Tradition and convention dichotomises children and curriculum and this is challenged by re(con)ceiving children in curriculum. My study generates ways for thinking differently about children’s complex interrelationships with curriculum by working with the philosophical imaginaries of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I use an assemblage of imaginaries, namely: rhizome, plateaus, multiplicities, nomad, de~territorialising lines of flight, smooth spaces, becoming, milieu, monad and singularities, all of which disrupt traditional and conventional thought in various ways. Working with children to share their understandings of curriculum, demonstrated in their curricular performativity of becoming~learning, becomes a complex methodological endeavour, which inextricably (rhizomatically) entwines researching and researcher/participants and research. What I call the assemblage of the thesis is thus as much about researching rhizomatically as about young children’s understandings of curriculum and Deleuzo-Guattarian imaginaries help bring these together. Rhizome and becoming are two imaginaries that feature frequently in the discussion and in the methodology, with plateaus comprising the condition and expression of the ‘thesis’ cum assemblage. However, as plateaus work non-linearly, the conventional notion of a chaptered thesis is rendered sous rature. Hence the thesis-assemblage becomes a milieu of plateaus that can be read in any order, rather than a conventional linear sequence of chapters containing specific sections of the research process. Continuing with generating a milieu (while simultaneously disrupting linearity) both the literature review and rhizoanalysis occur in various plateaus, and the rhizo-methodology is played out throughout. Bringing my understanding of Deleuzo-Guattarian imaginaries of rhizome and becoming into theories about children and childhood and bringing the notion of rhizome together with young children’s curricular performance opens possibilities for conceiving children and curriculum differently, and for receiving these into reconceptualist curricular conversations. A poststructuralist feminist theoretical approach works to destabilise developmental perspectives of children and childhood as well as the adult|child binary, and recognises curriculum as a complex endeavour. The interconnected processes of rhizo inquiry, rhizomatic methodology and rhizoanalysis engage with emerging understandings of researching complexity and further disrupt modernist, arborescent thought. Data for the study were generated in a kindergarten during a two-week period by moving rhizomatically with the activity of children’s play while video recording their games. Mostly I operated the camera, with the children preferring to be performers in these spontaneous video plays, but periodically various children took the camera and recorded activity of their choosing, thereby generating another dimension to the data. As and when requested by the children, they watched the videos of themselves at play, with opportunities for replaying sequences and engaging in conversation about their becoming~learning. These review sessions were recorded on a second video camera, contributing to an intensifying multiplicity of data. To continue generating this data multiplicity, I approached the rhizoanalysis in several ways – through conventional transcripts, visual notations and by juxtaposing interactive pieces using the literature, transcriptions from the data and my commentaries. For example: data were juxtaposed with philosophical imaginaries; data from both cameras were read alongside one another; data of the children playing were used to inform the methodology as well as the methodology being used to inform the rhizoanalysis; transcriptions were turned into storyboards and some play episodes were mapped pictorially. Determining conclusions is not the purpose of a rhizomatic research multiplicity. Instead I leave off with thoughts for the reader about ongoing and opening processes of thinking differently around curriculum as (a) milieu(s) of becoming and children as dynamically becoming(s)-child(ren). Rhizomatically, these link to data used to explain map(ping) play(ing), children performing curriculum complexly, children’s expressions of power-fullness and children performing rhizo-methodology. These data demonstrate young children’s sophisticated understandings of their doing~learning~living. As well as opening possibilities for adults to understand children’s understandings, the data open possibilities for children’s understandings to inform adult understandings of curriculum, as practiced, theoretical and philosophical, that is, for receiving children into curriculum.

Since 1984, when the fourth Labour Government was elected to office, there have been major changes in the structures of society in Aoteroa/New Zealand. A wide range of reviews and reforms of economic and social policy have been undertaken, and not surprisingly the structures and policies of adult education have come under scrutiny and been subject to major changes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the politics of policy formation over a six-year period. Using official and unofficial reports and other documents, the paper seeks to identify some of the key changes in adult education policy that have taken place in recent years and to locate them within the context of the contradictory pressures operating upon and within government and the field of adult education.

Abstract By 2020 the World Health Organisation has predicted that depression will be the largest cause of disease burden in the world (Ellen, 2002). This study investigated the effects of three interventions (Explanatory Style, Conflict Resolution, and Exercise) on the level of well-being of adolescents from the middle years of schooling. The research consisted of three studies. Study 1 involved the design of a Student Perception Questionnaire. The 28¬–item Student Perception Questionnaire was created to measure the outcomes of the three interventions and was trialled on 215 Middle School students. A Principal Components analysis with Varimax rotation was performed on the data retrieved from the respondents, and all items were retained on the questionnaire, although four factors did not show a .30 loading. Study 2, a Pilot Study, was conducted with three students to trial the interventions and measures in preparation for the final study. It included the collection of qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data was gained from interviews held with the students, parents, and teachers. Study 2 revealed that the interventions and the measures used to determine the effectiveness of the interventions would be suitable for Study 3. Study 3 was the full intervention that involved 25 students in an intervention group and six students in a no-intervention group. The 25 students were allocated to six groups that were engaged in a counterbalanced design study using the Explanatory Style, Conflict Resolution, and Exercise interventions. The group of six students was used as a comparison group. The results showed that students in the intervention group experienced a reduction of internalising behaviours such as withdrawal and depressive symptoms following all three interventions. The program as a whole was successful in reducing depressive symptoms and the interventions individually also significantly reduced depressive symptoms. The intervention group developed more optimistic thinking styles following the explanatory style intervention. Analysis of parent data revealed that parents of the intervention group were experiencing significant feelings of incompetence and guilt towards themselves as parents. In the members of the no-intervention group, having good social skills and a strong support network of friends and family were protective factors against depressive symptoms. The thesis showed that interventions can be used with adolescents that are effective in reducing depressive symptoms and do not have negative side effects, such as those associated with medications.

Tradition and convention dichotomises children and curriculum and this is challenged by re(con)ceiving children in curriculum. My study generates ways for thinking differently about children’s complex interrelationships with curriculum by working with the philosophical imaginaries of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I use an assemblage of imaginaries, namely: rhizome, plateaus, multiplicities, nomad, de~territorialising lines of flight, smooth spaces, becoming, milieu, monad and singularities, all of which disrupt traditional and conventional thought in various ways. Working with children to share their understandings of curriculum, demonstrated in their curricular performativity of becoming~learning, becomes a complex methodological endeavour, which inextricably (rhizomatically) entwines researching and researcher/participants and research. What I call the assemblage of the thesis is thus as much about researching rhizomatically as about young children’s understandings of curriculum and Deleuzo-Guattarian imaginaries help bring these together. Rhizome and becoming are two imaginaries that feature frequently in the discussion and in the methodology, with plateaus comprising the condition and expression of the ‘thesis’ cum assemblage. However, as plateaus work non-linearly, the conventional notion of a chaptered thesis is rendered sous rature. Hence the thesis-assemblage becomes a milieu of plateaus that can be read in any order, rather than a conventional linear sequence of chapters containing specific sections of the research process. Continuing with generating a milieu (while simultaneously disrupting linearity) both the literature review and rhizoanalysis occur in various plateaus, and the rhizo-methodology is played out throughout. Bringing my understanding of Deleuzo-Guattarian imaginaries of rhizome and becoming into theories about children and childhood and bringing the notion of rhizome together with young children’s curricular performance opens possibilities for conceiving children and curriculum differently, and for receiving these into reconceptualist curricular conversations. A poststructuralist feminist theoretical approach works to destabilise developmental perspectives of children and childhood as well as the adult|child binary, and recognises curriculum as a complex endeavour. The interconnected processes of rhizo inquiry, rhizomatic methodology and rhizoanalysis engage with emerging understandings of researching complexity and further disrupt modernist, arborescent thought. Data for the study were generated in a kindergarten during a two-week period by moving rhizomatically with the activity of children’s play while video recording their games. Mostly I operated the camera, with the children preferring to be performers in these spontaneous video plays, but periodically various children took the camera and recorded activity of their choosing, thereby generating another dimension to the data. As and when requested by the children, they watched the videos of themselves at play, with opportunities for replaying sequences and engaging in conversation about their becoming~learning. These review sessions were recorded on a second video camera, contributing to an intensifying multiplicity of data. To continue generating this data multiplicity, I approached the rhizoanalysis in several ways – through conventional transcripts, visual notations and by juxtaposing interactive pieces using the literature, transcriptions from the data and my commentaries. For example: data were juxtaposed with philosophical imaginaries; data from both cameras were read alongside one another; data of the children playing were used to inform the methodology as well as the methodology being used to inform the rhizoanalysis; transcriptions were turned into storyboards and some play episodes were mapped pictorially. Determining conclusions is not the purpose of a rhizomatic research multiplicity. Instead I leave off with thoughts for the reader about ongoing and opening processes of thinking differently around curriculum as (a) milieu(s) of becoming and children as dynamically becoming(s)-child(ren). Rhizomatically, these link to data used to explain map(ping) play(ing), children performing curriculum complexly, children’s expressions of power-fullness and children performing rhizo-methodology. These data demonstrate young children’s sophisticated understandings of their doing~learning~living. As well as opening possibilities for adults to understand children’s understandings, the data open possibilities for children’s understandings to inform adult understandings of curriculum, as practiced, theoretical and philosophical, that is, for receiving children into curriculum.

This study investigated how experienced teachers learned Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) during their professional development. With the introduction of ICT, experienced teachers encountered change becoming virtually displaced persons – digital immigrants; new settlers – endeavouring to obtain digital citizenship in order to survive in the information age. In the process, these teachers moved from learning how to push buttons, to applying software, and finally to changing their practice. They learned collectively and individually, in communities and networks, like immigrants and adult learners: by doing, experimenting and reflecting on ICT. Unfortunately, for these teachers-as-pedagogues, their focus on pedagogical theory during the action research they conducted, was not fully investigated or embraced during the year-long study. This study used a participant observation qualitative methodology to follow teachers in their university classroom. Interviews were conducted and documentation collected and verified by the teacher educator. The application of Kolb‘s, Gardner‘s, and Vygotsky‘s work allowed for the observation of these teachers within their sociocultural contexts. Kolb‘s work helped to understand their learning processes and Gardner‘s work indicated the learning abilities that these teachers valued in the new ICT environment. Meanwhile Vygotsky‘s work – and in particular three concepts, uchit, perezhivanija, and mislenija – presented a richer and more informed basis to understand immigration and change. Finally, this research proposes that teachers learn ICT through what is termed a hyperuchit model, consisting of developments; action; interaction; and reflection. The recommendation is that future teacher university ICT professional learning incorporates this hyperuchit model.

Information Systems is a relatively new curriculum area and one that is still growing in size and importance. It involves applied studies that are concerned with the ways people build and use computer-based systems in their organisations to produce useful information. Information Systems is, of necessity, a socio-technical discipline that has to deal with issues involving both people and machines; with the multitude of human and non-human entities that comprise an information system. This thesis reports an investigation of how Information Systems curriculum is made and how the choices of individual lecturers or groups of lecturers to adopt or ignore a new concept or technology are formed. It addresses this issue by describing a study into how the programming language Visual Basic entered the Information Systems curriculum of an Australian university, and how it has retained its place there despite challenges from other programming languages. It is a study of curriculum innovation that involves an important but small change in the curriculum of a single department in a particular university. Little of the literature on innovation deals with university curriculum and most reported work is focussed on research, development and diffusion studies of the adoption, or otherwise, of centrally developed curriculum innovations in primary and secondary schools. The innovation described here is of a different order being developed initially by a single university lecturer in one of the subjects for which he had responsibility. It is important primarily because it examines something that does not appear to have been reported on before: the negotiations and alliances that allow new material, in this case the programming language Visual Basic, to enter individual subjects of a university curriculum, and to obtain a durable place there. The research investigates a single instance of innovation, and traces the associations between various human and non-human entities including Visual Basic, the university, the student laboratories, the Course Advisory Committee and the academic staff that made this happen. It follows the formation of alliances and complex networks of association, and how their interplay resulted in the curriculum change that allowed Visual Basic to enter the Information Systems curriculum, and to fend off challenges from other programming languages in order to retain its place there. I argue that in this curriculum innovation no pre-planned path was followed, and that representations of events like this as straightforward or well planned hide the complexity of what took place. The study reveals the complex set of negotiations and compromises made by both human and non-human actors in allowing Visual Basic to enter the curriculum. The study draws on the sociology of translations, more commonly known as actor-network theory (ANT) as a framework for its analysis. I show that innovation translation can be used to advantage to trace the progress of technological innovations such as this. My analysis maps the progress of Visual Basic from novelty to ‘obvious choice’ in this university’s Information Systems curriculum.

In 1994 the Commonwealth Government allocated funds for the design and development of a number of Rural Access Community Training Centres throughout Australia. This program derives from the strategic plan, A Bridge to the Future: Australias National Strategy for V.E.T. and specifically, objective number three (3); achieving equitable outcomes in V.E.T. The key question for this thesis is; how successful has vocational education and training (V.E.T.) reform been in empowering one local community to plan for, manage and deliver new education and training services? The focus of this thesis is a case-study of how one community is coping with vocational education and training (V.E.T.) reform and an analysis of the critical factors involved in facilitating change within communities, community organisations and the Australian vocational education and training system. A case-study approach was utilised to research Glassy Waters, a small rural community with a population of some 650 residents situated on a system of rivers and lakes in Victoria. The methodology utilised in gathering information for the case-study is mixed-mode relying on some of the principles of participatory action research and specifically the participant observations of the researcher. The research also relies on interviews with key stakeholders to ascertain information, views and experiences of a community in the process of creating a new vocational education and training centre. This thesis reveals that Glassy Waters Advisory Corporation (G.W.A.C.), a community managed organisation, has been successful in meeting the primary objectives of Commonwealth policy to establish a Rural Access Community Training Centre and increase access to V.E.T. programs for some disadvantaged groups living in the local community. However, both the policy and the implementation process has had limited impact on the prevailing management and employment culture and practices within the Glassy Waters community. The Glassy Waters case-study provides indicators that certain factors act as barriers to the implementation of a new learning culture within the community and therefore act as barriers to disadvantaged people accessing V.E.T. programs. The need for a new learning culture within the community was identified by government representatives as crucial to the success of the new training centre and the development of new learning cultures has been identified by a policy mix implied by Commonwealth and State/Territory governments as central to the V.E.T. reform process in Australia. The Glassy Waters case-study reflects that although change is occurring on the edges of the vocational education and training (V.E.T.) sector in terms of the key tenets of national vocational education and training (V.E.T.) reform, the actual communities that are the target of these new services are a long way from being receptive of new learning cultures in either a theoretical or practical sense. The concepts of learning communities/regions and learning organisations are still just concepts and many individuals, communities and organisations are struggling to implement new principles of learning within long established community structures. Therefore, there is evidence that it is timely for governments and local communities to review the philosophy, people and processes of national vocational education and training (V.E.T.) reform to ensure that all stakeholders, including governments, industries and communities are on the same track. There is also evidence that communities want government resources to be allocated toward the kinds of community development projects and programs that address the philosophy, people and process of vocational education and training and not just products and outcomes.

Community interventions are a recent development in the field of prevention. This study sought to address the current gap in this area, between scientific knowledge and community practice, through an understanding of practitioners’ experiences of implementation. A case study was undertaken to explore the context and complexity of implementation processes. Data was collected concurrently with the implementation of a community intervention located in rural Victoria, Australia, which aimed to reduce early school leaving. Implementers’ perspectives on a guide to best practice, developed from the academic literature, were sought. Concepts from systems theory and ecological approaches were combined to create a framework suitable for the analysis of the data. The intervention was viewed as an open system. Its progression from being a subsystem of the funded organization to a subsystem of both the funded organization and the community was examined. Factors such as meeting community needs and community members as program staff were found to facilitate community acceptance. The interactions within and between the subsystems of the intervention and the community were also explored. School retention rates were suggestive of some level of impact on school leaving. Additional positive outcomes were the facilitation and/or strengthening of links between community subsystems, and a perceived change within the funded organization. This thesis goes some way towards bridging the gap between science and practice in this field. Findings contribute to the debate regarding flexibility versus fidelity and a greater understanding of the unique challenges faced by rural interventions.

The aim of this research was to explain the process of nurses’ self-directed learning in clinical practice according to their self-perceptions. The researcher applied a phenomenological research approach as it enabled the researcher to discover and understand the direct daily experiences of nurses as they relate to self-directed learning in clinical practice. The research took place in a provincial Thai general hospital with over 500 beds. The participants were seven nurses from seven wards and four nurse educators from four departments of this hospital. Each participant had at least one year of work experience in a general hospital with 500 patient-beds in Thailand. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and field notes over seven months from July 2003 to January 2004. Inductive analysis was used to interpret participants’ perceptions, experiences and behaviors. Data are presented to illustrate and substantiate interpretations of the selfdirected learning process of nurses in clinical practices. The findings show that nurses defined self-directed learners by four characteristics: 1) independent in learning, 2) effective in learning, 3) accepting of responsibility for learning, and 4) able to use problem solving skills. It was also found that nurses learned about patients, nursing practice and nursing communications through self-direction by selecting their own methods of learning, as well as choosing the sources of their learning. Nurse educators have a role in encouraging and supporting nurses to learn through self-direction by providing and suggesting how to use learning resources, building a conducive atmosphere and environment for learning, and evaluating the effectiveness of nurses’ self-directed learning. The findings from this study indicate that the opportunity to learn through self-direction already exists in the clinical setting. The nurses in this study primarily utilized learning sources within the hospital setting when engaged in self-directed learning, in particular human resources. Both structured and unstructured activities contributed to learning opportunities for nurses in clinical practice. Critical to their learning was the capability of identifying the learning opportunities that arise in their work. These results can be applied in nursing development plans in order to increase the self-directed learning potential of professional nurses. This effort may then enhance lifelong learning among nursing personnel of hospitals. Nurses can use their knowledge and skills from self-development to provide higher quality nursing care to patients. Eventually, their self-development will lead to their career development and finally to the development of the organization.

This study set out to examine and describe the administrative experiences of senior leaders and senior and junior staff in three Thai universities. The researcher chose to employ a grounded theory approach to analyse data collected from in-depth interviews with twelve participants including one Dean from Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), one from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) and two from Burapha University (BUU). The senior staff informants included four heads of schools and departments, one from each of SUT and KMUTT and two from BUU. Junior staff informants included four Chief or Faculty Secretaries, one each from SUT and KMUTT and two from BUU. Other data sources included field notes and the documents provided by each university. All interviews were conducted in Thai, transcribed verbatim and translated into English. Along with field notes, memos and documents, these were analysed using the constant comparative method synonymous with grounded theory. Findings of the research revealed that effective leadership combines both interpersonal and organizational skills in establishing direction in universities and in aligning, motivating and inspiring people. The study is set in a context where universities in Thailand are moving from state bureaucratic control to autonomous status. Effective leadership is therefore of great importance.