Diese Arbeit untersucht das Verhalten und die Einstellungen von Mathematiklehrkräften im Implementationsprozess der nationalen Bildungsstandards. Als top-down eingeführte Bildungsinnovation wird eine Umstellung des Unterrichts intendiert, der auf die in den Standards formulierten Kompetenzen fokussiert. Es wird herausgearbeitet, was unter einem kompetenzorientierten Mathematikunterricht zu verstehen ist und anschließend aufgezeigt, wie eine solche Intention durch ein vom Institut zur Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen (IQB) entwickeltes Implementationskonzept in die Praxis überführt werden kann. Anhand von zwei Studien wurden jeweils zehn Merkmale eines kompetenzorientierten Unterrichts an Lehrkräften und Schülern im Längsschnitt analysiert und einzeln ausgewertet. Zusätzlich erhielten die Schülerinnen und Schüler einen kompetenzorientierten Leistungstest. Angelegt in einem Experimentaldesign erhielten die Projektschulen über die Projektlaufzeit eine externe Unterstützung durch eine Setkoordinatorin, die regelmäßig einen Input und beratende Hilfestellung bei der Entwicklung und Erprobung von kompetenzorientierten Lehr-Lernarrangements anbot. Angelehnt an das SINUS-Programm wurden weitere zentrale Fortbildungsveranstaltungen angeboten. Die Drop-Out-Analysen zeigen, dass Lehrkräfte, die den Bildungsstandards gegenüber positiv eingestellt sind und in einem höheren Grad miteinander kooperieren, Engagement im Projekt zeigen. Der Unterricht in den Projektschulen erfuhr eine stärkere Orientierung hin zum mathematischen Argumentieren, Modellieren und Probleme lösen. In den Projektschulen der Studie 1 nehmen die Schülerinnen und Schüler eine verstärkte Kompetenzorientierung im Bereich der Verwendung von mathematischen Darstellungen wahr. In einer zweiten Studie konnte das IQB-Implementationskonzept mit dem SINUS-Folgeprojekt „Kompetenzorientiert unterrichten in Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften (KOU)“ erfolgreich evaluiert werden. / This doctoral thesis focuses on teachers’ development during the implementation process of the national educational standards in Germany. Consider the standards, which were introduced by resolution, classroom activities are focused to improve student learning. To reach the standards, a change in teaching culture is necessary or at least an addition of teachers’ classroom activities. Therefore, the concept of competence-orientation especially for mathematics is described and discussed. Further implementation theories and implementation strategies are suggested and discussed. When educational standards became active, implementation concepts were missing so far. So, the Institute for Educational Quality Improvement (IQB) developed an implementation concept and got support by nine schools to test it. The professional learning communities in mathematics of the schools got external support by a supervisor and input by researchers during their intended change process. Study 1 focuses on analyzing teachers’ engagements and concerns as well as their classroom activities in a longitudinal design. Furthermore, students of ninth grade were tested in mathematics and asked about their classroom activities. Eight schools worked as a control group. Study 2 added another ten schools with a slightly different implementation concept. So, the IQB-concept could be evaluated. Even in study 2, the ten factors are analysed and differentiated by concept. Drop-out analyses show, teachers with a positive attitude towards the standards and a higher degree in cooperation, support the project and continued as participants in the longitudinal study. Furthermore, their classes changed in aspects of arguing, modeling and problems solving mathematically. Students of study 1 observe more activities in working with mathematical figures and diagrams. In study 2, the IQB implementation concept could be evaluated successfully by comparing teachers’ changes with the development in other schools.

Learner beliefs, which contribute to attitude and motivation, may affect language learning. It is therefore valuable to investigate the malleability of learner beliefs, and to determine whether potentially detrimental beliefs can be ameliorated. This study examines how instruction of the principles of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) affects students' beliefs about classroom activities and their beliefs about language learning in general. The 68 first-year German students at Brigham Young University who participated in this study were asked to rate the effectiveness of three activities typical of communicative language teaching: Dialogue activities, Peer Interview activities, and Information-gap activities. They were also asked to respond to 11 statements about language learning, seven of which were taken from the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory(Horwitz, 1988). Students responded to the survey three times: once during the first week of the semester, again during the fourth week, and again during the eighth week. During the four weeks between the second and third surveys, students in the experimental group received seven treatment lessons based on some of the basic principles of SLA. A Repeated Measures ANCOVA and a Logistical Regression were used to determine the effects of the treatment, time, and a number of demographic variables. Results of this study show that the treatment did not have a significant effect on any of the beliefs that were measured. However, one language learning belief was significantly affected by time. A majority of the students who participated in this study agreed with the statement, “The instructor should teach the class in German.” After three weeks of class instruction, however, they agreed with this statement significantly stronger. The results of this study also show that many of the demographic variables, such as gender and previous language learning experience, had a significant effect on a number of the students' beliefs.

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.

This dissertation interrogates the deficit assumptions about English proficiency of skilled immigrants who were recruited by Canadian governments between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through the lens of literacy as social practice, the eighteen-month ethnographic qualitative research explores the sequential experiences of settlement and economic integration of seven well-educated Chinese immigrant professionals. The analytical framework is built on sociocultural approaches to literacy and learning, as well as the theories of discourses and language reproduction. Using multiple data sources (observations, conversational interviews, journal and diary entries, photographs, documents, and artifacts collected in everyday lives), I document many different ways that well-educated Chinese immigrants take advantage of their language and literacy skills in English across several social domains of home, school, job market, and workplace. Examining the trans-contextual patterning of the participants’ language and literacy activities reveals that immigrant professionals use literacy as assistance in seeking, negotiating, and taking hold of resources and opportunities within certain social settings. However, my data show that their language and literacy engagements might not always generate positive consequences for social networks, job opportunities, and upward economic mobility. Close analyses of processes and outcomes of the participants’ engagements across these discursive discourses make it very clear that the monolithic assumptions of the dominant language shape and reinforce structural barriers by constraining their social participation, decision making, and learning practice, and thereby make literacy’s consequences unpredictable. The deficit model of language proficiency serves the grounds for linguistic stereotypes and economic marginalization, which produces profoundly consequential effects on immigrants’ pathways as they strive for having access to resources and opportunities in the new society. My analyses illuminate the ways that language and literacy create the complex web of discursive spaces wherein institutional agendas and personal desires are intertwined and collide in complex ways that constitute conditions and processes of social and economic mobility of immigrant populations. Based on these analyses, I argue that immigrants’ successful integration into a host country is not about the mastery of the technical skills in the dominant language. Rather, it is largely about the recognition and acceptance of the value of their language use and literacy practice as they attempt to partake in the globalized new economy.