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The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the causes and effects of gender discrimination in the Thai workplace. The research focuses on gender differences related to recruitment, occupational segregation, compensation, pay raises, promotion opportunities, fringe benefits, and personnel policies and practices. Three hundred employees and ten supervisors of "Grarui and So Co., Ltd. participated in the study. Also, personnel policies and regulations were reviewed and evaluated. The findings showed female workers were more satisfied with fringe benefits and the practices of their supervisors, than were their male counterparts. Moreover, male workers perceived that their female coworkers were treated better by supervisors, especially in regard to compensation, pay raises and promotions. Traditional Thai social value and culture may be at the root of these unexpected findings / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

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Thesis advisor: Lillie R. Albert / Why do mathematics teachers’ beliefs and instructional practices differ, and why are some teachers’ beliefs aligned or misaligned with their instructional practices? This qualitative case study investigated how eight Korean elementary teachers’ sociocultural life stories shaped their mathematical beliefs and practices. The specific aim was to explore through mathematics-related life stories the relationship between the elementary teachers’ mathematical beliefs and instructional practices. The overarching research question was: “How does a theoretical model based on sociocultural theory (Albert, 2012; Vygotsky, 1978) explain the relationship among the Korean elementary teachers’ life stories, the development of their beliefs, and their instructional practices?” The findings of this study indicate that the teachers’ attribution of their unsuccessful teaching experiences contributed to their perception about the value of continuing their own learning and development, which, sequentially, influenced the construction of their current beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning. Their pedagogical beliefs for teaching mathematics were likely to have an impact on their attitude toward implementing student-centered or teacher-centered instructional practices. Additionally, the teachers’ knowledge and self-efficacy beliefs about teaching mathematics influenced this relationship, resulting in different levels of alignment and even misalignment. Thus, teachers used their past mathematics learning and teaching experiences to justify their current beliefs and practices and to explain their classroom culture. These findings resonate with scholarship pertaining to mathematics teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices and contribute further to their developing theory about teachers’ life stories by illustrating how teachers’ life stories play out in a complex mathematics classroom environment. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The world of Marketing is a multifaceted broad discipline and over recent years it has fundamentally changed. Marketing is consistently evolving and many authors are calling for a new definition. A shift in thinking is necessary in order to identify new opportunities and re-examine the conventional models. The recent Contemporary Marketing Practice series of research has looked at describing Marketing practices within the marketing context. This programme analyses the multiple disciplines within marketing. It does not, however deconstruct or examine marketing practices. It merely examines the multiple marketing activities but does not consider practice theory. The social theory of practice provides an opportunity to examine Marketing using a ‘practice lens’. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate Marketing practices using the theory of social practice. This theory defines practices as understanding, procedures and engagement and these three components have been applied to the marketing context. This research uses case study methodology in a large financial services organisation to explore marketing practices in more detail. This provides a deeper understanding of these components within the marketing department. It was found that the social theory of practice provides a rich exploration into the field of marketing highlighting a new way to describe marketing. The practices etymology and terminology have been explored using the anatomy of practices as defined by the social theory of practice to ensure construct validity and a common platform for academics and practitioners. The report provides a framework that aims at describing and optimising marketing practices and concludes with recommendations and future research. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The South African Department of Education (DoE) introduced a new threshold qualification, Advanced Certificate in Education (School Leadership), which was the first concrete step towards implementing a compulsory professional qualification for principalship. The qualification is called ACE ‘School Leadership’ but the outcomes in the learning content designed by the DoE tend to focus on ‘management’. Since this qualification was only implemented from 2008, the synchrony between the theory and practice has not yet been investigated. The focus of this paper was to determine whether the ACE promoted leadership practices (ideographic dimensions) rather than just management skills (nomothetic dimensions). This study employed qualitative case study research methods and procedures to investigate the influence of the ACE School Leadership programme on leadership practices. Six principals who had completed the ACE School Leadership programme and their 24 subordinates from Mpumalanga, one of the poorest provinces in South Africa, were purposively selected. The findings display ample evidence of the nomothetic dimensions of the social systems theory outweighing the ideographic dimensions in the principal preparation programme. Principals showed confidence in management and this gave rise to unconscious leadership practices. Subordinates in their schools scored them highly regarding compliance and stated that they were more participative in their approach. The contribution that this research makes is that future preparation programmes be balanced regarding the social systems theory and contain contextual case studies; networking opportunities and strategic and innovative thinking which would result in principals not just being compliant, but competent and capable of leading school improvement. The study suggests a model for future effective leadership preparation programmes. The model outlines the threshold principal roles and the principal primary roles. The study acknowledges the need for more research on how principal leadership preparation programmes influence leadership practices. The ACE school leadership programme demonstrated in this study its ability to develop principals’ management practices and a need to develop principals’ leadership skills more. Findings in this study demonstrate improvement in learner performance for the principals who attended the ACE programme. The refinement of the ACE programme’s curriculum could lead to school leadership improvement / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

Thesis advisor: Michael Barnett / Practitioners and scholars have begun to recognize the need to fracture disciplinary boundaries in K-12 learning settings in favor of more holistic approaches. STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education, in particular, has been proposed as a means to reimagine science education based on youths’ widespread interest in art, design, and making, and the encouragement of multiple forms of expression in these endeavors. This dissertation documents the development of an art-science program and research on the experiences of middle-school-aged participants, who predominantly identified as Latinx and bilingual, in three papers. In the first paper, I used design-based research to investigate how an art-science program evolved to support youths’ interests and disciplinary integration from a teacher perspective. A cross-case analysis of two program iterations yielded two design guidelines. First, it is important to create opportunities for youth to engage in STEAM education in ways that allow them to build on their interests while also cultivating desirable social images. Second, ongoing teacher collaboration and foregrounding youths’ development of project artifacts supported disciplinary integration. In the second paper, I draw on a longitudinal case study approach to investigate two focal youths’ enactment of art-science thinking practices—or practices common to artistic and scientific fields—over three program iterations. Results highlight three insights: (1) the program’s approach to disciplinary integration played a key role in which art-science thinking practices youth enacted and how; (2) the incorporation of multiple STEAM disciplines encouraged youth to build on a wide range of interests; and (3) developing artifacts supported youth to engage in STEAM projects while maintaining their social standing. The third paper is a practitioner study documenting the program design and outcomes regarding case study youths’ perspectives of art-science thinking practices. Results demonstrate how STEAM education can support youth to appreciate imagining and creating in the context of science. I conclude with the program’s successes and challenges and implications for in- and out-of-school STEAM practitioners and program designers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.