This thesis is the final outcome of a project carried out for the UK's Department for Education and Skills (DfES). They were interested in finding a fast algorithm for solving a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to compare the relative efficiency of 13216 primary schools in England based on 9 input-output factors. The standard approach for solving a DEA model comparing n units (such as primary schools) based on m factors, requires solving 2n linear programming (LP) problems, each with m constraints and at least n variables. At m = 9 and n = 13216, it was proving to be difficult. The research reported in this thesis describes both theoretical and practical contributions to achieving faster computational performance. First we establish that in analysing any unit t only against some critically important units - we call them generators - we can either (a) complete its efficiency analysis, or (b) find a new generator. This is an important contribution to the theory of solution procedures of DEA. It leads to our new Generator Based Algorithm (GBA) which solves only n LPs of maximum size (m x k), where k is the number of generators. As k is a small percentage of n, GBA significantly improves computational performance in large datasets. Further, GBA is capable of solving all the commonly used DEA models including important extensions of the basic models such as weight restricted models. In broad outline, the thesis describes four themes. First, it provides a comprehensive critical review of the extant literature on the computational aspects of DEA. Second, the thesis introduces the new computationally efficient algorithm GBA. It solves the practical problem in 105 seconds. The commercial software used by the DfES, at best, took more than an hour and often took 3 to 5 hours making it impractical for model development work. Third, the thesis presents results of comprehensive computational tests involving GBA, Jose Dula's BuildHull - the best available DEA algorithm in the literature - and the standard approach. Dula's published result showing that BuildHull consistently outperforms the standard approach is confirmed by our experiments. It is also shown that GBA is consistently better than BuildHull and is a viable tool for solving large scale DBA problems. An interesting by-product of this work is a new closed-form solution to the important practical problem of finding strictly positive factor weights without explicit weight restrictions for what are known in the DEA literature as "extreme-efficient units". To date, the only other methods for achieving this require solving additional LPs or a pair of Mixed Integer Linear Programs.

This study focuses on the school as an organization in a sense which has been neglected in previous work. Here the aim is to understand and explain how the school changes in terms of the conflict of ideologies amongst staff and the process of formulation of school policy. The study is set within the context of previous case studies of educational innovation as an attempt to analyse the forces behind organizational change and persistence in a school pledged by its official description to an innovative programme aiming at the ideals of 'openness'. The case study upon which this thesis is based was carried out in the first year that this upper school had a fully compulsory and comprehensive intake in both fourth and fifth years. The school had previously been partly voluntary in the sense that students could opt not to join the upper school for two years but to remain in their high school for a further one year only. The effects of the raising of the school leaving age to sixteen served as a challenge to the prevailing liberal ethos of the school and the series of innovations it inspired. The data, in the form of information from interviews, questionnaires and field notes, were collected by means of a year of participant observation. This thesis gives an account of problems and conflicts experienced in this year and shows how the changes in the policy of the school can be seen as the outcome of a process of ideological conflict and political negotiation. The study thus focuses on the institutional setting as one of the levels of educational reality and shows how innovations in educational policy are challenged by factors both internal and external to the school.

This thesis begins with the question of whether socially and ethnically mixed schooling leads to mixed friendships. Located within a policy agenda promoting community cohesion and the benefits of mixed communities, this thesis examines the urban school as a key site of social mix, critically exploring mixing amongst urban youth. Challenging policy rhetoric's static concept of mixing and cohesion, a key contribution of this thesis is to explore mixing as a social process, attending to social class and gender as well as race in shaping young people's evolving friendship-making. Drawing on small-scale, discursively informed, interview-based, research with 16-19 year aids in two socially and ethnically mixed London schools, this thesis aims to examine the patterns of young people's friendships. This thesis investigates the socia-spatial, institutional and discursive processes which lead to differentiation, stratification or mixing in these friendships. The overarching contribution of this thesis is to understand friendship-making as a classed process. I argue that social mixing is a form of social capital/resource accumulation, a process in which some classed, raced and gendered bodies have more exchange value than others. To begin, I show how different demographics of schools constrain and enable the discursive production of the school as space for social mixing, and moreover how this is intimately connected to academic inclusivity or exclusivity. I then show how urban school-based subcultures are implicated in the production, maintenance and regulation of gendered, classed and racialised identities, which constrains the possibilities for mixing. Exploring the located, micro-politics of social mixing in urban schools - of those who mix across borders and boundaries of class and race- I show how certain favoured learner identities allow the acceptable minority ethnic Other more easily into privileged White middle class friendship groups in the school, while Black working class students are more constrained in sustaining White middle class friendships and hence, the promise of social mobility. Finally, through analysis of the 'misfits' -students who are outside of subculture in the school- I argue that, while a space of exclusion, this is a space of non-normative productions of race, gender and social class and is the hidden space where there is potential for 'real' mixing to take place. Here, I propose that, in this transgressive space of mixing, use-value comes to the fore, and has potential for the production of an alternative kind of self.

The work is set out in four main parts. In the first section, the administrative history of the Department is chronologically detailed, by a division into five periods which represent the origins, the formative years, and the progress under three successive groups of chief officials. The basic policy, of local "self-support" encouraged by a system of payments on the results of examinations, is examined, and some reference is made to institutions in which this policy was carried through. The extension of the Department's fields of activity, later modifications to its system which threw more responsibility on newly created local authorities, and the end of the "results" system are recorded. These developments are set against the industrial and political backgrounds of the era. Relations with the primary Education Department are also considered. In the second section, specific developments in Science and in Art teaching are separately recorded. There is also a division between the treatment of the developments in, and the machinery of, provincial and central institutions, the latter of which were controlled by the Department and used as "stimulating" influences. The section also deals with the organisation of the Department's Inspectorate, the training and the remuneration of the teachers who acted as its 'provincial agents'", and the encouragement, and the responses, of the students who took its examinations. The third section is concerned with the political and social setting. The influence on, and responses toi Departmental policy, of politicians and manufacturers, are recorded. The views of representative organs of the contemporary press are examined. There is a consideration of the influence of religious factors on development. The section concludes with a study of the relationships of the Department with other bodies which worked in the same fields. The fourth and final section includes an attempt to summarise the Departmentls development and its achievements, and its effects, including a brief account of its influences in the field of tertiary education. A biographical appendix, and tables of statistics to which references have been made in the body of the work, are included in this section.

This research explores why women have been failing to gain headship in a particular geographicala reai n which the researchehr erselfw orked in a senior school leadership position. It considers existing research on women and headships, together with feminist accounts of women's position in society and education. It draws on feminist research traditions to make explicit the motivation for locating the project within a feminist paradigm. By highlighting the issues faced by a group of women striving to achieve headship positions through extended interviews influenced by narrative approaches, the research seeks to contribute to the current debate into the still under-researched topic of women into school leadership. The study demonstrates that gender is and continues to be a constraint facing women who seek to challenge the still largely male domain of secondary headship. The idea of identity and power are central to the research analysis and findings. The study contributes both to academic research in this field but also to the researcher's own professional knowledge in order to arrive at a better understanding of the opportunity and constraints faced by women seeking leadership positions in schools.

Job satisfaction encompasses the attitudes an individual has toward the organization, supervision, rewards, peers and the job (Longenecker & Pringle, 1984). Motivation is significant as a determinant of performance (Sullivan, 1988). Individual performance is generally determined by (1) motivation-the desire to act (2) ability-the capability to do the job (3) work environment-the tools, materials and information required to act (Griffin, 1996). Increasing job satisfaction is important not only for its financial benefits but also for its humanitarian value (Bavendam, 2000). In the 21st Century, institutions of higher education need a spirit of openness and objectivity supported by leaders who excel in communication skills, initiative, decision making, group dynamics and incentives. The objective of this study is to determine and specify effective and efficient leader-employee relationships and the extent to which satisfaction is a prerequisite for motivation to enhance performance and solicit productivity. Notre Dame University, the object of this case study, is a Lebanese institution of higher education that follows the American-credit system. In accordance to the research questions, the theoretical framework covered the pertinent issues of satisfaction and motivation, leadership and management, and human resource management. Responses to research instruments - questionnaires, interviews - secured a constructive flow of information to improve self-esteem and confidence. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were utilized with a response rate of 83% with 233 questionnaires distributed and 196 returned. Through Chi-Square and Cronbach Alpha, the results showed direct measures of attitudes towards satisfaction, participation, and interaction. People at NDU are committed and believe that there is a friendly atmosphere, and democratic leadership nonetheless, they are asking for more open communication, responsibility and involvement. Drawing from the findings, leaders at NDU should be more creative, caring, and impartial to instil the driving forces for increased satisfaction and output.

No description available.

This research was undertaken as a policy trajectory study (Bowe et aI, 1992) which explores complexities at the 'meso' level of policy implementation. It examines the case of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) which was introduced to all primary schools throughout England in 1998. Together with the Numeracy Strategy which followed in 1999, this was said to be 'the most ambitious large scale educational reform initiative in the world' (Earl et aI, 2003:11). During 2005 and 2006, data were generated through semi-structured interviews with four national directors who had created the detail of the NLS framework and two regional directors who took national directives to Local Education Authorities (LEAs). In three contrasting LEAs, managers of the strategy and six literacy consultants were interviewed, their accounts set alongside those of five teachers in schools. Throughout, the research examines how the NLS originated and was developed by individual people; how they interpreted and mediated policy statements in practice. The focus here is on the personal. How participants undertook this work in the context of wholesale, system-wide educational reform is examined. Actors' sense of themselves as professionals within complex and changing organisational structures is also explored. Particular interest is paid to those who worked as mediators and interpreters ofNLS policy, positioned between those who created national materials and teachers who enacted NLS policy in their classrooms. These mediators were the regional directors, LEA strategy managers and consultants referred to as a 'bridge' by researchers commissioned to be 'critical friends' of the strategy (Earl et aI, 2003). This is the origin of the metaphor used in the title of this study. Using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and calling upon some of Foucault's understandings, the effects of power within these complex and turbulent spaces are better understood. Working betwixt and between national, regional and local sites, directors and consultants used their particular liminal knowledges to engage, mediate, re-negotiate and re-create policy, which was enacted in primary classrooms. Here, mediators personified policy, embodying and articulating technologies of disciplinary power whilst sometimes creating less turbulent spaces where the generation of power and knowledge took place. Foucault's metaphor of a panopticon is borrowed to show how the national policy was implemented at speed. The effects of power ran through the whole fabric of the system, visible at its most peripheral, in the reported exchanges and recollections of teachers and consultants who worked closely together. Here, Foucault's metaphor of a panopticon as an asylum is used and extended to explain how the effects of power worked in these complex and turbulent spaces. A metaphor of the circulatory system of the body is used as an analogy for the way in which the NLS was implemented, explaining many positive, constructive and pleasurable effects of power. The study concludes with a warning that undemocratically imposed, system-wide reform agenda is inherently dangerous. This research has contributed to a better understanding of policy implementation. The focus upon the meso level, with accounts by directors and consultants, together with teachers who worked with consultants, gives insight into the professional lives of those who work betwixt and between locations. This is lonely and isolating work with emotional consequences for those who undertake it. The contributions here therefore, include some of the personal, human consequences of change. The research shows there are some knowledges about change that are important to bring to all who work to bring about major reform. It also reminds us, as Foucault (1974) has insisted, that we are all 'freer than we feel', and that we can fight our fears most effectively by unmasking those forms of power that seek to dominate.

England schools in the 43 Anglican dioceses in England within the period 1972-1975 and of questionnaire responses from some 2,000 bishops, clergy, headteachers and other lay people in those dioceses, tögether with examination of post-1944 Church Assembly, General Synod and diocesan documents, reveal wide variety in individual diocesan policies concerning voluntary school provision and in the nature and extent of that provision, but little diocesan involvement with the Anglican independent schools. In the absence both of national direction and of diocesan authority the pattern of Anglican voluntary aided and controlled school provision which has developed in England since 1944 owes more to parochial decision than to diocesan policy and administration. The extent of that provision has declined markedly since 1944 and conditions exist for continued decline. A national Church of England policy for the future of its schools is unlikely to emerge but continued financial stringency has in recent years led to a movement within the dioceses towards acceptance of the concept of the selective retention of aided schools so as to perpetuate a Church presence at strategic points within the maintained schools system. A presence in terms only of aided schools raises the question of the future of the controlled school. There is considerable evidence within the dioceses of misinterpretation, whether or not intentional, of the responsibilities and limitations imposed by controlled status and it is suggested that, if the rate of grant aid to managers and governors of aided schools were again to be increased, controlled status be withdrawn, with appropriate safeguards, and the acquisition of aided status then be seen, in retrospect, to have been a process of selection leading towards a permanent solution to the problem of dual system reform

No description available.