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The aim of this research was to investigate and analyse the policies of the Greek Ministry of Education, Life-long Learning and Religious Affairs (MoE) regarding Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration in Secondary Education, and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' cognitions and practices about the implementation of these policies, CALL and learner autonomy in Greek Secondary Schools. Sociocultural Theory (SCT) was the conceptual framework in the present study and a mixed-method research approach was employed. For the first part which focused on the ICT policies, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse the major ICT policy documents, starting from the setting up of infrastructure at the beginning of the 1990s until the present. The major ICT policies of the European Union (EU) were also discussed as they directly affected the ICT policies in Greece. Overall, it was found that the nodal discourse in these policies is 'the knowledge-based economy' and that ICTs are embedded in education to gradually transform it in order to answer the new needs and challenges of the information society. For the second part which investigated EFL teachers' cognitions and practices, a survey was conducted through questionnaires sent to Secondary Schools throughout Greece. The quantitative data of the questionnaires were analysed with descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were analysed with thematic analysis. The findings show that EFL teachers have positive cognitions about CALL and learner autonomy, however these cognitions are not realized on a regular basis due to mainly the unavailability or inaccessibility of computer facilities and the lack of sufficient teacher training. This study suggests that one way the MoE can further support ICT integration in education so that its investments in ICT have a substantial impact is by developing ICT facilities further, making changes in the curriculum, training all teachers in ICT integration, and also by enabling both teacher and learner autonomy in order to promote more ICT-enhanced, student-centred learning environments.

There is a considerable body of research relating to two aspects of education policy and provision which has been central to this thesis. The first aspect relates to the development of local education markets, and the way in which these have varied considerably within a national framework of provision. The second has been concerned with the process of parental choice of schools: the values - and criteria which parents have applied to this process and the knowledge and skills which they have brought to it. This research has brought these aspects together, to examine the way in which year six parents in three local education markets set about the process of choosing secondary schools for their children. The data for this research was collected within three local education markets in south-east England betWeen September 1999 and March 2000. These markets were chosen because they centred upon local education authorities (LEAs) which were markedly different in their systems of secondary transfer: it was intended to investigate whether features of specific local education markets influenced the parental choice process. Within each of these markets, the research focused upon three primary schools. A total of 52 parents with children in year six attending these schools were interviewed., and 71 returned questionnaires. In addition, the headteachers of all the primary schools were interviewed, together with officers responsible for secondary transfer in two of the LEAs. The research was undertaken during a period when, despite the election of a Labour government in 1997, parents were making their choices in the context of a market-based system of education provision which had been established by successive Conservative governments during the 1980s and 199Os. This system emphasised the role of parents as allocators of resources, and implied that their demands for places at schools which satisfied their criteria would be met, as schools competed for parents' custom, and good schools expanded as poorer ones improved or closed. However, an additional very significant aspect of the context in which these year six parents made their choices was a hierarchy of schools according to attainment. As a result, the choice process was complicated by parents competing for places at the most sought-after schools research was based upon an analysis of the way in which year six parents used the sources of information and advice available to them, and the extent to which these sources influenced the choice. This influence related to parents' ability to decode them and use them from a critical perspctive. However, an equally important aspect of the research was concerned with the potential -for aspects oflocal education markets to influence the choice process. The results of the research indicated that parents' ability to use sources of infonnation and advice to their advantage, in terms of obtaining places at their preferred schools, was strongly related to social class background. However, it also indicated that, where demand for places at some schools exceeded supply, this ability was not always sufficient. The specific features of the three local education markets resulted in parents having to assess not only the resources which they brought to the choice process themselves, but the resources of other parents.

This study makes a contribution to the body of work on the impact of education policy aimed at improving schools on the identities of school leaders. It uses the National Challenge as an example of how New Labour attempted to solve the perceived problem of school failure particularly in areas of economic hardship. The aim of the study is to investigate the identities of senior school leaders as they position themselves in relation to the discourses that arise from the neoliberal ideology that has dominated education policy making since the 1980s. These schools are often officially measured and labelled as failing.A literature review locates the research in the political context of education reform over the last thirty years. A review of literature relating to the work of senior leaders in areas of economic hardship traces how knowledge claims and leadership development have shaped their roles throughout this period of post-welfarist reform. It is argued that the policies that have been enacted give rise to discourses which construct some schools as being successful and others as being failures and that the notion of failure is particularly prevalent in area of economic hardship. It is within this environment that senior leaders construct their professional identities meaning that they are required to balance their beliefs and values about the nature and purpose of education with those inherent in the dominant discourses. How these school leaders both shape and are shaped by the policies that they are required to implement is central to the effectiveness of attempts to improve their schools. The work has been structured around three research questions. What are the dominant discourses and models of change in education and how do these both impact on and define schools serving areas of economic hardship? How are senior leaders constructing their professional identity in relation to these discourses and models of change? What are the implications of senior leader identity for development and change in those schools serving areas of economic hardship?The work is a policy scholarship which aims to place the research within its wider historical and sociological context. A discourse analysis of key documents which relate to the National Challenge was carried out and then interviews were conducted with twenty senior leaders. The analysis of the findings include a largely descriptive account of the main themes that emerged and then a more detailed analysis that describes identity in terms of dialogic interactions and conceptualises them using the thinking tools of Bourdieu. Findings from the study make a contribution to the body of knowledge relating to the interaction between education policy influencing school improvement and the identity of those who implement it particularly in areas of economic hardship. The research problematises and challenges some of the assumptions and some of the value inherent in the policies and provides a body of work that will inform future improvement strategies particularly if these are to fully engage and value those who lead these schools. The long term aim would be to ensure that improvement strategies are effective in specific contexts and that there is a shared understanding of both what effective means and what are the desired outcomes of education in these areas. The study reveals how school failure is a construct arising from neoliberal education policy strategy and describes the position of the school leaders using Bourdieu’s concept of hysteresis.

This thesis is concerned with the organisation of education and training systems and the extent to which their design may challenge or reinforce social inequalities. In modern societies, people’s life chances are inextricably linked to the education they are able to access and the knowledge and skills (typically manifested through formal qualifications) they acquire, thus how countries organise their education and training systems is of fundamental importance in determining the opportunities available to its citizens and to their life chances. The specific focus of the thesis is on the design and organisation of post compulsory education and training systems - a stage that represents a particular challenge for policy-makers - and within that, on how systems might conceptualise academic and vocational learning in more productive ways. Education systems are not context-free structures: the design of a nation’s education and training system provides a window onto its traditions, its social values and economic stance, and its current preoccupations and ambitions for itself. Thus the thesis uses the example of the Higher Still reform of post compulsory education and training in Scotland (from 1999 onwards) to reflect more generally on education and social inequalities in Scotland and to ask how we should understand the way in which Scotland has approached reform of its education and training provision. It seeks to explicate the reasons for the adoption of the Higher Still reform strategy, to identify the factors that determined its specific design and development and to reflect on how the particular reform strategy embodied by Higher Still relates to certain aspects of the Scottish context and its policy processes. The thesis then examines the institutional response to Higher Still and its impact on the opportunities available to young people. It locates the Higher Still example within the broader field of education policy, considering what the experience of the Higher Still reform reveals about the possibilities of re-designing an education and training system in ways which promote social equality and the scope for manoeuvre that policy-makers, in a specific national context, have in relation to system reform.

Human capital development is a prerequisite for a knowledge-based economy and for sustaining economic growth. Capability and capacity in the management of new knowledge and technology is determined by the quality of human capital. With globalization, Malaysia faces ever increasing competition in trade and investment. Therefore, the workforce will have to be equipped with a strong base in education and training. Efforts should, therefore, be made to ensure that the education and training system has the capacity to enhance the quality of intellectual capital as well as expanding the human resource base. In mainstream human capital theory, the basic principle is to measure the quality of human capital through some measure of educational achievement, such as years of schooling. It is generally assumed that more years in schooling improves the quality of human capital. Thus it is assumed by policy makers that an increased level of education will impact directly on labour market productivity. Concomitantly, policy makers argue that increasing the level of schooling will give an impact on wages. One of the obvious methods to assess the impact of investment in education is to calculate the rate of return to education. The overall impact of education on wages for society is described as the social rate of return and for the individual as the private rate of return. The major concern of this thesis is to assess the impact of investment in education on individuals. Thus I use a household income survey to estimate the private rate of return to Malaysian education from 1995 to 2004. A recent important strand in human capital literature is concerned with the role of education in emerging economies. This study is not as well established as in developed economies. Malaysia, as one of the High-Performing Asian Economies (HPAEs) over the past two decades, has experienced a steady growth with continuous improvement in the education system. Data and infonnation collected on Malaysian education and earnings serve to provide an important indicator of the benefits from investment in education for this important economy. Previous data and analysis on returns were hampered by relatively few observations and other data inadequacies. This thesis offers estimates based on a consistent set of household income surveys from 1995 to 2004. Thus, the estimation is more consistent compared with previous fmdings. Moreover, this thesis estimates the returns using both a standard and an alternative approach, i.e. Instrumental Variable (IV) that has never been applied to the Malaysian data. This is important because the latter estimation not only reduces the potential bias but also shows the impact of school reform on the returns. Additionally, returns to education using IV estimation are rarely compared between emerging economies and the developed countries. Such an analysis provides an indication of how important the human capital investment and educational reform have been at the current stage of development. Our results also provide new methodology for developing economies in estimating returns to education. The standard approach to estimating returns is based on homogenous returns to education - everyone gets the same return to the same qualification. Our results from this homogenous returns model shows the private rate of return to education in Malaysia is about the world average. However, endogeneity in schooling, omitted variables and other factors, such as ability will produce potential bias in estimation. The heterogeneous returns model allows for varying returns across individuals. This thesis clarifies differences in returns to different individuals. The exogenous impact in the Malaysian education system. i.e. the schooling reform is used as an instrument. The results reveal that the returns from IV estimation were higher than the standard approach. This result adds to literature by showing that OLS may underestimate the returns to education in the context of a developing country. The literature on rates of return paints a complex picture of the theoretical frameworks, methods and even results of such studies. Many of the benefits of education are not easily measured and are often not even recognized by rate of return studies. It is important for rate of return studies to acknowledge the methodological limitations and explain that rates of return are only an imperfect proxy to education benefits, which should ideally be used in conjunction with other measures of educational results.

The New Labour government’s (1997-2010) policy of personalised learning was announced as an idea ‘exciting’ the profession and promising ‘radical implications’ for the shape of education in England. The policy attracted much debate and criticism and its enactment is a site worthy of research. This study makes a contribution to knowledge through researching the rarely heard stories of young people in this policy enactment. It makes a further contribution to policy scholarship through the interplay of the data from school practices and moral philosophy drawn from Alasdair MacIntyre.Qualitative interviews and focus group activities were conducted with young people in three different secondary schools in order to understand their stories of personalised learning some two years into New Labour’s third term of government. To understand more of the context for the stories of the young people, some strategic actors in policy dissemination were interviewed, as were the headteachers of the three schools.Personalised learning promised to engage the voice of the learner in learning practices. The research finds a young peoples’ story that is consistently one of a mute and invisible identity within the schools. An argument is presented that the purposes of schools ought to be judged on standards of excellence definitive of, and extended by, a concept of virtues. A distinction is made between effectiveness in producing exam results and a richer sense of excellence in education practice. It is argued that virtues that define standards of excellence at the institutional level of practice can enrich and prefigure wider concepts of justice than are contained in policy. Young peoples’ stories in this research indicate that, contrary to policy ideals, they often perceived unfairness and arbitrariness in their school experiences. Personalised learning needs to be set within the narrative of the personalisation of public services: a reforming rubric, employing the motif of the citizen-consumer as a proposition about social justice and modernisation. New Labour’s ideology and models of governance are explored and related to the testimony of headteachers to understand more about the young peoples’ perceptions. Literatures are drawn upon to place personalisation in a historical context, linking it to moral orders of contemporary social imaginaries. New Labour made a case for personalised learning as furthering the cause of social justice and is thus a policy in need of ethical examination. Following MacIntyre, it is argued that modernity has left few moral resources by which to evaluate the personal, but the experiences of young people suggested that a richer moral agency is glimpsed within their stories of schooling. The social practice at the level of schools is thus critical but requires policy to enable ethical spaces for schools to re-invigorate their purposes. I argue that in the light of some critical fault lines, such as neoliberalism and a reconfiguration of tiers of local governance, personalisation as a ‘modernising’ policy proposition could do little to extend the goods of schooling beyond some narrow conceptions of effectiveness.