriculum. There was no follow-up teachers' guide, not enough explanation of the curriculum document, no direct communication between the writers and the teachers, and insufficient professional development for the teachers using it. The research findings led to three propositions: the curriculum document as a key artifact was not sufficient to effect a curriculum change; the lack of transparency of the curriculum document development was a constraint on teachers' commitment to the curriculum change; and the lack of support for teachers in their dereification of the curriculum document impacted negatively on curriculum change. The key elements of knowledge, support and time identified as crucial for teachers to effect any real change in their practice are critical at different points in the model of curriculum change. It is suggested that using such an interplay between the factors underlying teacher change and the sociocultural analysis of curriculum change, might enable more pro-active intervention at the various stages of the process of a curriculum change to effect a real change.