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This study describes and analyses educational selfhelp in North Lancashire in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It relates different kinds of adult education to local culture and to the socio-economic structure of local communities. It seeks to explain the popularity of educational self-help in this period and distinguishes between formal and informal kinds of adult education. The area consists of the hundreds of Blackburn, Amounderness and Lonsdale. Furness is excluded from this study because it was a remote rural area. It is argued that adult education was concentrated in towns : particular attention has therefore been given to Lancaster, Preston, Burnley, Blackburn, Darwen and Accrington. A wide range of printed primary sources has been used. The most important were newspapers, periodicals, parliamentary papers, directories, and Victorian biographies. Few relevant manuscripts have survived. Extensive use has been made of secondary sources. This study is divided into ten chapters. The first is a brief Introduction. The second examines the socioeconomic structure of North Lancashire. Chapter Three is an analysis of educational self-help and includes a description of mutual improvement societies. The next two chapters deal with mechanics' institutes. Chapter Six examines literary and philosophical societies, scientific societies, and phrenological societies. Chapter Seven discusses the educational significance of public houses and newspaper reading rooms. The role of the churches in the provision of adult education is analysed in the next chapter. Chapter Nine describes the decline of adult education and educational self-help after 1850 and is followed by a short Conclusion.

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This thesis explores the pedagogical practices of distance education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) involving adult students as they interact with print media mode of communication. My research was motivated after identification of a gap in the literature with regard to enhanced insight into the adult distance learners in the PNG context. My research focus incorporates PNG's unique indigenous cultural practices, forms of social organisation, knowledge and ways in which these 'ways of being' frame the uses of distance learning resources. The research aims to use a concept of 'pedagogic structures' as a way of interrogating these forms of social organisation and social position [re]construction. Collaboration and interaction as pedagogic themes resonates throughout the research. My research design voice takes an interpretive approach, through observation and informed by ethnographic research techniques. Fifteen students (3 females and 12 males), from three study centres and four lecturers, two tutor/mentors and four instructional designers participated with the researcher as participant observer. Qualitative analysis of data used a heuristic approach to code and categorise emerging themes from interviews, observations, and questionnaire responses. Distance learning resources and students' records were also examined. The intersecting concepts of ososom and osisini are introduced as orientations of learning in a distance education pedagogy. My research is theoretically guided by the ideas of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Moore, opening new avenues for analysing and shedding light on distance pedagogical practices on the premise that pedagogic practices are socially and culturally situated. My main research findings reveal that while the transmitter prescribes certain pedagogic principles, the adult distance learners go beyond these prescribed types of interaction to acquire knowledge. Students draw from their invisible social capital and pedagogic practices of tribal and communal forms of organisation to manage learning in their invisible world. This research points to the prioritisation for the enhancement of more meaningful collaborative and communal ways of distance education pedagogic transactions in PNG.

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No description available.

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In England, post - compulsory education is separated by the binary divide of the Further and Higher Education Act (1992), which established different funding and inspection bodies for the respective sectors. However, there are institutions which offer both further and higher education, styling themselves `dual-sector' or mixed-economy' institutions. Such institutions are situated within a continuum of collaborative arrangements, operating across the sectoral boundaries of further and higher education, ranging from full institutional merger to the franchising of qualifications. This thesis investigates the impact of institutional merger upon a specific institution, using a case - study approach to explore whether combining further and higher education within a single institution, can create a unified organisation that improves student progression. In doing so, it is situated within the field of higher education policy and explores the historical origins of the university and its contemporary purpose, together with the development and current function of further education. The methods of enquiry include document analysis and primary research, in the form of interviews with students progressing from further to higher education (Level 3 to Level 4), and from Level 5 (HND and Foundation Degree) to Level 6, together with interviews with academic — managers in the merged institution, exploring their perceptions of working in a dual-sector institution. I argue that full institutional merger produced some unintended consequences, which were in conflict with the rationale for merger, in some instances, but which also resulted in some unexpected benefits. The espoused objectives of the merger, in line with policies to widen participation in, and improve access to, higher education were predicated upon increased progression and cost reductions. The key themes of this research are widening participation, student progression and organisational transition. The emergent issues of boundaries, identities, transitions and organisational cultures, provide the framework for the presentation of research findings.

This study explores whether innovative environmental pedagogies that encourage learners to reflect on nature and are socially-critical can be integrated into teaching practice in a local government adult community education setting. Existing environmental education (EE) research reports that integrating innovative environmental pedagogies into teaching practice is problematic as a result of institutional constraints and teachers’ subjective influences. Most of this existing research has been conducted in schools, not in adult community education. My study recognises this gap in knowledge and explores how eleven practitioners working in one particular local government adult community education setting in England make meaning of innovative environmental pedagogies. In my study I employ an action research strategy, collecting data through semi-structured interviews and cooperative inquiry meetings. Heron and Reason’s (1997) extended epistemology provides an appropriate theoretical framework. Their extended epistemology resonates strongly with my methodology and supports the practical methods required to address my research aims and questions. My findings show that integrating innovative environmental pedagogies into one adult community education setting is indeed problematic. Problems include: practitioners’ concerns with adhering to externally imposed government performance targets; their practice of working in isolation and how their beliefs over remaining neutral in teaching significantly influences their attitude towards innovative environmental pedagogies. Unlike previous research, my findings also make visible how practitioner beliefs about nature and privileging learner needs mitigate against the integration of innovative environmental pedagogy into practice. I conclude that innovative environmental pedagogies cannot simply be grafted on to pre-existing practices. Innovation in EE must be situative and aligned with the contexts in which practitioners work.