This thesis is an analysis of the relevance of curriculum, especially school curriculum to socio-economic needs. After an Introduction which is Chapter I, Chapter II identifies from the Kothari the Education Commission 1964-1966 an interpretation of the socio-economic needs of India, the role of education, and how curriculum might contribute to development. The thesis argues that the theoretical position adopted by this Commission is understandable within the paradigm of "modernization" theory. The Kothari Commission's position and educational recommendations are analysed within a framework developed by Bill Williamson in his book Education. Social Structure and Development. In Chapters III and IV the various problems in education and development are analysed through the categories of relevance, equality and balance identified by Williamson which leads to some contrast and comparison with the theory positions adopted by the Kothari Commission. Chapters Five, Six and Seven continue the analysis by assessing the relationship between socio-economic development and education in historical context (Chapter V); in terms of major curriculum policies (Chapter VI); and in terms of selected curriculum practice (Chapter VII). The organizing theme running through the analysis relates to whether Indian education might be understood specifically in terms of 'dependency' as identified by Williamson, and how far India fits within concepts of a 'Dependent Society' pattern. Overall, the thesis falls into two parts. The first develops the theoretical basis which finally focusses on the significance of curriculum for development. The second part of the thesis concentrates on curriculum content and change in India, with some specification of the balance between national and international influences on education and curriculum. The thesis concludes with a commentary on the theory positions of Kothari and Williamson, identified in the first part of the thesis in the light of the evidence assembled in the second part of the thesis.

This thesis deals with the relationship between curriculum proposal and curriculum practice in the Brazilian Educational System. The thesis argues that there is a wide gap between curriculum proposal and the curriculum practice in Brazilian education. This argument is approached from the perspective of mediation processes, which occur between these curriculum phenomena. The study covers the period 1970 - 1990. Following the Introduction, Chapter One, based on the review of relevant literature on curriculum proposal and curriculum practice, analyses the state of the Brazilian Primeiro Grau [First Level] School, as regulated by the Educational Law 5.692, of 1971. Chapter Two examines some of the theories related to curriculum reforms, curriculum proposal and curriculum practice in order to provide a basis for the approach proposed for this study. Using the findings of Chapter One, this Chapter points to three arenas that are especially relevant for the relationship between curriculum proposal and curriculum practice. These arenas are: political support, bureaucratic structure and teacher training. In Chapter Three, fieldwork is carried out in Germany in order to refine the mediation concept and to look at how it operates in a country where one expects good education results. Chapter Four covers the fieldwork carried out in Brazil, more specifically in the State of Rio de Janeiro, in 1990. This research studies the mediation processes which occur in the relationship between curriculum proposal and curriculum practice in the three selected arenas. Finally, in the Conclusion, the major outcomes of this study, based on the evidence described in the previous chapters, are brought together. Understandings of the mediation processes, active in the three selected arenas in the relationship between curriculum proposal and curriculum practice in Brazil, are highlighted.

This study is addressing course design as an important process within the area of language curriculum development. The importance of course design lies in its being as the preparatory stage that contributes to shaping and guiding the subsequent stages of the whole process of course development-implementation and evaluation. The study aims at understanding the role of teachers at a tertiary context in Oman in designing the courses they teach based on their perspectives. It also aims at understanding how students conceptualize and evaluate theses courses. In addition, it aims at exploring what issues and factors have the greatest impact on course design and in what way from the teachers and students’ perspectives as course developers and course receivers, respectively. Based on its purpose, the study is conceived within the paradigm of interpretivism employing its epistemology and philosophy as an underpinning stance. On the basis of the participants’ perspectives and experiences, the qualitative approach has been chosen for determining the strategy and methods of sampling, and data collection and data analysis. In order to gain thick descriptions and information about the investigated phenomenon, the researcher used the method of semi-structured interviews with the teacher sample and focus group discussion with the student sample. In addition, the method of document analysis was also used as a supplementary tool for the teacher sample as it is concerned with the mechanism of course design. Findings of the study were categorized according to the five research questions of the study and the two types of data (teachers and students’ data). Interpretations of teachers’ data revealed that they conceptualize course design as a matter of prioritizing the key element- that is mainly students’ needs- that contributes to shaping and guiding the other components of a course. The students’ data, on the other hand, revealed a variety of perspectives involving their evaluation of single aspects of course design, particularly materials development and selection of the content of a course, with their major concern about course implementation. Among the major findings of this study is the identification of challenges confronted by teachers and students that were described in terms of problems impacting negatively the process of designing courses by teachers and the process of learning by students. Based on the findings of data analysis, the study offers a number of implications and suggestions that are of value for teachers who are involved in the process of course design and the institution where the study takes place. Teachers must have an active role in course design due to their direct contact with the learning situation. Teachers’ involvement in course design is considered as a major factor behind the stage of course implementation. For this, teachers need to be aware of the relationship between course design and its implementation and how they affect each other. Doubtlessly, teachers can play an active role in course design, yet the institution must provide external support such as professional development programs and establishing a professional curriculum committee in order to ensure the effectiveness of curriculum development.

This thesis argues that the invisibility of disabled people in the Citizenship curriculum is no longer tenable. In analogue to race and sex discrimination, I use legal case analyses, together with empirically framed case studies within an international perspective, to systematically explore different aspects of citizenship. Citizenship elements range from ‘legal’, ‘constitutional context’, ‘political participation’, ‘human rights’, ‘community’, ‘socio-economic’ to ‘identity and belonging’. Through a mash up methodology of running voices of disabled people themselves over various themes of citizenship, the contributions, barriers and achievements of disabled people are embedded in the analysis. This includes often apparently conflicting or contradictory voices and cross cultural discussions. Disabled people’s experiences are constitutive of, not additional to, citizenship values. The work confirms that a paradigm shift is taking place in our understanding of disability, which profoundly challenges traditional models of citizenship and leads to uncertainties in professional practice. I propose a three-pillar model of inclusive citizenship, underpinned by the social model of disability, a socio-legal framework of rights-based anti-discrimination, and recognition of struggle as a political manifestation of contested ideologies. Each pillar is associated with concomitant shifts not only in individual but also in institutional behaviour, which extends to a critical examination of the law, the role of the state, social and institutional practices. The extent to which curriculum development on Citizenship, policy ideas, resources and practices are inclusive of and accessible to disabled people, and how programmes of study at key stages 3 and 4 reference disabled citizens, is critically discussed. This leads to an outline of practice with potential that connects disability equality to Citizenship education.

This thesis has grown out of interest in and observation of dilemmas for practice and attitudes to enterprise education in primary and secondary schools in Scotland. There seem to be mixed views on the purpose of enterprise education and its justification to be part of the curriculum, its relationship to other means of addressing work-related purposes of education and shifting policy interpretations that propose to link enterprise education with entrepreneurship education. This latter consideration has been highlighted more recently with the provision of financial support for enterprise education from successful and influential Scottish entrepreneurs. These circumstances are examined in the later parts of the thesis and are preceded by an analysis of the wider context and variety of connections and interrelationships between work and education. Historical, social, political, economic and cultural connections emerge as necessary disciplines for understanding work, how our concept of work has developed and how it has been related to education along the way. Historical analysis is needed in order to analyse and forecast how education and work relationships are developing today and so a history of work and its relationship with education in industrial and post-industrial economies is provided as well as consideration of developments in the traditional but more narrowly defined area of vocational education. More recent developments in global interconnectedness, communications technology and the emergence of knowledge as the major requirement of our 21st Century lives have altered the balance in the education and work relationship making education the more proactive agent in the pair. Educational policy and practice have in the past been shaped by political and economic changes in society but contemporary attitudes to the importance of knowledge, its application and its transfer, in stimulating economic growth have made learning a sought after ‘commodity’ and education, although slow to make major changes to school practice, is now in a position to shape the nature and practice of work and workplaces. It emerges in the thesis that although education has been and is influenced by political, social and economic requirements, policy makers arguably have not paid much attention to the social sciences or to philosophical considerations when considering curriculum development. Likewise social science and philosophical enclaves have not shown much interest in educational theory and practice. Only recently have education faculties been established in many UK universities and begun to develop research cultures that in other disciplines already have long traditions and prestige. The chapters of the thesis bring together a broad and original compilation of areas of study that provide a scenario of connections that have the potential to inform, motivate and increase the understanding of educators and the makers of education policy when addressing the work-related aims of education. The final chapter sums up the scope of the variety of influences on the relationship between education and work and proposes that, although they provide very necessary bases for understanding, they have over time diminished what the thesis claims to be a necessary element in all education and educational policy deliberations, including those on education for work: that of value-based considerations for the development of the human person. Suggested ways forward for schools and course design, teacher education and education policy making are provided in the light of the deliberations of the thesis.

This study examines implementation of early years mathematics policy in reception classes (RCs) in England. It addresses the core question: what is the relationship between policy and practice in the Foundation Stage (FS) mathematics curriculum for three- to five-year-olds, in particular, implementation in RCs? Policies and their implementation are analysed by means of the policy trajectory model outlined by Bowe et al. (1992) which separates the creation and implementation of policy into three distinct but interactive cycles: context of influence, context of policy text production, and context of practice. It both guided and framed this study. In the context of influence, scrutiny of international policy revealed a recognition of the importance of high-quality early years education, as a means to raising school achievement. This posed a challenge to RC teachers charged with both accessing and extending children’s rich mathematical knowledge through appropriate, yet accepted FS practices. The context of policy text production uncovereded a tension between the drive to raise standards through whole-class interactive methods and the need for an appropriately play-based and informal FS pedagogy. Elite interviews revealed an awareness of and concern about this but showed little optimism for future development of practice, In the context of practice, RC teachers revealed a positive attitude towards FS curriculum and pedagogy. Observed practice, however, was seen to vary considerably. Tensions in FS mathematics policy were thus enacted in RCs through practice that ranged from didactic teacher-led numeracy tasks poorly matched to children’s capabilities to colourful practical mathematics activities that did not necessarily extend children’s learning. The policy trajectory model revealed strong top-down pressures that took little account of the impact on those charged with implementation, with RC teachers caught in a nexus of forces, reflecting requirements to deliver accepted FS practice and increase formality of numeracy lessons.

This dissertation has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Glasgow EdD. As someone with a professional background in education, government and parliament, and an academic background in politics and citizenship, I was keen to identify an area of study that might draw upon these areas of interest. The emergence of A Curriculum for Excellence as a major new policy initiative in the mid-2000s appeared to represent an ideal case study scenario for just such a study. I wished to examine the ways in which this policy had been initiated, formulated, developed and implemented. In particular I was very aware of the optimistic and aspirational claims around new and improved modes of policymaking that had contributed to the discourse around devolution in the late 1990s. I wanted to test these claims in the light of the development of A Curriculum for Excellence. In order to address these claims I developed a conceptual framework that placed a strong emphasis on themes of genealogy and governance. Through this framework, and a methodology based on literature review and in depth interviews with some key participants in the policy process, I hoped to scrutinise some aspects of the Scottish policy process that are rarely examined. These include the influential role of individuals and organisations, the ways in which policy is mediated in an apparent pursuit of consensus and the consequences of this approach to policy. My core research questions were: 1. To what extent was the genealogy of A Curriculum for Excellence influenced and shaped by the post-devolutionary context? 2. Does an analysis of the governance of A Curriculum for Excellence provide evidence of a change in post-devolution policymaking in education? 3. What does the educational policymaking architecture look like in post-devolution Scotland? In answering these questions I identified a number of key findings, including that the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) development can be situated in a policy context that has been informed by the advent of devolution. It provides partial evidence of a change in the post devolution conduct of education policy, although some procedures for policy consultation should be reviewed and enhanced further, with a greater focus on deliberative forms of engagement at all stages in the policy process. Policy goals should be stated more clearly and in ways that can facilitate review and evaluation. Procedures should also be put in place to promote greater continuity of staff and institutions involved in the core development and delivery of major policy initiatives in Scottish education. The policy architecture that has emerged in the post-devolution period is a hybrid model that has not resolved the longstanding tension between consensual, pluralistic and mediating instincts on the one hand; and centralised control and governance on the other. The informal and organic system of checks and balances in the Scottish policy landscape that had evolved in the pre-devolutionary era has to a large extent been retained. This has implications for the scope, speed and ambition of any policy development and implementation, as exemplified by CfE in this case study. In order to improve the prospects for effective policy change in future, I recommend that the roles of the different organisations with responsibility for educational policymaking in Scotland should be reviewed and clarified. Furthermore the procedures for policymaking should be clarified, formalised and made more transparent in the same way as legislative procedures were reviewed as part of the devolution settlement.

The concept of uncertainty plays a significant role in higher education in the 21st century. However; the pedagogy of uncertainty tends to focus on ontology and the feelings of uncertainty experienced by teachers and students, as opposed to treating it as an epistemological concept. This research considers the epistemology of uncertainty in the context of climate change and investigates how it is conceptualised and taught by academics working in the subject area. The theoretical frameworks of troublesome knowledge and threshold concepts are employed to aid the characterisation of uncertainty as a concept in higher education. Following a methodology based on grounded theory, interviews were undertaken with 10 academics involved in teaching climate change. The interview data was analysed and categorised according to the interview participants' conceptions of uncertainty and the implications for teaching uncertainty. The research found that uncertainty in the context of climate change is a complex and multivariate concept and this was reflected in the interview data, with many of the participants holding several different conceptions of uncertainty simultaneously. In terms of teaching uncertainty, the concept also aligns with the theoretical frameworks, in that it is troublesome knowledge and a threshold concept in the context of climate change, with broader implications as an interdisciplinary threshold concept arising from the difficulty encountered when attempting to integrate diverse conceptions of uncertainty. Maturity and personal development were also found to play a role in teaching uncertainty. Several strategies and approaches to teaching uncertainty are discussed, and a critical reflection on the pedagogy of uncertainty is offered. The critical reflection proposes a pedagogy for teaching uncertainty whereby the concept is situated centrally in the higher education curriculum and taught explicitly through student-centred approaches that take into account issues of personal development and variation.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare but highly aggressive neuroendocrine cutaneous cancer whose molecular biology is poorly characterized. Our broad research objective is to identify microRNAs (miRNA) that are biologically and/or clinically important in MCC. While attempting to establish an MCC-specific miRNA signature, we observed that microRNA-375 was the most highly expressed miRNA in primary MCC tumours relative to normal skin – an observation that I propose reflects miR-375’s specific association with neuroendocrine (NE) and secretory subpopulations within normal tissues. Here, I report that miR-375 is strikingly elevated in a range of NE tumour types compared with tissue-matched cancers of non-neuroendocrine origin. Furthermore, I show that miR-375 is expressed abundantly in a subset of MCC cell lines that possess the biochemical and immunohistochemical characteristics of NE cells, but is silenced in cell lines that fail to retain these markers. I demonstrate that the enforced expression of miR-375 induces a NE gene expression signature – a phenomenon that is mechanistically driven by the post-transcriptional repression of multiple Notch pathway components by miR-375. This work identifies the Notch pathway as a novel mechanistic link between the association of miR-375 and a NE cell fate, provides new insights into the cellular ancestry of MCC, and suggests that miR-375 could facilitate clinicopathological diagnosis of MCC and other NE tumours as a novel biomarker. miR-375 is silenced in “variant” MCC cell lines, and inversely correlates with cell doubling time and overall aggressiveness. Therefore, despite its high expression in most MCC tumours, I propose that miR-375 is an endogenous tumour suppressor. I show that the enforced expression of miR-375 inhibits cell viability, impairs cell migration and invasion, can oppose survival under stress, and represses the AKT pro-survival signaling pathway. Only siRNA-mediated inhibition of Notch2 and Recombination signal binding protein for immunoglobulin kappa J region (RBPJ) phenocopied the effects of miR-375 overexpression. Because variant (miR-375low) cell lines originate from more aggressive tumours in both MCC and small cell lung carcinoma, I postulate that miR-375 silencing occurs in a subset of MCC patients and might predispose them to a highly virulent clinical course through the disinhibition of Notch signaling. / Thesis (Master, Pathology & Molecular Medicine) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-15 09:59:09.832

Extensive literature has argued the important role that education plays in the process of language shift. Within this literature, it is widely acknowledged that education in which the target language is also the medium of instruction can make a positive contribution toward Reversing Language Shift. For users of minoritised languages in particular, having access to education in one’s own language has important status and educational consequences: helping to support the prestige of the target language and also reducing the kinds of educational inequalities that are often associated with minoritised languages. In keeping with the prime importance of language-as-medium education to language planning goals, there is a growing body of research which focuses upon Gaelic Medium Education in Scotland. The role that second or additional language education can play in Reversing Language Shift is acknowledged to a much lesser extent. This is especially true within the context of Scotland, where the relevant education provision within state secondary schools, Gaelic (Learners) Education, has only received passing recognition. This thesis aimed to address this gap in knowledge about the way in which education contributes to development goals for Gaelic in Scotland by questioning what, if any, role the Gaelic (Learners) Education programme has to play in the reversal of language shift. The first aim of the dissertation was to identify a theoretical foundation for the role that second or additional language education can play in Reversing Language Shift. Several prominent theoretical approaches were reviewed and a hypothesis posed that Gaelic (Learners) Education was beneficial to both Acquisition and Status development. Subsequent analyses of policies at the macro, meso, and micro levels confirmed the relevance of this hypothesis. However, it was also found that there was a lack of overt policy acknowledgement for Gaelic (Learners) Education in Scotland overall, suggesting that the stream was not regarded as being particularly relevant to Reversing Language Shift. The next aim of the thesis was to clarify the ways in which the stream could be used to help contribute to the reversal of language shift. This focused on identifying areas in which this educational programme could be improved. Using data elicited in semi-structured interviews with education professionals and gathered through surveys of pupils within GLE classes, several blockages for Gaelic (Learners) Education could be identified including aspects of capacity, opportunity and attitudes.