This research project conducted an in-depth, qualitative assessment of vocational education and training (VET) teachers’ perceptions of pedagogic innovation, with an emphasis on obstacles and supporting factors. The main research question was: “How do teachers’ roles and perspectives shape innovation processes in VET and what does this imply for the development of teaching and learning practices?” Three clusters of subsidiary questions were derived around thematic foci: ‘perceptions and concepts’, ‘documentation of practice’, and ‘dynamics, limitations, and lessons for innovation’. Based on analytical strategies derived from grounded theory, two phases of interviews – the first with ten experts and the second with 62 VET practitioners at 20 colleges – were conducted in England, Germany, and Austria, with a focus on full-time VET (Further Education Colleges, Berufskollegs, and Berufsbildende Mittlere und Höhere Schulen) in the 16-19 age range. Classroom observation preceded semi-structured, 30 to 60 minute interviews with teachers. The study builds on previous research and existing frameworks such as Lipsky’s concept of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and Flyvbjerg’s ‘critical cases’. However, it fills a gap in the literature by focusing on practitioner perceptions, motivations, professionalism, autonomy, work contexts, and own learning in relation to pedagogic innovation, whilst tracing relevant connections to educational policy, college management, and societal influences. Teachers are shown in multiple roles as inventors, designers, and implementers of innovation, facing nine categories of obstacles. Those include limited time and budgets, bureaucracy and lack of autonomy, problems with project planning and execution, and issues related to lack of support. In addition, this study provides a comparative investigation of practitioners’ interpretations of key terms (‘pedagogy’, ‘didactics’, ‘innovation’), revealing differences between England on the one hand, and Germany and Austria on the other, based on different degrees of autonomy and innovative focus. Based on such findings, the study details recommendations for college leaders and policy makers for facilitating pedagogic innovation, placing each in their respective national contexts.

This thesis examines the role and relationship of standardization and advocacy in humanitarian aid planning processes within the emergent field of education and instability. Standardization refers to the aid industry’s increasing emphasis on establishing ‘universal’ principles and normative frameworks. Advocacy refers to transnational-policy-network activities that move forward the global standardization agenda. The study focuses on the purposes and practices of knowledge creation by an education-and-instability ‘epistemic community’: the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). Drawing on global-level interviews with key figures, participant observations, and documentary analysis, the research explores how this epistemic community promotes its core tenets: that education is an inherent human right and that educational provision should be a frontline humanitarian response on par with food distribution and shelter construction. The thesis analyzes the consensus-making process that resulted in the publication of the 2004 INEE Minimum Standards handbook, the then-epitome of the epistemic community’s knowledge. Next, the thesis examines the local application and adaptation of such global standardization processes in post-conflict Uganda. The case study presents the relationships among international and local ‘development partner’ institutions concerned with educational planning as a complex and contradictory story of power dynamics and knowledge circulation. These ‘partnerships’ are characterized by a shared quest for adherence to the knowledge encapsulated within standardized global frameworks and their normative principles. For Ugandan institutions, fluency in this discourse is a powerful tool to appropriate for their own ends. For international institutions, the knowledge is at once a technical resource and a means to bring ever more stakeholders into the wider epistemic community concerned with humanitarian aid. I argue that, through judicious use of standardization and advocacy mechanisms, INEE seeks to legitimize the education sector’s existence within the humanitarian aid industry and expand support for (or ‘conversion’ to) the education-and-instability epistemic community’s core beliefs.

Les crises politiques qui ont secoué la Côte d'Ivoire depuis la mort d'Houphouët-Boigny n'ont pas manqué d'impliquer directement l'éducation, et ce à plusieurs niveaux. Dans le même temps, l'éducation fut un enjeu politique direct et un lieu d'affrontement. Cette thèse s'intéresse à la perception qu'ont les acteurs de la demande et de l'offre en éducation sur le rôle de l'éducation et de l'intervention de l'aide internationale et locale dans le secteur. La démarche empirique adoptée repose sur la méthode de la triangulation qui combine l'analyse secondaire de données, les entretiens et les questionnaires récoltés entre avril 2013 et octobre 2014 à Abidjan, au centre et à l'ouest du pays. Les résultats de ces enquêtes montrent que les acteurs ayant été les plus affectés dans leur scolarité envisagent davantage l'École comme espace de socialisation et participent ainsi au processus de résilience. Par ailleurs, la présence des organisations internationales légitime les actions du gouvernement actuel. Ainsi, l'aide internationale est le plus souvent recherchée et même valorisée. La reconstruction du système éducatif, son développement et sa transformation se font donc sous influence internationale, sans que celle-ci soit perçue comme de l'ingérence par les acteurs de la demande et de l'offre en éducation. / The political crisis that disrupted the country since Houphouët Boigny's death directly involved education on a number of levels. At the same time, Education also became a major political issue, opposing rival factions, and a collateral target of the actors of the conflict. This thesis focuses on the supply and demand education stakeholders'perception on the role of education as well as their representations on the international and local assistance in this domain. The chosen empirical approach uses the triangulation method which combines interviews, questionnaires and existing databases. All these elements were collected from April 2013 and October 2014 in Abidjan and in central and western Côte d'Ivoire. The results of this analysis show that the stakeholders who were the most affected through their schooling are considering School more like a socialisation space and thus participate to the process of resilience. Results also reveal how the presence of international organizations legitimizes the current government's actions. International aid is frequently sought out and highly valued. The education system has been rebuilt, developed and transformed under the influence of international organizations. The public authorities do not perceive this as a form of interference, and nor do demand and offer education actors.

As U.S. higher education institutions strive to educate students to meet the needs of an increasingly complex world, there is great importance in studying the interplay between leadership and culture to enhance preparation of global-ready graduates. This inquiry examines the relationship between intercultural competence and leadership styles. The construct of intercultural competence focuses on effectiveness in engaging people across cultural differences, while the construct of leadership style or "connective leadership" focuses on the achieving styles employed to engage diverse followers. The Fulbright International Student Program offers an unparalleled opportunity to examine the dynamic interplay of intercultural and leadership development. More than 100 participants were surveyed using the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale and Achieving Styles Inventory psychometric instruments. Statistically significant correlations emerged between intercultural competence and connective leadership across four critical themes: individual development, the Fulbright Program, international education, and higher education. Overall, multiple leadership styles can be achieved through curiosity and continuous learning about cultural differences. Implications for individual learning and organizational development are discussed.

This thesis discusses the impact of economic globalisation on Thai higher education and society. Thailand's severe economic crisis in the second half of 1997 through 1998 has led to education reform at all levels. Since the crisis, Thailand has been focusing on the development of its human potential and creativity and enhancing the capability of communities, societies and the nation as a whole. The education system of Thailand is being redirected away from nation-building objectives towards 'human capital' creation; education is seen as a form of economic investment. Thailand, like its industrialising neighbours in Southeast Asia and close Western neighbours, is striving to adjust to the pressures of economic globalisation. As a result, Thailand's higher education system is undergoing significant intellectual and strategic reorientation to meet the demands of the modern global economy. Urged by government and employers to produce graduates with more globally relevant knowledge and skills, Thai universities are attempting to redefine their relevance with increased emphasis on proficiency in English. This imperative explains the expansion of full-fee English-medium education and the emergence of government policies encouraging the internationalisation of curricula. Since the mid-1990s, successive Thai governments have paid some attention to the concept of internationalisation but have yet to produce a clear statement of what internationalisation means in the Thai context. Thailand's internationalisation policy, such as it is, aims to cultivate a globally skilled workforce and has directly encouraged the establishment of English-medium business graduate programs, branded as 'international' at a number of leading universities in Bangkok. This thesis examines concerns as to the level of English proficiency achieved by students passing through these programs and questions the appropriateness of the term 'international' for programs, many of which appear to be cloned from business studies degrees offered in major native English-speaking countries. While government policies assert the need to reform education at all levels, both the idea and the parameters of 'internationalisation' remain ill-defined. Consequently, this thesis maps out the scope of internationalisation in education from a global and a local Thai perspective to present a more integrated framework for analysing the implications of the policies. The approach taken presents a multilayered and holistic reading of significant economic and cultural change taking place in Thailand through the lens of higher education reforms and public debates about globalisation and education. More specifically, this thesis examines internationalisation of Thai higher education as an aspect of globalisation and 'global' practice at the 'local' level, observable in the policies, statements, actions and intentions expressed by political leaders, government officials, university administrators, teachers, students and employers. Significantly, Thai cultural characteristics have a profound impact on these key acto rs' attitudes towards practice of international education, particularly in the cross-cultural teaching and learning settings. This thesis argues that a more holistic and integrated approach to internationalisation across all related policy domains is needed if the country is to more effectively respond to the challenges of a globalising world.

<p>The purpose of this study is to determine what alternative forms of assessments are being practiced in a public school with an international programme and to explore the teachers` attitudes towards the use of alternative assessment procedures. Various assessment models and strategies have been investigated and discussed, as pre¬senting a part of the educational practice in the primary classrooms that engage the International Baccalaureate/ Primary Years Programme at the elementary school level (age range 6-11) in the years 0-5.</p><p>While defining my research problem, I have started from hypothesis that practicing of alternative assessment has an important positive role in the international schools supporting, promoting and improving student learning.</p><p>International schools are facing both challenging and complexity of assessment pro¬cess while striving to apply both national and international programs` recom¬menda¬tions concerning the testing.</p><p>Alternative forms of assessments are being used in conjunction with other forms of assessment, such as standardised tests, in order to assess both student perfor¬mance and the intentions of the International Baccalaureate/ Primary Years Pro¬gramme.</p><p>This paper investigates what alternative assessment practices (portfolio, perfor¬mance assessment, Exhibition, self-assessment) are being applied and used in the same school where the standardised tests are also being applied and used (text book tests, teacher-made tests, local and national test).</p><p>The hypothesis was supported and the study findings suggest that various types of assessments are needed to be utilized in order to fairly evaluate students` needs as well as that alternative assessment has an important positive role meeting individual student’s needs supporting a process of learning.</p>

The research reported here is a meta-evaluative case study of project evaluation in the context of Official Development Cooperation (ODC) in the education sector in Tanzania, where the particular focus is on capturing the relative values attached to evaluation by various stakeholder groups. Perspectives from the constructivist paradigm are adopted, implying relativist ontology, subjectivist epistemology, and naturalistic interpretive methodology. Based on these perspectives, a review is provided of development theories and evaluation theories, including the actor-oriented approach to development, participatory monitoring &amp; evaluation, utilization-focused evaluation, and responsive-constructivist evaluation. An exploratory qualitative case study strategy is taken, combining several complementary methods e.g. in-depth interviews, questionnaires, document analysis, and observations. Evaluation is considered as an applied social research, implying a managerial and political purpose. It is a reflective interactive process, where the relevance, effectiveness and impact of an intervention in pursuit of certain objectives are assessed, adding value in order to construct knowledge for the enhancement of decision-making. In order to facilitate understanding of the cases under study, their structural contexts are investigated: 1) ODC evaluation systems and strategies (international/ macro context); and 2) ODC in the education sector in Tanzania (national/meso context). Each case (at local/micro level) is located within these contexts and analyzed applying a meta-evaluative framework. Integrating the perspectives of the stakeholders, the study demonstrates the strengths of, and constraints on, each case, factors which are to some extent determined by their respective time-frames. A number of significant discrepancies between theory and practice in ODC evaluation are reported. Findings indicate the significance of constructing consensus values that are based on a synthesis of multiple stakeholders’ values and perspectives complementing each others. The study also find that evaluation ought to be used as a powerful tool in which the values, needs and aspirations of various stakeholder groups can be reflected, especially those of local communities, who are now too often powerless in ODC projects in the education sector.

With the advent of globalisation driving the People.s Republic of China to embrace its future, the local government has shown great enthusiasm promulgating one of the oldest industries. Foreign higher educational providers that operate in China through the mode of joint venture cooperatives between a Chinese and foreign institution of higher learning are becoming increasingly .knowledgeable-hungry. public or private universities and colleges. Such operations commonly known as Sino-foreign educational cooperatives (SFEC), are hotly spawned on the mainland, enrolling Chinese students through the division of responsibilities, roles and resources. The Chinese party is mostly responsible for the hardware support, supplying facilities and logistics as the part of the bargain, whereas the foreign party provides the intellectual software of academic programs. The locus of this qualitative study aims to present and investigate a distinct phenomenon of learning in SFEC through the theories of sociocultural perspective encumbered in a transitional context; Sino-foreign (SF) graduates to other workplace communities. Without common interests of social interaction, co-participation, and transformation, SFEC are often discredited due to various factors. The learning aims will feature participative and transformative themes that feature qualitative and interpretive methods. Thus, this research involves interviewing four relevant participants from the likes of two Chinese nationals and two non-Chinese, and how they view learning in SFEC applied to a transitional context, the workplace. My furtherance of analysis will generally stress learning, co-participation and transformative learning in activities that circumvents discriminatory elements of artifacts, identity profiling, relationships, commitment and workplace employment for the necessary transition. In the initial research phase, it did seem that putting learning into community practice in China was essential. In the closing stages, thoughts will flow to the legitimisation of participative and transformative learning, which forms the backdrop of this original theme of research gathered through previous works of similar purview. Prawatt and Floden (1994) remark that knowledge, and the belief that knowledge is the result of social interaction and language usage, and thus is a shared, rather than an individual, experience. Presumably, my chosen theories frame the interactive and shared communal nature of the Chinese society and learning systems. / na

The purpose of this study is to determine what alternative forms of assessments are being practiced in a public school with an international programme and to explore the teachers` attitudes towards the use of alternative assessment procedures. Various assessment models and strategies have been investigated and discussed, as pre¬senting a part of the educational practice in the primary classrooms that engage the International Baccalaureate/ Primary Years Programme at the elementary school level (age range 6-11) in the years 0-5. While defining my research problem, I have started from hypothesis that practicing of alternative assessment has an important positive role in the international schools supporting, promoting and improving student learning. International schools are facing both challenging and complexity of assessment pro¬cess while striving to apply both national and international programs` recom¬menda¬tions concerning the testing. Alternative forms of assessments are being used in conjunction with other forms of assessment, such as standardised tests, in order to assess both student perfor¬mance and the intentions of the International Baccalaureate/ Primary Years Pro¬gramme. This paper investigates what alternative assessment practices (portfolio, perfor¬mance assessment, Exhibition, self-assessment) are being applied and used in the same school where the standardised tests are also being applied and used (text book tests, teacher-made tests, local and national test). The hypothesis was supported and the study findings suggest that various types of assessments are needed to be utilized in order to fairly evaluate students` needs as well as that alternative assessment has an important positive role meeting individual student’s needs supporting a process of learning.

<p>^{With the advent of globalisation driving the People.s Republic of China to embrace its future,}^{the local government has shown great enthusiasm promulgating one of the oldest industries.}^{Foreign higher educational providers that operate in China through the mode of joint venture}^{cooperatives between a Chinese and foreign institution of higher learning are becoming}^{increasingly .knowledgeable-hungry. public or private universities and colleges. Such}^{operations commonly known as Sino-foreign educational cooperatives}</p><p>^(SFEC)^{, are hotly}^{spawned on the mainland, enrolling Chinese students through the division of responsibilities,}^{roles and resources. The Chinese party is mostly responsible for the hardware support,}^{supplying facilities and logistics as the part of the bargain, whereas the foreign party provides}^{the intellectual software of academic programs.}^{The locus of this qualitative study aims to present and investigate a distinct phenomenon of}^{learning in SFEC through the theories of sociocultural perspective encumbered in a transitional}^{context; Sino-foreign}^(SF)^{graduates to other workplace communities. Without common}^{interests of social interaction, co-participation, and transformation, SFEC are often discredited}^{due to various factors. The learning aims will feature participative and transformative themes}^{that feature qualitative and interpretive methods. Thus, this research involves interviewing four}^{relevant participants from the likes of two Chinese nationals and two non-Chinese, and how}^{they view learning in SFEC applied to a transitional context, the workplace.}^{My furtherance of analysis will generally stress learning, co-participation and transformative}^{learning in activities that circumvents discriminatory elements of artifacts, identity profiling,}^{relationships, commitment and workplace employment for the necessary transition. In the}^{initial research phase, it did seem that putting learning into community practice in China was}^{essential. In the closing stages, thoughts will flow to the legitimisation of participative and}^{transformative learning, which forms the backdrop of this original theme of research gathered}^{through previous works of similar purview. Prawatt and Floden (1994) remark that knowledge,}^{and the belief that knowledge is the result of social interaction and language usage, and thus is}^{a shared, rather than an individual, experience. Presumably, my chosen theories frame the}^{interactive and shared communal nature of the Chinese society and learning systems.}</p> / na