The global spread of the neoliberal paradigm has propelled a recent worldwide trend of educational decentralization/centralization policies. Such policies constitute a contradictory ensemble that has shifted authority and accountability across national, provincial or state, municipal, and school levels. They have also been marked by contestation over the extent to which curricula are nationally standardized or locally defined. Education reform in Brazil in this regard has been shaped by a confluence of neoliberal and critical theoretical currents: enhance the nation’s economic competitiveness in the global market and redress pressing societal issues. Using Basil Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing together with critical educational scholars’ conceptualizations of knowledge and knowledge in the official and enacted curriculum as conceptual and theoretical frameworks, this comparative ethnographic case study examines the nexus between curriculum, knowledge, and pedagogy in municipal schools in Brazil’s Northeast. In doing so it addresses gaps in comparative educational research on curriculum knowledge along with how educational decentralization/centralization policies are implemented in practice. The central thesis is that municipal school curricula knowledge dynamics—the classification and framing of knowledge in the official curriculum and the relation of such with what knowledge is legitimized in classrooms, how such is transmitted and analyzed, and why—in Brazil’s Northeast encompass a multilevel web of contradictions. This web spans incongruent ideologies, opposing elements of autonomy and accountability, conflicting pedagogical principles and practices, and a chasm between curriculum ideals and urban periphery municipal school realities.

Teachers' use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the classroom has largely been studied to date with a focus on what is lacking. An important aspect that seems to have been understudied is how teachers' own histories and experiences of ICT connects to their teaching practices - in essence, focussing on what is 'present' and not what is 'missing'. This study examines five teachers working in the same school, but working very differently with ICT in their classrooms. The narratives of their lived experiences highlight the acquisition of their beliefs, attitudes and their in situ behaviours about the role of ICT in the classroom. A critical look at the factors responsible for shaping such behaviours suggests the value of understanding individuals' experiences when planning for technology-utilization, rather than prescribing a "teacher-proof" (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) approach to technology uptake.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

This arts-informed, phenomenological, and heuristic inquiry focuses on what it means to immerse deeply into experiences within the natural world. Through attention and reflection on emotional and somatic aspects of my own ocean SCUBA diving experiences, and those of beginner and practiced divers, a method and the significance of learning through personal experiences and others’ shared stories is illuminated. Readers are invited to imagine or revisit what it is like to be enveloped by ocean life through an artful narrative account of the ocean diving experience. Crafted in meandering ways, through the aesthetics of photographic images, divers’ evocative descriptions and poetic text, and interspersed with remembrances and imaginations and contemplations of self and world, the narrative reflects the diversity, richness and resonance of divers’ shared stories, and the reverberating and nurturing beauty and mystery of the ocean world. Through five narrative sections that embody a sense of movement deeper into the experience – into relations with the natural world, (‘Immersing’ ‘Opening Pathways of Exploration’, ‘Widening Circles of Compassion’, ‘Nature Reveals Her Open Secret’ and ‘Surfacing’), I encourage readers to wander amongst ocean life to expand ways of experiencing the natural world. It is important to look for new, creative ways that allow space for explorations of self and world, to uncover new ways to reconcile both the mind-body connection as well as the human-nature connection. This inquiry brings the notion of connectedness with nature to the forefront as humans’ alienation from the natural world is recognized as a significant contributor to the present ecological crisis. The exploration of ocean experiences was also a search for ways to encourage and sustain a lifelong inquiry into the relations with the non-human world as a way to continually build and reinforce a strong bond with the natural world for psychological, social and ecological wellbeing. The immersive nature of research methods and representation illuminated how ocean life and artful expressions of remembrances and imaginations build lasting impressions, further adding vitality to what is perceived in both aquatic and terrestrial worlds – enhancing a sense of connectedness with the natural world.

With the internationalization of English there is a growing demand for high quality English language education around the globe, particularly in non-English speaking countries. Consequently, there is an increasing demand worldwide for competent English teachers and more effective approaches to teaching and teacher professional development. In Egypt, in a context of educational reform where communicative language teaching approaches have been adopted as a way to improve teaching, this study explores how teachers perceive and respond to this call for change in instructional practices. It examines the professional development experiences of a group of English as a foreign language (EFL) and English-medium subject (EMS) teachers working in the private and public basic educational sectors in Cairo, Egypt. The research questions focus on teachers’ perceptions of change and improvement occurring in their teaching practices, their beliefs on the sources of change available to them, and the perspectives of school principals and professional development providers on teachers’ change prospects. In this study, a multi-method approach was applied, with a teacher survey administered to 174 teachers; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 36 teachers, 15 principals, and 8 professional development (PD) providers; field observation; and examination of relevant documents and artifacts. The analysis of data is informed by sociocultural theory perspectives (Vygotsky, 1978). The findings indicate that (1) teachers perceive great change in their practices, though their conceptions and implementation of communicative approaches are context-bound, (2) teaching is influenced by various professional learning opportunities, and (3) change or lack thereof results from teachers’ adaptability to their local contextual demands through a process of resistance, resilience, or maintaining the status quo. The findings highlight the centrality of teachers in change processes.They suggest that change results from a process of interaction between teachers and other individuals within their community, and that the nature of change as experienced by the participants is shaped by a multitude of contextual factors. The implications of the study include the need to replace the technical conception of professional development with a more ecological orientation, to establish professional learning communities among teachers and within schools, and to establish a coherent framework for change initiatives.

The voices, perspectives and experiences of girls and young women in history, political and civic education remain rare, and those of girls of color are even rarer still. This dissertation reports on the results of a qualitative study exploring girls’ perspectives on and experiences of citizenship in the Toronto area. Through the use of document analysis, semi-structured interviews; and photovoice, this study suggests that the girls easily identify traditional gendered expectations in their families, schools and in the society at large. At the same time, the girls often make deliberate choices to defy these expectations, carve out their own paths, and serve as advocates for gender equality, social justice and engaged citizenship. This study focuses on the voices of girls and the ways in which concepts of gender enhance, shape and inhibit civic action within schooling. Despite an increased emphasis on education for active citizenship in education more broadly, this study provokes serious questions about what girls are learning about their roles in society and how concepts of gender affect the ways young people understand and enact their citizenship roles. There are new fields of research in the areas of youth civic engagement, citizenship education, feminist and girlhood studies, all of which informed my understanding of these ‘citizen-girls’, however they still often remain separated and inadequately consider the intersections of multiple identity factors as well as the relationship between individual agency and the societal structures that construct dominant values. This study has important implications for educators and policymakers, suggesting a need for more spaces and opportunities both within the classroom, and outside the school, for girls and boys to critically engage with the messaging they receive about gender, democratic participation and citizen engagement. Furthermore, these girls’ experiences also suggest that we must broaden our definition of citizenship and civic participation in order to better reflect the myriad new forms of citizen expression being used by girls and young people in modern societies today.

In this dissertation I examine arguments for teaching post-secondary violin students to be versatile musicians rather than specialists in one genre or area of music. In order to do this, I assess the professional and educational opportunities in Toronto based on interviews with nine professional violinists as well as teachers and administrators at four institutions that offer post-secondary instruction in violin performance. To supplement information gathered through interviews, violinists and violists performing with the National Ballet of Canada and the Esprit Orchestra were asked to respond to a questionnaire regarding their training and work experiences. Data collected through fieldwork is contextualized by an analysis of scholarly writing, periodicals and websites on the topic of current post-secondary music curriculum and pedagogy methods. Throughout the dissertation, I build the case that, despite strong opinions and many years of pedagogy that emphasize the contrary, versatility provides many advantages to professional violinists when compared to specialization. In order to maximize the benefits of versatility in a professional career, I draw on Benjamin Brinner’s notion of core competences (Brinner 1995) to posit the skills necessary for professional musicians to pursue successful, enduring careers in Toronto. Applying these core competences to an analysis of violinists’ training, I explore the violin curriculum of post-secondary music schools in Toronto: The University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould School, Humber College, and York University to examine how students are being trained. In particular, I query how students are being prepared to be profession violinists with a focus on whetherthey are being prepared to be versatile musicians or specialists in one style. I conclude by offering recommendations as to how to better teach versatility based on the findings of the previous chapters. I explain that versatility can be nurtured in the school environment through teacher training and curricular changes that emphasize informal learning approaches, shifts in conventionally held assumptions about musical value and career success, and by encouraging exploration and improvisation as a basis of developing creativity.

This study followed three elementary-school teachers as they engaged in online discussions about inquiry-based mathematics teaching, and wrote and tested inquiry lessons for their own classrooms. In an inquiry lesson, students bring their own knowledge to open-ended problem situations, and build on that knowledge as they try out solutions and share their ideas with others. Evidence from the study suggests that teachers may turn to inquiry as an antidote to the way they learned about mathematics as schoolchildren, and that participating in an online community is a way for teachers to gain new mathematical and pedagogical knowledge and to change their conceptual understanding of inquiry-based teaching. The study results indicate that online professional development can help teachers improve their practice, but that care must be taken to build social ties within the group, and to structure tasks in a way that encourages collaboration and constructive criticism.

With the internationalization of English there is a growing demand for high quality English language education around the globe, particularly in non-English speaking countries. Consequently, there is an increasing demand worldwide for competent English teachers and more effective approaches to teaching and teacher professional development. In Egypt, in a context of educational reform where communicative language teaching approaches have been adopted as a way to improve teaching, this study explores how teachers perceive and respond to this call for change in instructional practices. It examines the professional development experiences of a group of English as a foreign language (EFL) and English-medium subject (EMS) teachers working in the private and public basic educational sectors in Cairo, Egypt. The research questions focus on teachers’ perceptions of change and improvement occurring in their teaching practices, their beliefs on the sources of change available to them, and the perspectives of school principals and professional development providers on teachers’ change prospects. In this study, a multi-method approach was applied, with a teacher survey administered to 174 teachers; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 36 teachers, 15 principals, and 8 professional development (PD) providers; field observation; and examination of relevant documents and artifacts. The analysis of data is informed by sociocultural theory perspectives (Vygotsky, 1978). The findings indicate that (1) teachers perceive great change in their practices, though their conceptions and implementation of communicative approaches are context-bound, (2) teaching is influenced by various professional learning opportunities, and (3) change or lack thereof results from teachers’ adaptability to their local contextual demands through a process of resistance, resilience, or maintaining the status quo. The findings highlight the centrality of teachers in change processes.They suggest that change results from a process of interaction between teachers and other individuals within their community, and that the nature of change as experienced by the participants is shaped by a multitude of contextual factors. The implications of the study include the need to replace the technical conception of professional development with a more ecological orientation, to establish professional learning communities among teachers and within schools, and to establish a coherent framework for change initiatives.

This arts-informed, phenomenological, and heuristic inquiry focuses on what it means to immerse deeply into experiences within the natural world. Through attention and reflection on emotional and somatic aspects of my own ocean SCUBA diving experiences, and those of beginner and practiced divers, a method and the significance of learning through personal experiences and others’ shared stories is illuminated. Readers are invited to imagine or revisit what it is like to be enveloped by ocean life through an artful narrative account of the ocean diving experience. Crafted in meandering ways, through the aesthetics of photographic images, divers’ evocative descriptions and poetic text, and interspersed with remembrances and imaginations and contemplations of self and world, the narrative reflects the diversity, richness and resonance of divers’ shared stories, and the reverberating and nurturing beauty and mystery of the ocean world. Through five narrative sections that embody a sense of movement deeper into the experience – into relations with the natural world, (‘Immersing’ ‘Opening Pathways of Exploration’, ‘Widening Circles of Compassion’, ‘Nature Reveals Her Open Secret’ and ‘Surfacing’), I encourage readers to wander amongst ocean life to expand ways of experiencing the natural world. It is important to look for new, creative ways that allow space for explorations of self and world, to uncover new ways to reconcile both the mind-body connection as well as the human-nature connection. This inquiry brings the notion of connectedness with nature to the forefront as humans’ alienation from the natural world is recognized as a significant contributor to the present ecological crisis. The exploration of ocean experiences was also a search for ways to encourage and sustain a lifelong inquiry into the relations with the non-human world as a way to continually build and reinforce a strong bond with the natural world for psychological, social and ecological wellbeing. The immersive nature of research methods and representation illuminated how ocean life and artful expressions of remembrances and imaginations build lasting impressions, further adding vitality to what is perceived in both aquatic and terrestrial worlds – enhancing a sense of connectedness with the natural world.