This thesis is an in-depth ethnographic study of the lives and multiple identities of six third generation British born Bangladeshis from Tower Hamlets. I argue that they find it difficult to be both British and Bangladeshi and are presented with difficult identity choices. Marginalised by mainstream British society due to ethno-cultural differences, many are also excluded from the Bangladeshi community due to their adoption of a seemingly more Western lifestyle. This complex situation brings into sharp focus the question of identity or identities. Are British born third generation Bangladeshis: • Bangladeshi ? • British ? • Muslim ? • A fusion of the three ? The central argument of this study is that this dual exclusion from both wider British society and Bangladeshi culture has forced many third generation Bangladeshis to seek alternative identities. In modern geo-politics, the emergence of Islam as a powerful mobilising entity for its followers, has led to the growth of religiously orientated identities in many younger generations across the Muslim diaspora. Numerous third generation Bangladeshis from Tower Hamlets have syncretised their Bangladeshi culture with their Western socialisation within an Islamic framework. The result is the construction of what I have termed a Br-Islamic identity. Enabling the subjects to identify comfortably with their multifaceted identities, Br-Islam challenges traditional Bangladeshi norms, values and rituals and also contests the complex notion of what it means to be ‘British’. Br-Islam allows many to be British, Bangladeshi and Muslim all at the same time, thus occupying more of a socio-political rather than theological space in wider society. Furthermore, as a dynamic and complex postmodern identity, Br-Islam requires a constantly changing view of ‘self’, responding to rapid social, economic and technological changes in modern society. I argue that Br-Islam is a fluid response to this crisis – a hybrid concept negotiating the complexities of modern society and providing its members with the voice, visibility, belonging, representation and confidence to partake in the wider political process.

This thesis addresses the process of meaning production through personal experiences and collective memory. It undertakes a phenomenological, historical and hermeneutic investigation of South Korean art educators’ perceptions of the purpose and meaning of teaching art formed in this specific socio-cultural context. The research uses a qualitative case study technique for collecting and analysing research data. The thesis describes the author’s experiences relating to the forming of her pedagogical identity as an art teacher exposed to Western cultural influences on Korean art education and these experiences lead to research questions which attempt to explore issues of culture and pedagogised identities in art education in South Korea. The thesis reviews a brief history of Korean art education before and after Western influences in order to investigate how selected art educators view the purpose of art education and how they position themselves as art educators. The research data consists of a series of interview transcriptions obtained through semi-structured interviews with five South Korean art educators working at different levels of art education from 1950s to the present: secondary school teacher, university professor, government administrator, policy maker and researcher. The analysis of the interview narratives is conducted by employing three different hermeneutic lenses—conservative, moderate and critical hermeneutics. Each of these lenses helps to reveal contrasting attitudes to art education which are named as cultural reproduction (conservative), cultural conversation (moderate) and critical engagement (critical). Though these theoretical lenses help to shed light on the interweaving histories of tradition and practice the interview data illustrates a complex combination of reproduction, conversation and critical reflection. The central notion of tradition illustrates the complexity of issues relating to cultural identity, pedagogy and desire. What is thought of as ‘traditional’ painting or drawing in the sense of enduring form and value is shown in fact to be composed of a series of different and subtle variations of practice. The outcomes of the research provides a direction for critical engagement with art teaching and learning indicating a sense of how particular identities are constantly positioned and re-positioned within the ideological frameworks that structure understanding of teaching and learning. The key findings provide significant implications for designing curriculum policy and practice for art education in a contemporary where futures are more transient and uncertain.

This thesis investigates the possibilities for applying Sartrean existential philosophy and Foucauldian post-structural theory to practice in art education. I have focused on Sartre’s concepts of free-will and agency, considering the subject who is capable of transforming life situations; as compared with Foucault’s theorisation of regulatory discourses, the social construction of subjectivity and his ventures into possibilities for negotiated autonomy. I have been a teacher in sixth form art education throughout this research and have concentrated on this area of education, although I think that some of my findings could be applicable in other areas. Research into the potential for applying philosophy in further education, particularly in practice, is I think an area that has not yet been developed. To explore my leading question I have analysed data from semi-structured interviews of three research groups: teachers and practitioners, policy makers and sixth form students. I gathered responses from participants in these pedagogical domains to enable a comparative approach between different angles upon issues of freedom and autonomy. I wanted to explore the interface between subjects with polarities of experience, including the precarious interface between educators and policy makers. My reflections on the extent to which policy regulates agency in art education have extended from the 2009 interviews to consider policy changes since the 2010 election. I have viewed the data presented by my focal participants through the conceptual frameworks of Sartrean and Foucauldian philosophy, comparing the stances and relevance to education of aspects of each system of thought. I have also conducted action research of my own teaching practice. I planned and taught projects for students which investigate the potential for using existential and post-structural theory as a contextual resource, and as a critical tool for encouraging discursive learning spaces and a more questioning and proactive engagement with learning.

‘Where are you from?’ This question often refers to someone’s birthplace, childhood home or a place that holds significance. The place that is offered in response to this question is more than a means of orientation, it is a lived place that has complex meanings that identify and emplace. The significance of ‘place’ and also of ‘belonging’ to our lives is often overlooked, something that is invisible or hidden, yet it is key to understanding who we are, both individually and collectively. This study explores and examines the ways that children living in a remote Australian cultural context, the bush, perform and construct their place-world, and how within this knowing and subsequent learning, they construct place and belonging. The driving questions of this study are: How do children living in a remote Australian cultural context know their place and belonging? and How do children living in a remote Australian cultural context learn place and belonging? Using the overlapping methodological approaches of critical, visual and sensory ethnography, underpinned with the theories of habitus and the bound relationship between the body and place, this study explores how the children’s, and my own, ways of knowing place emerged through embodied engagement in and with the world. This enabled an understanding of embodied (sensory perception and sensory memories) ways of knowing the place of the bush and how, through everyday practices, place and belonging are performed, constructed and learned through corporeal and socially-engaged pedagogies but also by being there. These findings may contribute to a more profound but also a subtle examination of embodiment as key to the performance and construction of social identities, the production of new analytical insights to develop the theoretical relationship between the where and the who, and knowledge and understanding of the loss of connection with place or displacement.

This study is set in Saudi Arabia within the context of increasing national and international emphasis on inclusive education of deaf students and where policy overtly supports increasingly inclusive schools. This research is important because it is one of the few qualitative Saudi Arabian studies that have been conducted within the interpretive paradigm with a view to understanding the complexity of inclusive education. It specifically explores the factors that have influenced its theory and practice at inclusive boys’ primary schools for deaf students in the Saudi educational context. The empirical study which was set in the Local Educational Authority in Riyadh city focuses on the perceptions of schools' principals, teachers and parents of deaf students. It explores the knowledge, understanding, attitudes and experiences of these three groups of participants regarding the inclusive education of deaf students, in order to establish the factors that influence inclusive education and determine the kind of services that are needed for inclusive education of deaf students in the Saudi context. The study had two stages: the first involved exploratory focus-group interviews with schools' staff including schools' principals, teachers and parents of deaf students; and, stage two was based upon individual interviews, observations and documentary data. I adopted a purposive sampling strategy in both cases and overall 61 participants were included. A key finding was that principals of inclusive schools lacked the knowledge and understanding of inclusive education necessary for effective education for deaf students. This arguably has affected their attitudes and unconstructively influenced their attitudes towards the inclusive education of deaf students in their schools. Whilst the majority of teachers of deaf children had more knowledge and the necessary positive views towards their inclusive education and have tried to adapt classroom materials and activities to accommodate deaf students, the lack of support from principals inhibited them. In addition parents appear to lack knowledge about inclusion and its possibilities for their children and they are as such excluded from influencing educational policy and mostly do not play the role in inclusive schools to support their children that Saudi Arabian policy suggests they should. Other inhibiting factors for inclusive education for deaf students included insufficient facilities and resources, lack of training courses and lack of collaboration among school staff and between staff and parents of deaf students. My research indicates that these insufficiencies cannot be addressed without there being a symbiotic relationship between principals, teachers, parents, the Local Educational Authority, the Ministry of Education and the school environment. There is a strong need to create mechanisms to change the knowledge, attitudes and qualifications of principals, teachers and parents. Therefore in response to these findings I have developed and proposed a strategic model that focuses on the deaf student and their educational support, for the Saudi Education System. There is considerable research needed if inclusive education for deaf students is to be more grounded in an understanding of the context. The study ended with utilising its findings and previous literature to develop recommendations for theories of inclusive education and made contributions to knowledge about the role of attitudes. It also provided a set of policy guidelines and made suggestions about pedagogy. In Saudi, organisationally the Local Educational Authority need to pay more attention to funding inclusive schools and providing facilities and specialised training to school staff and parents. With work this may lead to successful inclusive education for deaf students in Saudi Arabia.

The contribution of mindfulness towards occupational stress is an under-researched aspect of primary school teaching in Ireland and internationally. The purpose of this research is to investigate the consequences for teachers who practise mindfulness. A qualitative approach was used to explore the occupational stressors experienced by primary school teachers and the contribution that mindfulness makes toward stress reduction. The research, involving interviews with 20 primary school teachers in urban and rural schools throughout Ireland, was carried out in 2013. The research provides evidence of teachers’ ability to respond to occupational stress by internally regulating thoughts and emotions. The consequences of such internal self-regulation proposed by the study include the development of internal teacher attributes, a contribution to professional practice and significant classroom outcomes which contribute to teacher coping skills and resilience. The literature review exposed that there were few frameworks or models relevant to mindfulness and teaching. The ‘Mindfulness in Teaching Model’, which is presented in this thesis, addresses this gap. Few qualitative research studies have been conducted in Ireland or internationally on how mindfulness impacts on teachers’ lives. This thesis serves to illuminate, for the first time, how the practice of mindfulness affects the effectiveness and professionalism of primary school teachers in Ireland.

A participatory action research and constructivist grounded theory-based intervention, by an educational psychologist, to determine helpful and unhelpful factors in targeted group intervention with three anxious primary school girls. The aims of this research were to explore the perceptions of anxious, reticent children, their parents and teachers of a modified and targeted intervention, implemented by an educational psychologist (EP) and based on the FRIENDS for Life programme (FRIENDS)(Barrett, 2004). A case study approach was used to gather the data necessary to address the aims. The targeted intervention was delivered weekly by the EP using an integrated, study-specific, participatory action research (PAR) and constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) (CTG) approach for data analysis and theory development. Two settings within a primary school were strategically used by the EP to dilute any stigma associated with intervention for the three anxious target group (TG) girls aged between nine and eleven (N=3). The three girls were also participant during the same period in the universal application of the programme with the rest of their class peers (N=9). The thesis takes as it starting point the fact that anxiety is thought to be one of the most common forms of psychological distress in children and young people (CYP) (Cartwright-Hatton et al., 2004) with prevalence being reported as high as twenty one per cent (Kashani and Orvaschel, 1990) and most studies estimating around ten per cent (Carr, 2006). Fortunately, the school-based programme FRIENDS for Life, (FRIENDS), based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) principles, appears to be efficacious both at a targeted and universal level with CYP. Little is known however about this programme’s application specifically with sub-clinically anxious CYP who are frequently apprehensive about verbal interaction at school and for whom mild to moderate anxiety is indicated. This study attempts to fill this gap. Modifications were made to the FRIENDS programme activities to allow for children’s non-verbal programme participation and to optimise the reticent target group children’s comfort within the group setting. The role of the EP in building therapeutic alliance with the anxious children was also explored. Study findings suggest that the intervention was positively perceived by participants and that the children perceived story-writing to be their preferred way of working with FRIENDS programme content. The use of the seven principles, based on the acronym PRECISE, was deemed useful to the EP in building therapeutic relationship with the reticent children. Findings underpin the study’s proposal for a conceptual model for EPs involved in group work with anxious children. The proposed ‘EPPPE’ model describes how EPs can use the PRECISE (P) principles in applying their skills in sensitive Programming (P) within a school community’s cognitive Ecological (E) context to support anxious children in targeted intervention.

This study examines the development of leadership. The aim is to investigate the concept of a leader (the headteacher) developing leadership in a new and developing school. The study explores the notion of a vision for leadership, the structures which are evident each year and the development of leaders and leadership within the school. This case study research was undertaken in a single school at the end of its first seven years at the point when the first cohort of students went to university and the school converted to a new academy. The presence of two consecutive Ofsted judgements of outstanding leadership suggested leadership had developed well making this an appropriate environment in which to investigate leadership development. This post facto study adopts a qualitative approach gathering data from three sources: an extended series of interviews with the headteacher; semi-structured interviews with a sample of middle leaders who had had different experiences within the school and documentary evidence in the form of staffing structures from each of the previous school years. These three sources provided a means for the triangulation of evidence. A number of points emerge from the study: the variance in perspectives of the headteacher and middle leaders; the changes in structure and the growth of a hierarchy; the development of leadership factors such as communication and external pressures which impact on this. The research identifies a number of key elements: the concept of leadership which appears organic and changing and where different leadership experiences can coexist within a planned leadership model; the relationship between leadership vision, leadership structure and leadership development and the changes to the relationship over time; communicating theleadership vision through change from opening to establishment. The research challenges the belief that leadership is an entity or concept defined by a fixed set of skills and features. The research moves forward from models of distributed and hybrid leadership to demonstrate the complexity, fluidity and flexibility of leadership development. The process of and deployment of leadership affects and is affected by the context and must be able to respond to all contingencies. The quality of information is essential in making decisions regarding leadership. The qualilty of communication of that information enhances knowledge across the organisation and secures commitment and engagement of all middle leaders.

This study concerned the concept of teacher induction, understood globally as the process of initiating newly qualified teachers (NQTs) into their roles as effective teachers and members of a school organisation. Despite longstanding proposals advocating change for teacher induction in the Republic of Ireland, Ireland has no statutory provision for this and there remains a significant gap in the Irish literature about how induction is currently functioning. The research investigated primary level NQT induction using a qualitative multi-case study, interviewing principals and NQTs in eight schools. These interviews explored principals’ rationales for providing induction and what they made available for their NQTs. NQTs’ perceptions were then sought about the effectiveness of their induction. A conceptual framework for evaluating the components of an effective induction programme was adapted from the literature to enable focused critique of Ireland’s provision and guidance for future developments. Four typologies of school-based induction were chosen to categorise the data: laissez faire, collegial, competency based, and self-directing professional. In all but the last of these, a rhetoric–reality gap was found; resulting in unforeseen consequences such as conflicts of interest between principals and NQTs. Evolving from the critique and the typologies, a reconstructed framework of the components of effective induction was devised to align with perceived needs of principals and NQTs. This can aid policymakers and stakeholders in future planning for NQT induction in Ireland.

This research has developed an alternative conceptual framework for school leadership which is context sensitive, practice oriented and centred on leadership for learning. The framework is construed on a set of practices which are considered to be optimal for leadership in a school and is based on three conceptual domains: leadership for pedagogical purpose; leadership for engagement; and leadership for empowerment. The three domains link sets of day to day leadership practices which inform pedagogical purpose; engage a wide constituency of others to be part of leadership practice; empowers this constituency to lead. At the centre of the constituency are the staff and students in the school, parents, school governors and a wide range of community stakeholders. Developed through substantial debate of the context of secondary schools in England and a wide range of theories, models and perspectives of leadership, the framework was used to undertake an inquiry into headteacher perception of leadership practice in their schools, focusing on a sub-regional group of secondary headteachers in the South East of England. A sequential mixed methods procedure was used which allowed analysis and discussion of a combined and sequential data set. Exploratory factor analysis of questionnaire data, enriched by thematic analysis of interview data, enabled a framework for perceived leadership practice to be constructed and compared to the conceptual framework for leadership underpinning the research. The findings indicate that despite some aspects of excellent leadership practice there may be limited practice in important aspects of leadership in the schools particularly with regard to leadership for engagement and leadership for empowerment. Significant sources of leadership practice available in staff, students, parents, other schools, and governing bodies are likely to be under-developed and under-deployed in most schools. Excessive accountability, both explicit and implicit, in the standards based school improvement processes driven by central government and the fundamental lack of trust which this implies creates barriers to the development of effective leadership practice. The findings of this research suggest that headteachers appear trapped in their primacy and often feel unable to utilise the leadership resources available to them because of accountability in relation to their agency, the capacity of others to lead and the perceptions of others that leadership is in the sole provenance of the head. This thesis has shown that the headteacher’s primacy in school leadership is crucially important to establishing leadership in the school which fosters learning and engages and empowers others. It is headteachers who will nurture leadership practice which is purposefully concerned to maximise student learning, fully engaging of all potential leadership resources and empowering other leaders, staff, students, parents and school governors to be part of the leadership of the school.