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The human focus of this study is the experiences of a group of six mainly non-traditional entry students within an emergent subject, Education Studies. Recent years have seen an expansion of Education Studies as a degree programme distinct from teacher-training in the UK. As a 'new' or reoriented subject in higher education little is known of student aspirations, experiences of how they develop through the degree or engage with the subject. This longitudinal case study is an exploration of student journeys through the degree of Education Studies. Interviews with students are the starting point for this exploratory case study. An analysis of literature focuses on how policy and academic concerns shape conceptions of knowledge, studentship, learning and purposes of a university education located in the fluid networks of relations between the fields of power, fields and habitus. Analysis of data traces how students and Education Studies are influenced as they strive to survive and transform. Six student case stories are analysed in the findings. Each case story illuminates the diversity and detail of student responses to being in the habitus of Education Studies. The findings indicate that student survival and transformation is influenced by the extent to which Education Studies 'fits' with their perceptions of the purpose and relevance of their studies, the perceived safety of habitus of Education Studies and how they negotiate 'ill' defined forms of knowledge within habitus and fields to 'fit' with their preference for practice-based knowledge for teaching. Three critical cases illustrate how the habitus of Education Studies continues to marginalise some students. As this case study developed the gap between student and academic perceptions of knowledge became a significant trigger for re-evaluting forms of knowledge in Education Studies and exploring how Education Studies might move towards a transformative pedagogy.

Domestic violence is increasingly recognised as a serious social problem that may cause severe negative impact and is a significant risk to children achieving positive outcomes. There has been scant research regarding the role of schools in response to children who have been exposed to domestic violence, yet schools represent many possibilities for supporting them. Head teachers are viewed as of central importance in the creation of effective schools (Ofsted, 2012). Head teacher leadership orientation and decision making has a significant impact on practice within the school. To the author's knowledge there has been no research regarding the role or views of head teachers in relation to children who have been exposed to domestic violence. The aim of this research is to explore head teacher experiences and perceptions of their own and school practices in relation to children who have been exposed to a domestic violence incident (s). A further aim is to consider key factors that influence the head teacher and school responses to supporting children in these circumstances. Five head teachers participated in semi-structured interviews and have all been involved in an initiative (Project Protect) whereby they received training to act as a 'key adult'. This means they receive notifications from the police containing details of a domestic violence (DV) incident (s) that have been police attended where a child was present and attends that head teacher's primary school. A thematic analysis was conducted and two main themes were highlighted that were of central relevance to the research questions; head teacher's understanding of DV and head teacher and school decision making and practice in response to children exposed to DV (CEDV).

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This thesis has three general objectives. The first concerns the development of a critique of the assumption that the various ideas and philosophy underlying performance management (PM) can be successfully applied to the context of England’s primary education system. The second objective is to provide a detailed account of the ways in which PM is being implemented in primary schools. The third is to suggest ways in which the effectiveness of the <i>Performance Management in Schools </i>initiative might be improved in primary schools. The principal research method used to pursue the objectives comprised a series of semi-structured interviews with primary school heads, teachers and governors who are the key stakeholders associated with the performance management process. A second research method involved documentary analysis of various books, research reports, official government publications and internal school documents. Additionally, a decision to become a school governor allowed a variety of activities associated with the PM process to be observed. The thesis concludes by arguing that PM can help teachers to: focus on particularly important aspects of their work; improve their professional development arrangements; feel more appreciated and valued; and become more reflective and self-evaluative about their work. Performance management can also: help improve communication between heads and their staff; facilitate the implementation of whole school strategy; and ultimately, as a consequence of these six benefits, lead to improvements in pupils’ academic progress. However, performance related pay appears to be inappropriate for the context of primary schools and very few, if any, advantages seem to have accrued at either an organizational or individual level from headteachers’ PM arrangements.

This research is concerned with an investigation of progressive education, ostensibly through the writings of two of its major figures – A. S. Neill (1883-1973) and Susan Isaacs (1885-1948). The project seeks to go against traditional historical accounts relating to progressivism which have tended to see it as a linear homogenous entity with individual educators ‘speaking to one another’ across time with a shared sense of ideas and concepts. The debunking of these notions is carried out through the explication, importation and development of a three stage, tri-partite model encompassing biography, social and economic factors and linguistic analysis. This latter context is central to the study as it utilises the sort of approach advocated by Quentin Skinner, involving the recall of authorial intention, embedded in the texts of the authors. For Skinner, as for the project, there are two kinds of intention that need to be decoded: first, <i>locutionary meaning</i> which is how individual authors are utilising a particular term in relation to their contemporaries and second, <i>illocutionary force</i> which relates to what an author is <i>doing</i> in making a statement, for example issuing a warning or making a threat. It is this later concept particularly which betrays Skinner’s indebtedness to the philosopher J. L. Austin. This part of the analysis involves an extensive reading of the relevant contemporary archive. By comparing the differences inherent within the author’s lives and teaching experiences, their relationships to politics and new ideas and, especially, the different ways in which they use and manipulate language the project then begins to posit conclusions not merely relating to the authors themselves but progressive education more generally.

This work investigates a computational model of first language acquisition; the Categorical Grammar Learner or CGL. The model builds on the work of Villavicenio, who created a parametric Categorical Grammar learner that organises its parameters into an inheritance hierarchy, and also on the work of Buszkowski and Kanazawa, who demonstrated the learnability of a <i>k</i>-valued Classic Categorial Grammar (which uses only the rules of function application) from strings. The CGL is able to learn a <i>k</i>-valued General Categorial Grammar (which uses the rules of function application, function composition and Generalised Weak Permutation). The novel concept of Sentence Objects (simple strings, augmented strings, unlabelled structures and functor-argument structures) are presented as potential points from which learning may commence. Augmented strings (which are stings augmented with some basic syntactic information) are suggested as a sensible input to the CGL as they are cognitively plausible objects and have greater information content than strings alone. Building on the work of Siskind, a method for constructing augmented strings from unordered logic forms is detailed and it is suggested that augmented strings are simply a representation of the constraints placed on the space of possible parses due to a sting’s associated semantic content. The CGL make crucial use of a statistical Memory Module (constructed from a type memory and Word Order Memory) that is used to both constrain hypotheses and handle data which is noisy or parametrically ambiguous. A consequence of the Memory Module is that the CGL learns in an incremental fashion. This echoes real child learning as documented in Brown’s Stages of Language Development and also as alluded to by an included corpus study of child speech. Furthermore, the CGL learns faster when initially presented with simpler linguistic data; a further corpus study of child-directed speech suggests that this echoes the input provided to children. The CGL is demonstrated to learn from real data. It is evaluated against previous parametric learners (the Triggering Learning Algorithm of Gibson and Wexler and the Structural Triggers Learner of Fodor and Sakas) and is found to be more efficient.

Within this text I propose and demonstrate an original relationally dynamic standard of judgement within my practice of Living Myself Through Others. I explore the ongoing nature of transition between living educational spaces upon myself and how this process of change is addressed as I move through different stages of my career and life. I argue that i am able to improve the quality of the living educational space because of the relationships and experiences that I have had, alongside the living core values that I hold. This thesis reflects on the potential impact of enabling teachers to engage as teacher-researchers within their own school and accounts for the process I went through in order to make this happen.

In this account I describe how the shared life that I lead with my husband Simon transforms itself into a loving energy that emerges in our educational practice. This loving way of being emerges as the energy that drives me to transform the social formation of the school to work alongside student researchers in an intergenerational and sustainable way. These living and loving standards of judgment are shared between us, asking the other to be the best that s/he can be and valuing the contribution that s/he makes. I live out an inclusional way of being that extends across the professional and personal domain, asking me to be responsive to the others with whom I share this life.

My educational practice is concerned with enhancing children and young persons' abilities to learn to live a loving, satisfying, productive and worthwhile life, for themselves and others. This thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge as a multimedia narrative. It communicates my ontological values of a loving recognition, respectful connectedness and educational responsibility, and social values of an inclusive, emancipating and egalitarian society. I clarify meanings of my values, as they emerge within living-boundaries through the evolution of my living-theory praxis, to form explanatory principles and living standards of judgment in my claim to know my practice. Working as a senior educational psychologist responsible for implementing policy on high ability learning, I experienced the following concerns: Practice, theory and research often appeared to lose connection with the purpose of education; Theory and practice appeared to be developed independently, and without explanation or evaluation related to values of education; Those involved with education appeared to be in discrete worlds, each vying to exert their hegemony over the totalising development of educational theory, practice and provision. Emerging from my research I offer four original ideas: 1) Living-Educational-Theory praxis, highlighting the fundamental importance of educators creating 'values-based explanation of their educational influences in learning' (Whitehead, 1989a), as they research to develop praxis within living-boundaries. 2) Living-boundaries as eo-creative space within which energy-flowing values can be clarified and communicated. 3) Inclusive gifted and talented education developed from an educational perspective, which enables each learner to develop and offer talents, expertise and knowledge as life-affirming and life-enhancing gifts. The knowledge is that created of the world, of self, and self in and of the world. 4) Living-Theory TASC, a relationally-dynamic and multidimensional approach to research and developing praxis, which integrates Living-Theory (Whitehead, 1989a) with Thinking Actively in a Social Context (T ASC) (Wall ace and Adams, 1993).