The aim of this research is to discuss the issue of transnational knowledge flow, with special reference to the transmission and transfer of studies, doctrines and ideas of British educational foundation disciplines into post-1970s Taiwan. These disciplines are philosophy of education, history of education and sociology of education. The key question is how and why it was that British educational foundation disciplines were introduced into Taiwan largely and widely from the 1970s. By analysing official documents and publications and interviewees’ testimonies, some research findings are explored. First, Taiwan’s National Scholarship Programme for Overseas Study played an important role to improve the knowledge borrowing and employing of British philosophies of education and sociologies of education into post-1970s Taiwan, while it did not have the same influence on the history of education. Second, Taiwan government lasted to support this scholarship for postgraduates to study overseas in educational foundation disciplines from the mid-1970s to the 1980s, while these grantees eventually changed to other educational subjects. After this period, more and more educationalists attained their doctorates on foundation disciplines in the UK since the 1990s, which produced the intensive academic exchange again between British and Taiwanese educationalists. Third, for Taiwanese educational philosophers, British Analytic Philosophy had its significant influence on the development of Taiwan studies of philosophy of education over these past forty years. For Taiwanese educational historians, they always had interests in some issues British educational historians were concerning. For Taiwanese educational sociologists, they attempted to recontextualise British educational sociologists’ theories and perspectives into Taiwanese educational settings, including research and practices. Fourth, on the process of the dissemination and transfer of British educational foundation studies into post-1970s Taiwan, Taiwanese educationalists criticised and reflected on this trend that borrowing and employing Western educational ideas into Taiwanese context is a suitable way or not.

Competence-based education and training (CBET) has received much interest globally due to its perceived potential in producing competent graduates required by the labour market. It is currently a common feature of most vocational and technical education and training reforms around the world. However, the term ‘competence’ has wide and varied contextual meanings interpreted from a myriad of perspectives; hence diverse implementation practices are evident. In this study I review the evolution of CBET and understandings of the notion of competence globally, and examine and critique its efficacy in addressing the challenges of skill formation in Tanzania. Initially, through review of literatures, I distinguish four competence approaches – behaviourist, generic, integrated (cognitive), and social-constructive, from which I develop a theoretical framework to map the global competence approaches and CBET trajectories and within this specific path followed by Tanzania. Due to a combination of global and national influences, the introduction of CBET in Tanzania in early 2000 marked a paradigm shift from the traditional knowledge-based education and training (KBET). In order to explore the relationship between the external and internal factors in shaping this change, eight interviews were initially conducted with national policy makers, including the ‘pioneers’ of Tanzanian CBET. The complex dynamic of shaping factors was explored more thoroughly through a further 16 interviews with four CBET pioneers, two policy makers, one employers’ association, two professional associations and seven employers of CBET graduates in order to understand how wider influences are interpreted by those ‘on the ground’. In addition, a survey of 28 teachers from technical institutions and document analysis were undertaken. This research approach at global, national and local levels suggests that a social-technical model of competence could emerge in Tanzania. The study also considers the conditions for its successful implementation.

School governing bodies in England have considerable formal powers and responsibilities. This qualitative research study explored their concrete practices drawing on understandings of deliberative democracy and citizenship as sensitising concepts. The empirical research was broadly ethnographic and took place in two primary and two secondary maintained schools. Data was generated primarily from interviews and observations. Considering school governors from the perspectives of deliberative democracy and citizenship draws attention to ambivalences and ambiguities in their role. These ambivalences and ambiguities cover issues of agency, representation, exclusion, knowledge and a singular conception of a ‘common good’. Firstly, despite their busy-ness, governors are largely passive in relation to decision making and dissensus can be socially awkward. Consensus is underpinned by a singular conception of the ‘common good’. Secondly, the voices of certain governors are marginalised. Some governors are positioned as representatives and their constitution as partial masks the partiality of all governors. Thirdly, there are ambiguities in relation to the valuing of different knowledges. Educational knowledge is valued but also inflected by managerial knowledge. The policy emphasis on the value of managerial knowledge and measurable data tends to displace other possible ‘lay’ knowledges. Fourthly, education and governing are constituted as apolitical and there is limited discussion of educational aims, principles and values. In all this, despite policy describing governors as ‘strategic’, their work is largely technical and operates within a constrained national performative system that renders alternative conceptions of ‘good’ education unsayable or unthinkable. These ambivalences and ambiguities operate, together with a dominant discourse of skills and effectiveness, to obscure possibilities for thinking otherwise about education.

This thesis is an investigation of the reasons why and ways in which teachers in English Further Education practise critical pedagogy within a neoliberal policy context. It presents new findings in terms of how and why teachers engage in critical pedagogy; it also presents an original contribution to the field by offering a hermeneutical tool, drawn from Slavko Splichal’s work in communications studies, for understanding the operation of neoliberal hegemony in education and elsewhere. This analytic tool illuminates potential practical and theoretical approaches which may be helpful in the development of counter-hegemonic resistance to neoliberalism. The thesis argues that neoliberalism has become hegemonic through a reversal of Enlightenment values and priorities and that it is therefore possible to combat the neoliberal advance by a return to the Enlightenment emphasis upon the use of critical reason in public life, but with an added recognition of the impact of power relations shaping both public and private spheres. The approach is interpretivist and critical and has both theoretical and practical aims and outcomes. It is based on ten semi-structured interviews with teachers in a range of professional contexts in English Further Education. In terms of practice, the thesis resulted in the establishment of a collaborative group of critical educators in the north of England, as well as the founding of a new sixth form college as a site where critical approaches are welcome and encouraged.

Most philosophers of education assume that the main aim of education is to endow pupils or students with ‘personal autonomy’: to produce citizens who are reflective, make rational choices and submit their values and beliefs to critical scrutiny. The underlying assumption is Socratic: that the unexamined life is not worth living, and that goods and forms of perception that cannot be articulated or rationally justified are not worthy of our consideration. The unstated assumption is Plato and Aristotle’s: that the good life is the life of the philosopher and politically active citizen. It is assumed, moreover, that all pupils should be so educated on egalitarian grounds. In this thesis, I dispute these assumptions. I argue that the good life should not be conceived in exclusively ‘intellectualist’ terms but that an ordinary life - an ‘unexamined’ life - is also worth living; that central to the good life in all its forms is the engagement in worthwhile activities or ‘practices’; and that the best way to prepare pupils for their engagement in these practices is to cultivate a range of moral and intellectual virtues. Instead of foisting on all pupils a universal academic curriculum that produces little more than ‘a smattering of knowledge’, I argue that pupils might (1) cultivate the intellectual virtues through early specialisation in at least one subject, academic or practical, that has the characteristics of a practice, (2) develop the capacity to make practical judgements through a study of rhetoric and the stories of human experience of the humanities, and (3) cultivate certain moral virtues through challenging activity and service learning outside the classroom.

Xenophon the Athenian, who is well known as a historian and a witness of Socratic philosophy but is usually excluded from the list of classical writers on education, actually developed his own systematic thought on moral education from a social and mainly political perspective in his extant works. His discourse on moral education presents for us the view of an unusual historical figure, an innovative thinker as well as a man of action, a mercenary general and a world citizen in his age; and is therefore different from that of contemporary pure philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. Furthermore, as a prolific author respected in both the classical world and the early modern era, Xenophon’s doctrine on moral education greatly influences the later development of European cultural history. This thesis explores the background and content of Xenophon’s thought on moral education, as well as its application in his other literary works, which are not directly on the same topic but are indirectly influenced by it. Part 1 discusses the background which produces Xenophon’s thought on moral education. As a historian of his own age, Xenophon’s negative view of the world he lived in is fully expressed in his Hellenica; and his idea of social education organised by a competent political leader serves as a proposal to transform the disordered Greek world in his time. As a follower of Socrates, Xenophon adopts his teacher’s approach of focusing on the study of moral issues and leadership; and the need to make apology for Socrates helps to shape many heroes in Xenophon’s works into extremely pious men and beneficial moral teachers. Part 2 analyses the content of Xenophon’s thought on moral education. This idea is systematically explained in his Cyropaedia and advocated in a rhetorical and persuasive manner in his Hiero. By modern ethical standards, Xenophon’s moral education is supported by dark art of government and cannot always be justified; but this dark side is tolerable in Xenophon’s view as long as it ultimately serves for good purpose. In his Poroi and Oeconomicus, Xenophon makes a further development of his thought by confirming that the art of accumulating and using wealth is also an indispensable skill for organisers of social education. Part 3 presents the application of Xenophon’s theory of moral education in his epoch-making literary composition. His Agesilaus, which serves as a prototype for later biographies, depicts a historical figure living and acting according to the ethical principles which Xenophon sets for ideal political leaders; while his Oeconomicus, which influenced Hellenistic and Roman agricultural works greatly, attempts to bring the experience of public education into the domestic sphere. The analysis of these themes confirms that Xenophon actually established a theory of moral education, which is social, highly political but also philosophical, in his extant corpus. On the one hand, Xenophon’s theory is less profound than that of Plato or Aristotle and is sometimes superficial and occasionally self-contradictory; on the other hand, the theory is original, innovative and influential in the history of classical literature, and therefore deserves our respect and serious treatment.

The concept of aspiration is central to current policy debates about educational and social inequality in the UK. Although aspirations have long been of interest to social scientists there is still uncertainty about how much aspirations influence outcomes and the factors that shape educational and occupational aspirations. I contribute to this policy debate and area of study by examining in detail the mechanisms that shape aspirations and the meaning that young people attach to them. It is often claimed that disadvantaged young people suffer from 'poverty of aspirations'. Contrary to such claims, my findings show that the vast majority of students hold high aspirations for pursuing further academic qualifications, including those from highly disadvantaged backgrounds. I therefore question the grounds for treating 'poverty of aspirations' as a major social problem that should be tackled through interventions designed to raise them. In this mixed methods study I draw on both quantitative and qualitative sources of data. The quantitative data is from the Effective Provision Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education project (EPPSE). I examine the factors that are predictive of students holding high aspirations at the age of 14. The qualitative data I draw on is from twenty-nine semi-structured interviews with 16-18 years old from a sixth form college in East London. I contribute to the literature by showing in detail how aspirations are shaped by individual, family, school and neighbourhood level processes. In particular, I also show how important family life is in shaping aspirations and that in order to understand aspirations we should focus on the meaning young people attach to them. My findings suggest that our current models of aspirations are in need of refinement because they underestimate how high the aspirations of young people are and therefore struggle to explain how they are related to students' social backgrounds.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the social control and reproduction functions of what is known as nonformal education in the State of Mexico (Mexico). As such it is concerned with analysing what Bernstein calls the coding characteristics of the educational process and how this process is experienced by the participants and can reinforce their 'social positioning' in their society. To place the study in its context there is an initial consideration of the conditions in which nonformal education emerged in Latin America, followed by a critical assessment of its functions; new perspectives for the analysis of this form of education are examined. To set the analysis in its regional context a description of the development of nonformal education at both national and regional levels is provided. Then the definition, aims, and purposes of community education programmes are analyzed. A theoretical and conceptual framework is constructed to analyze the social control and reproduction functions of education; here emphasis is placed on Bernstein's sociolinguistic theory of cultural transmission. This is followed by a sociological appraisal of community education's underlying or invisible features. In the light of the above the methodological chapter presents the concepts and techniques which allowed us to examine the educational process and participants' viewpoint. A qualitative analysis was employed in order to account for the participants' perspective. It was supported by non-structured interviews and participant observation. Empirical work was carried out in four community education programmes in the State of Mexico. Three areas were considered during the field research: a) the educational process (curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation); b) teachers and students' motives for taking part in courses; c) the meanings assigned by participants to the courses as a result of their participation in and experience of the educational process. Data is discussed in terms of the basic concepts of the thesis: social positioning, control and reproduction. The main conclusion refers to the social control and reproduction functions of community education programmes resulting from participants overall exposure to educational institutions and practices. This, it is argued, is achieved through three basic processes: 1) the social positioning of participants which arises as a result of their identification with the educational coding; 2) the lowering of participants' expectations as a consequence of the marginal and marginalising characteristics of the educational process they undergo; 3) the very fact that the courses response to the motivations and satisfy the interests of the participants.

The broad aim of this thesis is to develop a holistic conception of the self in relation to the complex interplay between education for ethical literacy and the notion of an agent as an ontological reality capable of self-transformation and self-realisation. To this end, ethical literacy, as a function of a holistic education, is conceived as enabling individuals to realise their essential nature through leading morally decent lives. The purpose of enquiry into the concept of the self is to highlight that since the self- transformative aims of ethical literacy are exercised on the self by the self, revitalising the focus on the agent’s ethical development therefore depends on grasping the true nature of the person who will live or aspire to live an ethical life. The notion of ethical literacy, as a moral empowerment that enables individuals to understand, analyse, reflect and practice that which makes them humane, postulates a holistic understanding of what it means to be human, which in turn implies that it is in understanding who human agents truly are, how they are to better themselves and what they can become, that the question of ethical literacy acquires a more concrete meaning. This thesis is divided into four parts, with part one providing a brief analysis of the moral landscape existing within the global community and highlights the need for effecting an equitable and compassionate moral horizon through education for ethical literacy. Part two, engages with the conceptual understanding of three influential ‘self‘ paradigms, namely, those of Descartes, Hume and Freud, which in tracing a line of these significant ‘self’ paradigms within the Western evolution of the concept of the self, places contemporary views on this subject in a historical context and informs how the conceptual consequences of these have formed, affected and influenced the postmodern humanist understanding of the self experienced today. To this end, in the search for a model of the self that may have the potential to close the epistemic gap existing between the differing concepts of the self, part three investigates the model postulated by the contemporary Eastern philosopher, Nour Ali Elahi, which in considering the self as an ontological reality, puts a special emphasis on the bi-dimensionality of human beings. Finally, in part four, the thesis is concluded by drawing on the analysis of the aforementioned influential self-paradigms, whose concepts of the disengaged individualistic self, the sense-content illusory self and the drive-driven fragmented self, have contributed to the prevalent ambiguity of the notion of the self in terms of relationality, in terms of continuity in time, and in terms of depth. By contrast, Ostad Elahi’s holistic model of the self, as an integrated theory of the self constitutive of its psychological, ontological and metaphysical dimensions, is offered as providing an alternative underpinning for a form of education for ethical literacy that is conducive to the enhancement of one’s sense of dignity.

This thesis is an exploratory case study that investigates the epistemological beliefs of students’ on a Foundation degree in Teaching and learning, and the possible influence of these beliefs on their learning. Critical realism provides the theoretical context for this case study through a multi-phase approach. This study explores the students’ beliefs of knowledge, knowing and learning through the employment of questionnaires and in-depth interviews which reveals the stories and experiences of five of the students. The research data suggests there is an apparent relationship between personal epistemological beliefs and the engagement with learning in higher education for these students. Moreover it emerged that there were personal transformations in their attitudes and beliefs towards knowledge, knowing and learning that had a profound impact on their self-belief. The changes can be attributed, in part, to the students’ capacity for change-readiness and openness to learning mediated by the situated and contextualised nature of the learning environment. Findings from this case study are not generalisable due to its specificity to one particular setting and small number of participants. However, a conceptual model of the relationship between students’ epistemological beliefs and transformation is offered exposing the complexity of social phenomena in real-life settings. The findings are discussed within the context of previous research. As part of my own learning, and in harmony with the theme of learning and change of the participants, I have also explored my learning changes as a result of engaging in my doctoral studies.