The aim is to empower all students to achieve academic success by overcoming the educational barriers that exist within the school system. This thesis examines what sociological factors are at play that encourages the academic success of Black students. The emphasis will be to identify how other Black students can replicate the success of their high achieving peers. Another theme in this thesis focuses around the idea of success and who it belongs to versus which groups of learners are ignored. Other related themes look at the power of educators to transform the lives of students where schooling is viewed as a family approach offering hope for all stakeholders. Furthermore, the resiliency of Black learners and their ability to rise above racial pressures and adversity is an important theme that addresses the need for policy to change and the implementation of anti-racist strategies.

Research is emerging that documents the use of the Tribes process in elementary and secondary schools. Inquiry into the use of Tribes in beginning-teacher-education programs has not been conducted. This study investigated teacher candidates’ perceptions of the effectiveness of Tribes training in enhancing their learning, their concerns about implementing the Tribes process, and their levels of use of Tribes during the beginning-teacher-education program and their first years of teaching. A mixed-method research design was employed to collect data to determine the value of Tribes training during the beginning-teacher-education program. The Concerns Based Adoption Model provided a conceptual framework to measure, describe, and explain the process of change experienced by teachers implementing Tribes in their classrooms as well as how that change process was affected by the leadership and collegial support in the schools. The findings describe a belief in Tribes that was developed during the training in the beginning-teacher-education program. This belief in the value of Tribes and the importance of creating learning communities helped to solidify the teacher candidates’ belief systems about teaching and provided them with a vision of their future classrooms and a framework for their philosophies of education. The findings reveal that the knowledge and skills gained during the training in the beginning-teacher-education year were transferred into the practice of all graduates. The interviews and the questionnaires indicated an array of concerns. The data revealed that high-intensity informational and personal concerns were most evident in the profiles of the newest graduates. The profiles of the some of the most experienced teachers indicated lower self and task concerns, and increased impact concerns. All groups identified collaboration concerns related to resistance from colleagues and a perceived lack of leadership for change. The findings from the interviews revealed that all but two teachers were using the Tribes process with their classes from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 Calculus. Participants highlighted the importance of school culture as well as leadership style and behaviours as important factors in the implementation of Tribes.

The overriding objective of core French (CF) teaching in Canada since the National Core French Study (NCFS) is that of communicative competence (R. Leblanc, 1990). Results from the traditional form of CF, though, suggest that students are not developing desired levels of communicative competence in the drip-feed (short daily periods) model (Lapkin, Harley, & Taylor, 1993). The present study aims to investigate the role of compacted second language program formats in promoting higher levels of language proficiency and achievement among elementary core French students; in particular, the study investigates the pedagogic approach, based on the principle that longer class periods should facilitate a more communicative/ experiential teaching approach. Students in three Grade 7 classes served as participants. Two of the classes served as the compacted experimental classes, and the other as a comparison class. Pre-tests, immediate post-tests and delayed post-tests recorded differences in student achievement. A multi-dimensional, project-based curriculum approach was implemented in all three classes, and was recorded by teacher observations in her daybook and daily journal. Student attitudes toward their CF program format and their self-assessed language proficiency were measured during recorded focus group sessions and on student questionnaires. Parental and teacher perceptions of student attitudes were measured using a short survey. Results indicate that students in both the compact and comparison classes performed similarly, with few significant differences in measured language growth or retention over time. Parents of all classes indicated satisfaction with the teaching and learning activities, and with the program format in which their child was enrolled. Excerpts from the teacher daybook and reflective journal demonstrated that communicative activities fostering student interaction in the target language were more frequently and readily implemented in the longer compact CF periods. Students generally stated a preference for the program format in which they were enrolled, although only students in the compact classes outlined pedagogic reasons in support for their preference. Additionally, most students self-assessed a higher level of language competence than in previous years, which students in the compact (experimental) classes attributed to the longer class periods, stating that they promoted task completion, group work, in-depth projects and communicative activities.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to address the problem of the silencing of adolescent girls and young women by exploring their spiritual experiences and knowledge of their inner selves. Five participants between the ages of 18 and 25 were interviewed 3 times over several weeks about their spiritual experiences, artefacts of spiritual significance, and beliefs about their inner selves. The findings of this study reveal that young women are deeply interested in nurturing their spirituality, which they are not finding in religion, and they are looking elsewhere for a spirituality that embraces a feminine ethic of care and responsibility.

This thesis investigates issues and challenges surrounding the use of teacher study groups as a means of addressing the gap that must be closed between design principles and classroom practices in order to effectively implement an educational innovation. A multiple-case design was used to examine how teachers’ perceived understanding of the Knowledge Building Communities principles changed over time and affected their implementation of the Knowledge Building Communities model—a model that requires student engagement in the collaborative production of ideas that are continually improved by all participants. Knowledge Forum® is an on-line environment designed to support Knowledge Building. Data sources for this study include teacher interviews, transcripts of study group meetings, teachers’ ratings of their perceived understanding of Knowledge Building principles, teacher and student activity in Knowledge Forum, and student interviews. In total this study involved seven teachers and eleven study group meetings across three school sites. Based on work at a site already engaged in Knowledge Building a tentative proposition was developed: discussing Knowledge Building principles increases teachers’ perceived understanding of these principles and contributes to increasingly effective designs for implementing them. This proposition was tested and refined at two additional elementary public schools. Taken together the findings suggest the importance of and difficulties surrounding study groups focused on principle-based approaches to pedagogical change. In particular, the findings point to discussion and active engagement with the principles as a catalyst for change. A data analysis technique was developed to examine the discourse patterns of select episodes of study group meetings. The resulting pattern suggests the principles can frame a study groups’ work and set the groundwork for change through discussion of goals underlying the principles, stories relevant to their implementation, and commitment to ongoing experimentation to address obstacles. Detailed accounts of teacher difficulties and change form the basis of a descriptive model developed to convey how teachers address contextual concerns in their study groups, with elaboration of the types of interactions that help them move to deeper understanding of principles and to more successful implementations of the Knowledge Building Communities model.

Research is emerging that documents the use of the Tribes process in elementary and secondary schools. Inquiry into the use of Tribes in beginning-teacher-education programs has not been conducted. This study investigated teacher candidates’ perceptions of the effectiveness of Tribes training in enhancing their learning, their concerns about implementing the Tribes process, and their levels of use of Tribes during the beginning-teacher-education program and their first years of teaching. A mixed-method research design was employed to collect data to determine the value of Tribes training during the beginning-teacher-education program. The Concerns Based Adoption Model provided a conceptual framework to measure, describe, and explain the process of change experienced by teachers implementing Tribes in their classrooms as well as how that change process was affected by the leadership and collegial support in the schools. The findings describe a belief in Tribes that was developed during the training in the beginning-teacher-education program. This belief in the value of Tribes and the importance of creating learning communities helped to solidify the teacher candidates’ belief systems about teaching and provided them with a vision of their future classrooms and a framework for their philosophies of education. The findings reveal that the knowledge and skills gained during the training in the beginning-teacher-education year were transferred into the practice of all graduates. The interviews and the questionnaires indicated an array of concerns. The data revealed that high-intensity informational and personal concerns were most evident in the profiles of the newest graduates. The profiles of the some of the most experienced teachers indicated lower self and task concerns, and increased impact concerns. All groups identified collaboration concerns related to resistance from colleagues and a perceived lack of leadership for change. The findings from the interviews revealed that all but two teachers were using the Tribes process with their classes from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 Calculus. Participants highlighted the importance of school culture as well as leadership style and behaviours as important factors in the implementation of Tribes.

This study is an investigation of the perspectives and practices of U.K. expert practitioners regarding the accessibility of tests in higher education online learning environments. As a growing area of concern in the higher education field, the accessibility of online tests is a particularly complex and challenging topic. To explore this topic further, twelve U.K. higher education expert practitioners were consulted. Five major themes that were identified by the participants included: 1. Requirement for balance between academic integrity and accessibility; 2. Need for inclusive design to better support the creation and delivery of accessible online tests; 3. Issues related to the mainstreaming of accessible online tests and testing processes; 4. Resources required to support the design and delivery of accessible online tests; and 5. Technology issues and approaches. The participants shared their research findings, experiences, and reflections regarding their work related to different types of online tests and accessibility.

This study is an investigation of the perspectives and practices of U.K. expert practitioners regarding the accessibility of tests in higher education online learning environments. As a growing area of concern in the higher education field, the accessibility of online tests is a particularly complex and challenging topic. To explore this topic further, twelve U.K. higher education expert practitioners were consulted. Five major themes that were identified by the participants included: 1. Requirement for balance between academic integrity and accessibility; 2. Need for inclusive design to better support the creation and delivery of accessible online tests; 3. Issues related to the mainstreaming of accessible online tests and testing processes; 4. Resources required to support the design and delivery of accessible online tests; and 5. Technology issues and approaches. The participants shared their research findings, experiences, and reflections regarding their work related to different types of online tests and accessibility.

Social movement activism throughout the 1960s and 1970s provided space for feminist concerns in a variety of arenas. Women's movement activism and women's scholarship in history challenged the ways in which women’s experiences had been marginalized or omitted in school history programs and curricula. Women's organizations developed and broadened networks, created and published resources, and lobbied governments and institutions. Their widespread activism spilled into a range of educational circles and influenced history teachers in altering curricula to include women in course materials. Advocating for women, on a curricular or professional development level, however, was complicated because of entrenched neo-liberal systems in place within education institutions. Although the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Toronto Board of Education demonstrated clear support for a wide range of gender equity-based initiatives, they committed to implementing a 'piecemeal' approach to curricular change. The fundamental work to include women in history curricula relied heavily on grassroots networks that allowed for women’s experiences to leak into classrooms, and were responsible for bringing women’s voices into the history curricula. This study explores the initiatives of the Toronto Board of Education from 1968-1993, with particular analysis of women’s committees, teacher/librarians in resource centers, Affirmative Action representatives, individual teachers and administrators. Within the broader public sphere, the contributions of concerned parents, activists, small independent publishers, educational reformers, political leaders and women’s history organizations lent their voices to ideas about how the inclusion of women in history curricula should take shape in Toronto schools. Ministry gender equity policies and history course guidelines provided incremental and therefore politically safe responses to educational change. The Toronto Board's "add-on" approach to including women in course examinations avoided instituting major "top-down'" curricular change, which kept the integration of women’s history within classrooms on the periphery of most course work. The substantive grassroots activism and the commitment of women’s organizations and individual teachers, however, allowed women’s history to flourish within individual classrooms in Toronto and demonstrates the ways in which "bottom-up" initiatives can be a powerful force in curricular change.

Controversy, as a vital principle of democracy, plays a central role in education for critical democratic global citizenship. Controversial issues, however, raise pedagogical challenges for teachers in that they are not only explicitly political, but also potentially threatening to the reproduction of status quo ideals and embedded national narratives – themselves keystones of citizenship education. The findings from this dissertation study report survey data on teachers’ attitudes toward teaching controversial issues from 202 Canadian teachers, as well as findings from interviews conducted with 16 Alberta teachers about how their multiple identities, and those of their students, intersect with their attitudes toward teaching controversial issues. The findings are discussed against indicators of critical democratic global citizenship education (CDGCE) which I advance in the thesis following from my investigation into the relationship between critical theory of a) democracy, b) globalization, and c) education. I engage the findings through the lens of critique and possibility and the reproduction and interruption of hegemonic discourse. Read through this lens, I found that hegemonic discourses of neutrality and universalism are being both reproduced and interrupted in complex ways that do affirm, but mostly refute, the promise of education for deepening democracy under conditions of globalization. Discourses of neutrality and universalism are being reproduced through insidious practices that affirm difference-blind and blank slate ideals and these need responding to. These have implications for how students in Canadian classrooms may be being prepared for critical democratic global citizenship education. Despite the misguided emphasis on the danger of teachers’ expressing extreme views in dominant discourses of education that question the place of controversial issues in school, I argue that the greater threat to deepening democracy is not teachers who express extreme views; it is curriculum and teachers who do not question familiar ones. In turn, I call for critical discursive and reflexive practices for teaching and learning with controversial issues that foreground identity, difference, and feelings as explicit material for learning. Finally, I delineate specific recommendations that are crucial responses for realizing the promise of education for deepening democracy under conditions of globalization.