Academy schools have been the flagship education policy in England since 2000. The policy is controversial and its evidence base is contested, but it is also resilient and academy status continues to be extended to a greater number of schools. The claim to transform, which has played a pivotal role in the construction of academies in contexts of poverty, raises a set of ontological questions that have not yet been given the detailed consideration they require. The term ontology captures the nature of being, how particular entities come to exist, and how these shape the conditions of possibility with which we live. This thesis contributes to research on the academies policy by taking up this ontological direction of inquiry to analyse how academy status and the academy school are produced in underperforming schools in contexts of poverty. Combining Foucauldian discourse analysis and an ethnography of a secondary school – Eastbank Academy – it interrogates how the academy school is produced across different discursive spaces, and how this affects the identities and experiences of staff and students. Across four analysis chapters I attend to the linguistic, material, spatial, and pedagogical shaping of the failing school that becomes an academy, making a number of central arguments. First, academies are shaped as policy objects through a set of representations and truths that enable them to mesh with other social policy narratives that are flourishing in austere times. Second, academy status is renarrativised around the recognition of poverty in Eastbank, which is part of ethical relations between staff and students. Third, academy status creates a context of threat and surveillance in a failing school in a context of poverty, the trace of which can be read through the shifting visual, material, and spatial culture of Eastbank. Fourth, academy status is produced through pedagogical shifts that divide, categorise, and monitor, resulting in unjust and exclusionary learning experiences for some students. I combine these sub-findings to argue that academy status is produced in multi-modal ways, across which, a fluctuating, divisive, and fraught academy ontology emerges. This, in turn, produces increasingly fraught and divided identities for staff and students, and is implicated in unjust educational practices and experiences. I argue that this outcome is symptomatic of the delicate process of survival that marked the production of Eastbank Academy in the current education policy context. To conclude, I outline the implications of this study for knowledge of the academy school and the methodologies required to study education policy as a complex, shifting, and multi-modal entity. This thesis highlights some of the silenced possibilities for how academy status is produced in schools that are categorised as failing, presenting academy status as a disciplinary tool. It draws attention to the negotiated nature of academy status and how these negotiations play a pivotal role in young people’s experiences of schooling, in creating possibilities for resistance, and in creating unjust schooling practices. These are important considerations given the continued policy momentum to turn schools into academies.

This thesis describes and analyses the PhD candidates in the Humanities at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin and at Columbia University, New York, from 1871 to 1913 as well as the reforms related to the PhD programs at said institutions. The thesis uses primary sources such as the theses and curriculum vitaes of the PhD candidates but also the reports of the universities, statistics released, census records of government institutions as well as newspapers and biographical collections. The goal is to compare the PhD candidates at these two universities according to their numbers, age, gender, religion, place of birth and social background. It further includes a comparison of the reforms and transformation of the two universities with a focus on those which most affected PhD candidates. Instead of focusing on the careers of PhD candidates after they acquired their degree (as in most other studies), this thesis focuses on the background and the life of PhD candidates before they received their degree from their university. By doing so, this thesis will contribute to the understanding of the development of the universities and societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, taking into account the debates regarding the German Sonderweg, the professionalisation of education and cross-border exchange among academics wherever possible.

What is the nature of art/science collaborations in museums? How do art objects and activities contribute to the successes of science centers? Based on the premise that art exhibitions and art-based activities engage museum visitors in different ways than do strictly factual, information-based displays, I address these questions in a case study that examines the roles of visual art and artists in the Exploratorium, a museum that has influenced exhibit design and professional practice in many of the hands-on science centers in the United States and around the world. The marriage of art and science in education is not a new idea - Leonardo da Vinci and other early polymaths surely understood how their various endeavors informed one another, and some 20th century educators understood the value of the arts and creativity in the learning and practice of other disciplines. When, in 2010, the National Science Teachers Association added an A to the federal government's ubiquitous STEM initiative and turned it into STEAM, art educators nationwide took notice. With a heightened interest in the integration of and collaboration between disciplines comes an increased need for models of best practice for educators and educational institutions. With the intention to understand the nature of such collaborations and the potential they hold, I undertook this study. I made three site visits to the Exploratorium, where I took photos, recorded notes in a journal, interacted with exhibits, and observed museum visitors. I collected other data by examining the institution's website, press releases, annual reports, and fact sheets; and by reading popular and scholarly articles written by museum staff members and by independent journalists. I quickly realized that the Exploratorium was not created in the way than most museums are, and the history of its founding and the ideals of its founder illuminate what was then and continues now to be different about this museum from most others in the United States. This dissertation presents an account of the history of the institution and the continuing legacy of the early Exploratorium and its founder, Frank Oppenheimer. I argue that the institution is an early example of a constructivist learning museum. I then describe how art encourages learning in the museum. It provides means of presenting information that engage all of the senses and encourage emotional involvement. It reframes familiar sights so that viewers look more closely in search of recognition, and it presents intangible or dematerialized things in a tangible way. It facilitates play, with its many benefits. It brings fresh perspectives and processes to problem solving and the acquisition of new knowledge. This project is the study of an institution where art and science have always coexisted with equal importance, setting it apart from more traditional museums where art was added as a secondary focus to the original disciplinary concentration of the institution. Many of the exhibits were created by artists, but the real value the visual arts bring to the museum is in its contributions to processes such as inquiry, play, problem-solving, and innovation.

<p> This dissertation investigated the demise of Illinois State University (ISU), a small antebellum Lutheran denominational college that existed from 1852 to 1867 in Springfield, Illinois. The professional higher education historiography has described the phenomenon of antebellum college demise, but a traditionalist theory of causality by unrestrained competition among religious denominations to found colleges, proposed in the early 20th century, was by the end of the century largely debunked by revisionist higher education historians as based on ahistorical concepts and inaccurate data. The study utilized the historical narrative method consisting of document review and content analysis. Using Clark&rsquo;s (1972) concept of &ldquo;organizational saga,&rdquo; the study found that while ISU was in many ways indistinguishable from other denominational colleges in the United States of the era, ISU accumulated unsustainable debt on its edifice and failed despite determined founders. Durnford&rsquo;s (2002) model of institutional sponsorship revealed that despite growth during the antebellum era, the Lutheran Church was riven by doctrinal, linguistic, national and personal rivalries that undermined its ability to sustain ISU. Five of the seven factors in Latta&rsquo;s (2008) unique model of antebellum denominational college survival helped identify ISU&rsquo;s strengths and weaknesses, and revealed that an unresolved crisis in leadership contributed to the school&rsquo;s demise. This study provided data useful in furthering the development of a comprehensive revisionist narrative to explain antebellum college founding, demise and survival.</p>

The study investigated teachers' perspectives on factors which facilitated and hindered the implementation of Curriculum 2005 in the General Education and Training (GET) Band in one district of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. Curriculum 2005 was the new curriculum underpinned by the outcomes-based education. It was introduced in South Africa as a way of moving away from the apartheid system of education, which was based on racial lines, and to offer a uniform system of education. The implementation of Curriculum 2005 was a process which had to follow a certain time-frame, starting from Grade 1 in 1998, with the intention that it would have been introduced in all grades by 2005. When in the year 2000 it became clear that the suggested time-frame could not be achieved, the then Minister of Education, Asmal, commissioned a review process which culminated in the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) introduced in 2004, and finally the National Curriculum Statement (NCS), which was introduced for the first time in 2006, in the Further Education and Training (FET) Band. This study was carried out in the OR Tambo district municipality of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The schools used were drawn from the rural, urban and former Model C. In selecting the sample, every sixth school was used. This gave a total of twenty schools. From each school, two teachers from the foundation and intermediate phases and one member of School Management Teams (SMT) were used as participants. In selecting the participants, a combination of purposive, theoretical and systematic sampling was used. In order to investigate factors which facilitated and hindered the implementation of Curriculum 2005, a qualitative research design was adopted. The study was informed by grounded theory. Interviews conducted in the participants' places of work were used to generate data. Once gathered the data were analyzed using coding and theoretical sampling procedures to examine commonalities and differences between different categories of participants, for example those from rural, urban and Model C schools. The main findings of this study were as follows. Firstly most of the teachers charged with the implementation of Curriculum 2005 did not fully understand the outcomes-based methods of teaching and as a result, in many cases, continued to use traditional methods of teaching. Secondly, participants perceived that Curriculum 2005 was more appropriate for facilitating learning than the previous Apartheid curriculum and that the Revised National Curriculum Statement was an improvement of C2005 because it simplified the original version of C2005. Thirdly, the training provided for teachers was too brief and did not adequately prepare them for implementing Curriculum 2005. Fourthly, the implementation of Curriculum 2005 was detrimentally affected by a lack of support from the Department of Education and districts. Finally, curriculum implementation was compromised by the lack of basic teaching and learning resources in the majority of schools which participated in the study. This study has contributed to the existing literature by confirming most of the key findings presented here. However, this study has added to the existing literature by the presentation of a comparison between the traditional curriculum, C2005 and the RNCS. According to the majority of the participants in this study, RNCS simplified C2005 while the latter was an improvement to the traditional curriculum. The implications of the study for policy and practice with respect to the implementation of Curriculum 2005 are that: there should be effective and creative preservice education and training of teachers; the Department of Education should communicate information about the process of implementation before any policy initiatives are introduced; there should be continuous professional development activities for all those engaged in the process and in future training for implementation has to be provided before the implementation of any policy initiatives such as the one suggested in this thesis.

In this study, the depth of Malthus's involvement in education will be seen. During his years at Haileybury College, Malthus proved himself to be a caring and conscientious teacher who, as will be demonstrated in Chapter III, was remembered with affection in later life by many of his pupils; he was a loyal member of staff who defended the college against critical reports in the press; he was concerned about the welfare of the boys in his charge, as well as an appropriate curriculum for them and fair methods of assessing their progress. A detailed examination of biographies, letters and published articles will provide ample evidence to prove these claims about Malthus. The criticism has sometimes been made that Malthus wished to condemn the poor to a life made even more difficult by the withdrawal of the assistance offered by the Poor Laws, but the analysis of his theories which appears in Chapters V and VI of this study will demonstrate that this was not Malthus's intention. Far from wanting the poor to suffer increased privation, Malthus hoped that his proposals would offer them the chance to improve their situation and influence their own destiny. A critical study of his own words will show the importance of education in his vision of a better future. An education populace would understand the reasons behind food shortage and would appreciate the necessity of delaying marriage, thereby slowing down the increase in population. Education would encourage the lower classes to strive for self-improvement; it would show them how to be careful and plan for the future; it would `have a considerable effect in the prevention of crimes and the promotion of industry, morality and regular conduct'(2); it would even bring about a more peaceful and stable society as an educated populace would understand the truth about their situation and would not be persuaded by the `false declamation of interested and ambitious demagogues'(3). It is certainly true that Malthus recommended the abolition of the existing Poor Laws, but this does not mean that he wished to condemn the poor to increased suffering. On the contrary, an examination of the historical background of the system of poor relief at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century will help us to understand Malthus's attitude to the Poor Laws, and a detailed analysis of his own proposals in Chapter VI of this study will explain how his ideas about Poor Law reform were linked to his theories about social and economic reform. Finally, Chapters VIII, IX and X of this study will contain an examination of the extent of the influence exerted on public opinion by Malthus and his theories.

The object of this study is to trace the social history of the professional group of 'elementary school teachers' from the beginning of the profession to the present day. Its focus is on the teachers themselves, on the ways in which they were recruited and trained, their conditions of employment, their position in the social structure, their professional associations and their group activities.

The educational achievements of South Asians have been shaped by economic, social and political developments in the post war history of British race relations. Social class background of individual students and the school effect have been shown to be the major determinants of achievement but the precise characteristics of differences at the ethnic minority sub-group level have remained uncharted. In addition, past research has primarily relied on large-scale quantitative methods to develop comparative knowledge of South Asian educational performance. This research is an attempt to understand wider variations of difference in the educational achievement of South Asians. The research is unique as it explores differences between Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani groups, additionally distinguished along lines of social class, ethnicity and gender. Six schools, three of which were selective and three comprehensive, and three further education colleges, were used to obtain samples of South Asian pupils and students. The methods used in this study were principally qualitative. Face-to-face in-depth interviews with school pupils, parents and teachers accounted for the main part of the empirical research, which was also supplemented by a survey of college students and a survey of teachers. The research explored the achievements, aspirations and motivations of pupils, students and parents to analyse educational life histories, interpreting and evaluating differences between South Asian groups by social class, ethnicity and gender, as well as religion and culture. Teachers were interviewed and surveyed in order to determine their perceptions of and actions in relation to South Asians in education. Altogether, 137 respondents (89 school pupils, 25 parents and 23 teachers) were interviewed by the researcher and 176 respondents (109 college students and 67 teachers) participated in the two postal surveys (313 altogether). Questions asked were about secondary school entry, 13-plus subject choices, GCSE and A level achievements, and potential higher education entry. It was found that all South Asians that entered `effective' schools performed competently. Furthermore, the factors which led to the positive educational outcomes for Indian (Hindu and Sikh) groups were oppositional to those which led to the educational underachievement of South Asian Muslim groups and, here, rather more Pakistanis than Bangladeshis. The educational success of Indian groups was attributable to educational norms and values relative to social class. The educational experiences of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were problematic, largely because of factors in their lives outside of school: such as the limited education and occupational levels of parents, parents' inadequate understanding of the education, and insufficient use of English within the home. Teachers interviewed from the sampled schools and colleges were inclined to advocate positive approaches for managing issues relating to South Asians in education. In conclusion, therefore, it is argued that the educational achievements of South Asians in schools and colleges in Birmingham are closely related to social class background and the school effect. Factors associated with religion and culture are more likely to affect South Asian Muslims. The increasingly competitive nature of the education system has led to a divergence between South Asian groups: with Hindu and Sikh Indians (including some East African Asians) firmly established as educational `successes' and Pakistani and Bangladeshi South Asian Muslims, in contrast, routinely considered as educational `failures'.

This research is an investigation of whether 'African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS)' can enhance the achievement of Education for All (EFA) with particular reference to the Chewa people of Zambia. The study raises challenges that many countries have experienced in their effort to achieve EFA. Among the Chewa people of Zambia, quality, relevance and credibility of the education are some of the reasons affecting the provision of education to all. This research has argued that formal schooling education, in its current form may not be the right vehicle to deliver EFA goals. The research has proposed alternative forms of knowledge that could be hybridized with the formal schooling education to address some of the challenges identified. The research has tried to re-appropriate some Chewa AIKS to theorize curriculum and pedagogy reforms that could enhance the achievement of the EFA goals. I have used qualitative research methodology in the study. The respondents in this study were drawn from two areas of community of practice i.e. the Chewa traditional chiefs and elders as perceived custodians of the Chewa AIKS and the educationists, as implementers of education programs and policy and curriculum designers. Key issues identified by this research include the following: that a replacement of the formal schooling education by the AIKS is not an answer to the current challenges facing the provision of meaningful education to all; that through consultations, and co-ordination by all stakeholders and research in AIKS and formal schooling education, either system would shed off elements perceived as barriers to EFA; and be hybridized to complement each other to enhance the achievement of EFA goals; that the formal schooling education should not be considered to be superior to informal and non-formal education systems, but that all are critical components in this quest. Theories and frameworks of hybridization of forms of knowledge/education have been considered in this research. I have argued that hybridizing AIKS with the formal schooling system will only become significant if an economic value is added to the AIKS through some mechanisms put in place. The practical skills embedded in AIKS could foster career building, entrepreneurship and apprenticeship if linked to the money economy of employment and wealth creation. I have argued that there may be need to establish opportunities for AIKS holders to be accredited within the National Qualification Framework and policy framework on AIKS be enacted to regulate and protect IK, and guide the hybridization process. The study highlights three main frameworks on the hybridization of the AIKS and the formal schooling curriculum: (1) Mainstreaming/ Incorporation/ Integration/ infusion of the AIKS into the formal school curriculum. (2) Establishing IK as a core subject with a structure similar to those of other core subjects in the curriculum. (3) Teaching AIKS as a component of the seven official Zambian languages that are taught in schools.

The thesis, professional education in contemporary Serbia, an examination of the transition from state-socialism to post-socialism tries to answer the question of the changing patterns of professional education in contemporary Serbia in the light of the advent of post-socialism, after a very long period of reign of state-socialism. It does so by employing an in-depth historical analysis. It is argued that the economic problems in post-socialism, blocked transformation, exclusion from the European Community, and other problems impacted on the change in professional education patterns. Post-socialism is distinguished by the growing marketization, globalization and the economic intra-dependence, as well as the stronger influence of the emerging markets. In Serbia, it is distinguished by the fragile economic recovery and the emergence of the new economic order. The thesis uses Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to explain the inevitability of the knowledge economy and Karl Popper’s theoretical concepts developed in his study Open Society and its Enemies. Methodologically, the project used chiefly qualitative methodology: questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions. In addition to this, there is also abundant use of the relevant documents, useful for documentary analysis, as well as biographical method. Empirical conclusions of the project are based on 5 months survey in contemporary Serbia, based on qualitative methodology, and participants were university teachers, lawyers and researchers. Survey is understood here as a social science research technique. The project findings are organized around three major subcategories: democratization, governance and civil society, institutional sustainability and graduate employment, and internationalisation and the European Union. The system of professional education is characterized by the growing democratization, the implementation of the Bologna Process, the introduction of course fees, the overall marketization of education and the emergence of private universities. Policy-makers and educationists should be cautious because this system causes enduring inequalities. Unemployment is also a significant problem for the change in professional education patterns. The influence of markets on professional education is stronger and companies and enterprises are looking for university talent to gain the increase in profit and they have a clear stake in shaping the new system of professional education. This brings significant changes to professional education in general and the creation of the curricula in particular. Although the state-socialist system of professional education was distinguished by the increased level of international cooperation, it is growing more intense and it happens more often in the context of post-socialism. Serbian professionals, educationists, and policy-makers are having many more opportunities for international cooperation.