Introduction: For academics in UK Higher Education (HE), professional learning (PL) is a complex endeavour involving a multitude of (in)formal learning encounters. However, these PL encounters are at risk as academics prioritised conflicting knowledge domains and negotiate various social and material engagements that can enable or encumber these encounters. This thesis reports on research that attempts to illuminate these sociomaterial entanglements using Actor-Network Theory and Non-Representational Theory as a theoretical framework. Methods: A transformative mixed method case study of a single UK university using content analysis, questionnaire, interview and photovoice methods were undertaken. Twelve academic staff, with module leader responsibilities, were selected from the academic staff questionnaire (n:182) to be interviewed and photograph their PL experiences. Unique to sociomaterial investigation was the photovoice method, enabling the participants to become empowered as co-researchers. Results The analysis of the data suggests that academics tend to be strategic in prioritising conflicting knowledge domains. In the case of knowledge not related to their subject discipline, academics will often fast-track information from a "knowledgeable other". Furthermore, academics will construct "surrogate" or "transient" spaces in which to seek refuge from the various disruptions and interruptions generated by their institution. Academics will use these spaces for uninterrupted learning or work and as a means for promoting self-care. Discussion: The study identified four interrelated spatial properties (transient, affective, controlled and immersive), which provides an explanation why some spaces were more conducive to PL than other spaces. Furthermore, space is composed of multiple and interconnected spatial configurations that coalesce into a single spatial configuration, which I call coalescent space. The study also proposes a number of future research directions involving the PL of early career academics and academics on sessional contracts.

Professional identity is a socially constructed concept, one we cannot physically measure, point to, see, touch or hear; yet we sense it in ourselves, even if it is not always clear what the identity is. Interwoven with professional identity, notions of ‘professionalism’, ‘re-professionalising’, ‘professionalisation’ and ‘raising professional standards’ have been common topics of debate surrounding teachers in the Further Education and Skills sector for many years. Whilst ninety percent of teachers in the Further Education (FE) sector undertake Initial Teacher Education (ITE) on a part-time basis whilst in-service, little is written about their experiences and the role these experiences play in shaping their professional identity. Primarily concerned with exploring the relationship between praxis and the professional identity of in-service, undergraduate trainee teachers, my research was designed to give voice to their experiences as they navigated their way through a part-time teacher education programme while working as full-time contracted teachers. Often these experiences are not articulated, and to a degree remain hidden. However, as a teacher educator I have been in the privileged position where trainee teachers have shared their stories with me. In keeping with the interpretive methodology and the bricolage method of the research, to give voice to the participants’ experiences I have used the structure of vignettes to create layered stories that are rich in detail and characterisation, and allow for the juxtaposing of their individual and shared experiences to reveal the implicit significance of their stories. The layered stories and discussion of findings in the thesis provide unique insight into the lived experiences of teachers in the hitherto largely neglected phase of in-service, undergraduate teachers in post-compulsory ITE.

Professional Doctorates in Education (EdD) have been established in many universities in England over the last 25 years, but there is little empirical research on them. The studies that do exist are largely literature reviews comparing professional doctorates to traditional doctorates. The empirical work tends to be student-centred, dealing with issues such as motivation for undertaking a professional doctorate; how professional doctorates impact on professional identities; and, the type of critical skills required to engage successfully with a professional doctorate. There has been one empirical survey of EdDs, but this was only as part of a wider survey on the field of professional doctorates. What is missing is twofold: first a consideration of the landscape of EdD programmes; what is being offered where, and how might we understand the nature of the knowledge acquired. Secondly, there is no description of the pedagogical frameworks of EdDs and how these bridge the various knowledge boundaries between theoretical, academic and professional knowledges. This thesis sets out to investigate these issues. The study draws on the theoretical concepts of Basil Bernstein and, in part, Karl Maton’s development of these concepts. Maton’s extension of Bernstein’s horizontal and vertical discourse, the semantics modality of legitimation code theory, was used to situate the EdD programmes in relation to one another with regards to the type of knowledge transmitted and acquired by students engaged in those EdDs. This was done through a survey of the EdD websites, quantifying the discourse of those websites and relevant online documentation related to the programmes. Having mapped the programmes through this survey of publicly available material, three partial case studies were developed, each demonstrating a different knowledge focus and pedagogical approach. I used Bernstein’s concept of classification and framing to describe how the pedagogical process of the EdD might, or might not, weaken the boundaries between theoretical knowledge and professional knowledge thereby making it possible for students to connect the two. The findings showed that most EdD programmes emphasised context-independent knowledge and context-dependent knowledge in broadly equal measure. Diverse students were accommodated within structured curricula in communities of learners, albeit in slightly different ways, by providing a theoretical and pedagogical framework in which the students found commonalities and by drawing on the shared experiences of different professional practices to enrich students’ learning experience. Despite each programme having a different focus, all programmes allowed students to develop their own research focus relevant to their professional practice. The deeper description of the three partial case studies also indicated that although the programme focus was an important part of enabling students to find an EdD which best suited their needs, the pedagogic framework should carry equal weight with regards to facilitating students’ ability to connect theoretical knowledge to professional knowledge. For this reason, the pedagogic approach should also be explicated clearly as part of the online information. There has not been any recent mapping of professional doctorates such as EdDs in England. This research has developed a new approach to this problem that a) sheds light on EdDs in England and b) could be useful in mapping other professional doctorates and investigating knowledge acquisition and production in these disciplines.

This thesis offers a rare insight into senior leadership in International Baccalaureate (IB) international schools. The IB international school profits from the perceived quality and consistency of the IB brand, however, international schools suffer from an endemic culture of change and reinterpretation. The International Baccalaureate Learner Profile (IBLP) offers scope for consistency and an overarching ethos, and previous research suggests that ‘buy-in’ to the IBLP, and modelling of it in all aspects of school life, are essential in achieving this. The IB itself promotes the IBLP as a valuable tool for leadership. It emerges that buy-in to the IBLP in directors is split between the personal and the operational. This interpretive study investigates international school leadership in the Western European context through six IB directors. It is noteworthy in its multi-phase research over two years, employing an aspect of critical phenomenology. It explores directors’ relationship to, and operationalisation of, the IB Learner Profile (IBLP) and Global Citizenship Education (GCE). All but one director show strong personal connection to the IBLP, however, only one of the six directors uses the IBLP in leadership. Generally, directors attribute the IBLP limited status; of use in teaching at junior and middle school, and helpful for new IB teachers. Analysis through Bourdieu finds IB directors have higher loyalty to (loosely defined) GCE through their Christian values. A foregrounding of individual values, over the secular IBLP, places IB directors as primary catalysts for the change culture unravelling the consistency of the IB international school, confirming the value of the IBLP in leadership. Societal values emerge as a key commodity in the character of leadership, steering leaders’ organisational values. IB directors’ uptake of IB organisational values is not given, whilst directors’ own ‘English’ Christian, values are significant, with one exception - Collegial views of leadership are the normative outlook for most participants. However, descriptive leadership is characterised by change and analysis finds this driven by participants’ societal values. Change is endemic and a commodity in itself. This manifests in a transformational model of leadership, usually accompanied by episodes of transactional leadership. In the main, IB international school senior leadership is characterised by permanent transformation linked with transactional episodes.

This study is located at a polytechnic within the higher education sector in Singapore. As a young nation state, Singapore's transformation from a mud-flat swamp to a metropolis can be attributed to its intensive and purposeful investments in education and technology. As Singapore celebrated her golden jubilee and reflected on her achievements in 2015, she has also laid the foundation for her progress and prosperity in the Asian Century by embarking on three future-oriented initiatives which continue to emphasise the importance of education and technology. Recent education reforms such as the SkillsFuture initiative and Singapore's aspiration towards building a Smart Nation have placed polytechnics at the centre of the action. To support these national initiatives, polytechnic lecturers have to increase the online learning components in their courses, deploy more micro-learning modules and learn to use learning analytics platforms. As one who has worked within the higher education sector for the past 20 years - as a lecturer, technology service provider, educational developer - I have witnessed the unquestioning optimism of education leaders in the apparent transformative power of technologies. Technology implementations within Singapore's higher education context is appealing as it is related to the notions of progress, development, and the preparation of her citizens for an imagined technology-rich future. However, taking such a perspective will obscure the complex interactions between the technological and the social, political and cultural contexts, and introduce certain silences into any discussion involving education and technology. My study aims to explore and interrogate the silenced and the hidden realities in the subterranean world of digital pedagogy: how various discourses shape the identity and the practices of the lecturers in the polytechnic; how changes being made at the macro-level of the system affect the doing and being of lecturers in the polytechnic. I will achieve this aim by addressing the following research questions: • How are lecturers constructed as they engage in the technology imperative? • In what ways are lecturers affected as they engage in the technology imperative? • How are pedagogical practices enacted in the online space? I review the literature to highlight the dominant discourses that promote the use and integration of technology in higher education with the aim of unravelling the power relations between different actors and how their agendas may re-constitute the identities and re-define the work of lecturers. I take an anti-essentialist methodological stance as I do not seek to find one universal truth, but I seek to understand how multiple meanings are produced and how such productions interact with issues relating to power and privilege. Through the use of semi-structured interviews with 8 lecturers, I seek to unpack the immediate and everyday practices where neoliberalism is installed and realised in professional work and lives. I draw from Foucault's concepts of power, governmentality and discipline in my analysis and ask how the generated data relate to patterns of power. By analysing the interviews through this approach, I am able to examine how the power that is invested in social practices (both discursive and non-discursive) and through a process of discursive formation affects the production of knowledge and subject positions. My findings reveal that lecturers are differently constructed by the dominant discourses of technology use in education. Some have come to own the discourse and see themselves as agents of change in these reforms. Others are more tentative and have expressed some forms of resistance. The production of ambivalent subjectivities can also be observed as neoliberal policies worked through the hard disciplines of measurement and visibility and the softer entreaties of self-management and self-improvement. This results in lecturers having to pay a high price of academic labour and occupational stress. I have also discovered that diverse forms of pedagogical practices were carried out when lecturers moved their courses online. These varied outcomes were caused by a confluence of different contexts and mechanisms. This study offers a unique insight into how national and institutional policies developed by a highly technocratic and pragmatic state have come to govern the rationalities and practices of lecturers in one institution. I conclude by reviewing the ethical aim of my study and propose how higher education needs to engage with critical pedagogy. I aim to identify spaces within my professional work context where alternatives to the pragmatic and the rational may be imagined, discussed and enacted.

This dissertation considers how I, as a practitioner in international higher education (HE), can engage students in criticality, as defined by critical pedagogy (CP), despite a global trend towards the neoliberalisation of HE policy. I examine alternative purposes to neoliberal HE that consider the importance of developing criticality and the role of context and identity in its development. I conduct a piece of critical action research (CAR) at a state university in Kazakhstan, a unique context due to its recent independence in 1991, its multi-ethnic population, and its current formation of a national identity. My central research question is: how do students voice their criticality through engagement in writing narrative reflective essays? I begin by questioning the neoliberal conception of HE and, in particular, its claim that HE is a private good. I argue that the neoliberal conception of HE is failing by its own standards as socio-political and ethnic / gender inequities remain regardless of access to HE. Therefore, I consider HE through the perspective of CP to understand additional purposes of HE beyond neoliberal values. Drawing from Allman, Barnett, Freire, and Kincheloe, I argue that HE should also foster critical beings who question the structures and tacit assumptions of socio political contexts while imagining alternatives. I suggest criticality is central to fostering critical beings – where the thinker questions themselves and who they are as well as the sociopolitical context in which they are framed. I conducted a CAR to engage with how I encourage students' journeys towards developing criticality in their context: Kazakhstan. I asked thirteen students to write student self-evaluations (SSEs), which are narrative essays written and re-written four times within a three-term module. In the SSEs, students are invited to tell the story of themselves and their learning throughout the year. For this research, I analysed the first and the final drafts of the SSEs using thematic analysis. I also conducted interviews with the thirteen students at the beginning of the second term to explore ideas in their SSEs. This dissertation's originality is its contextualization within Kazakhstan's HE system. Because my theorization of criticality focuses on the engagement with the students' selves within their context, I question Kazakhstan as a socio-political place in terms of the performance of identity, drawing on Foucault's theory of performativity. I attempt to understand the complexity of identities that students may bring into the classroom, such as a complex national identity in a multi-ethnic state, a historical context where ethnic minorities arrived into the geographic region as political and ethnic exiles, and a continual struggle around gender equality since independence. The theorization of how this Kazakhstani socio-political context may impact on my students allows me to better engage with the criticality they share through their SSEs. The CAR documents a significant development. Students who initially determined the value of their learning through marks/ grades (a hallmark of neoliberal performativity) began to reflect on their learning beyond marks through the SSE process. Students expressed an engagement with their own tacit assumptions about their contexts in their final SSEs in a way that they did not verbalize in the classroom. More individual voices developed, with some starting to imagine alternatives, while others questioned the feasibility of such alternatives within the context of Kazakhstan. I conclude with some reservations regarding those findings. It is delicate to consider what the students' development might have been without the SSEs. One also needs to consider whether students were simply replacing one form of teacher pleasing performance (getting good grades) with another (being self critical). However, this thesis argues that spaces can be created for practitioners that help foster student criticality within a neoliberal HE system.

In this ethnographic case study I examine, as a participant observer, the subjectivities of students, staff and others outside the university in real and virtual spaces. The work is intended for the education research community in the field of digital literacy and teaching practitioners in Higher Education (HE) who are seeking to understand how digital literacy and student engagement policy can influence relationships in learning communities. I examine the literature relating to theoretical and policy discourses of digital literacy, student engagement, learning community and social capital. Based on the literature, I take an anti-foundational methodological stance that draws on the work of Derrida, MacLure and Rancière. I also draw on the work of Fairclough who locates himself as a critical realist. While not in anyway attempting to reconcile the ontological assumptions of anti-foundationalism and critical realism, I do adopt a dialectic approach that may be generative of fresh insights and perspectives. The conflicted nature of my position as an insider and participant researcher is also interrogated. The case study of a second year (level 5) module drew on a mixed-method research approach and took place in Spring, 2012 at a post '92 university. As the module leader, I asked the students to use online Private Group Forums (PGFs) to aid group work and Open Group Forums (OGFs) to co-ordinate activities such as field trips and to ask questions. In April, I asked the students to complete a survey that sought to measure a range of items including their engagement, levels of trust and general satisfaction with their teaching experience. After the module was completed, I interviewed students, staff and an external professional. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I analysed the content of the interviews, open and private forums and then ‘read' them from a deconstructive viewpoint. In writing up I employ conventional and unconventional formats and, using auto ethnographic narrative, reflect on my approach. I then conclude the study, setting out the key findings. The case study showed that the majority of students did not engage with institutional virtual spaces and large numbers of students used alternatives such as Facebook to support their learning. The majority of students indicated that they trusted their tutor whom they valued as the most important source of learning support. However, tutors were, for the most part, excluded from alternative virtual spaces. Where students allowed the researcher access to their virtual space, high levels of engagement were present but these were not necessarily positive or supportive. Tutors, for the most part, did not engage with students online. Where they did, this sometimes led to dependent, disengaged student/tutor relationships. The study offers a unique insight into student and teaching staff practices in virtual and real spaces and how wider ideologically-driven policy discourses affect individuals' subjectivities in these spaces. The qualitative and quantitative data offers a contribution to knowledge that will be useful to policy makers, Higher Education (HE) managers, teachers and students. For example, in the quantitative element of the case study, the variables of class, gender, the student's employment status and ethnicity had no apparent effect on the interactions in virtual spaces. At the same time the qualitative data presented shows students' use of institutional virtual spaces might not be an accurate indicator of student engagement and that the use of virtual spaces can lead to dependent behaviour by students. Policy makers and managers in Higher Education institutions might find the study's insights and conclusions particularly helpful when considering investment in institutional Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and how their use should be evaluated. This study also offers a contribution to knowledge at a theoretical level. Weaving the text from virtual spaces with interviews, and reading the new text through Rancière's (1999) ideas of politics and democracy, has important implications for how digital literacy, support and engagement are understood and how they might contribute to what I call Democratic Learning Communities in Higher Education.

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Organizations around the world are seeking to maximize their success and sustainability to survive in today’s rapidly changing world – by improving the quality of their products and services, responding to clients’ needs, and maximizing customer satisfaction. Quality, in turn, needs to be well managed to guarantee good services or products. This research enhances the understanding of Quality Management in the context of Higher Education (HEI) generally, and Community Colleges (CCs) specifically. It studies the service quality situation and the application of Quality Assurance Standards (QAS) in ten CCs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It demonstrates the correlation between QAS and service quality, and the influence that QAS have on service quality. In terms of management, this research presents an overview of the Saudi National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment’s (NCAAA’s) application of QAS in CCs, and in relation to SERVQUAL. It specifies the Students’, Faculty and Top managers’ perceptions of service quality and clarifies the application of QAS in CCs in KSA. It identifies the service quality gaps in a sample of CCs, specifies the most influential QAS on service quality in KSA, and provides policy recommendations for stakeholders in CCs and Higher Education (HE) in KSA. In terms of methodological contribution, this research determines how to measure the application of quality management and service quality status in the HEI context. It examines the application of SERVQUAL in the HE context and suggests the modifications needed. Then it examines the application of mixed methods, to get the best of the qualitative and quantitative methods and avoid the shortages of each. Unusually, SERVQUAL was applied on three categories of this research: Students, Faculty and Top Managers, since they represent the main categories of internal stakeholders in HEI. Students are customers, and Faculty and Top Managers are the service providers: Faculty delivers the service and Top Managers lead the whole process and represent the decision makers. In terms of theoretical contributions, this research investigates the literature on service quality, SERVQUAL, Quality Management, Resource Based View (RBV), CCs internationally, and CCs and HE in KSA. It uses RBV theory to differentiate between the performances of CCs, which can be applied to HEI generally. It then suggests an approach, in the light of RBV theory, to understand the reasons for low performance of CCs; how to analyze the situation and determine the reasons for low performing CCs and solutions which can be applied to all other HEI. It clarifies the picture of HEI generally, and CCs specifically, in KSA from the perspective of quality management and service quality application. It provides clearly evidenced policy recommendations derived from empirical data, and recommendations for stakeholders and researchers on what needs to be done, according to the findings. This research is very useful for those who are interested in QM, HE, CCs, and service quality in relation to assurance standards, mixed methods and SERVQUAL adapted to higher education. Through the literature investigated, data gathered, methodology followed, the results and findings reached, and the link is established between the implementation of quality standards and perceived outcomes, this research makes a significant and useful contribution to knowledge. It provides valuable research for institutions in KSA and similar contexts: Arabic Gulf Countries, Arab States or other countries in the world.

This thesis examines the integration experiences of a case-study group of international students undertaking postgraduate research degrees at a UK university. It places a deep focus on their individual stories, and situates these within the academic and policy discourses of integration, which are found to have a lack of consideration in terms of the integration of international students. The study uses key understandings of social capital to examine how the participants have mobilised the resources embedded within their social networks to enable their interaction and participation in society beyond the university campus. The specific aims of the research are to examine the nature of the social networks and social interactions of a case study group of international students, to decipher how their experiences relate to the discourses of integration, and to analyse how their integration experiences relate to the network theory of social capital. The study is qualitative, and uses interpretative phenomenology as a guiding framework to analyse and present the data. Three distinct methods of data collection were used:Ego-network mapping, sit-down interviews and walking interviews. The situated case study was conducted in an ethnically diverse town in the north of England, which has been a significant factor in the participants’ experiences. The findings show that the majority of the study’s participants have each developed a substantial social network during their time in Britain. They have an even mix of co-national and international friends, and some have developed co-national friendships with British people with ancestral links to the their home country. Indeed, a substantial finding from this study, is that the ‘host’ community is seen as both the settled ethnic minority communities within which the participants interact, as well as the conveniently diverse nature of Hill town. The participants are strategic and often use rational choice when forming friendships, in particular when seeking friendships with ‘local’ people for help with language and local cultural knowledge. Despite the consuming nature of their research, all participants acknowledge that they have to impose their own limits on how much time they spend working on it each day and look for ways to break up their routine and break free from the grasp of their studies, which leads to their interaction and participation in the wider society. The way they do this allows the study to interrogate key terms found in the integration discourse, such as ‘shared’ British values and sense of belonging, as the participants view the British ways of being and doing in a relative way. Nonetheless, they often show certain elements of integration that might be expected of permanent migrants such as an engagement with the local community or a wish to give back something to society. The study also reveals a certain resilience when faced with issues such as perceived discrimination or explicit racial abuse in the street. The study expose a sense of appreciation as the participants are able to easily recreate their consumption habits from their home countries, owing to the presence of international chains as well as the multi-cultural nature of Hill town. In addition, the fact that the participants themselves all have some previous experience of working in different countries or for international companies means that they can be described as natural transnationals, and there is evidence that they become a useful social contact for others who arrive in Hill town. Finally, there is strong evidence within the participants’ accounts that they mobilise the social capital resources from their social networks to find information, accommodation and employment.