Using a Social Constructionist lens, this study gathers fresh empirical data on the experience of a “Mature Student”, examining its multiple constructions, both objective and subjective, within the context of a Scottish Ancient university. For six centuries, Ancient universities have held expectations that incoming students will adjust to fit the autonomous institutional culture. However the expansion of Higher Education in 1992 has introduced changes in legislation and funding which have shifted the onus of that adjustment to the organisations themselves. This study is placed at the fundamental core of the tension between an institution struggling with the changing nature of its purpose and non-traditional students with changing expectations. Through analysis of daily journals and semi-structured interviews with 16 students and 12 staff, it explores the interpretations which both sets of actors take from student/institution interaction, and does so with respect to the student’s holistic life context rather than viewing only the learner role. Particular emphasis is placed on the losses and gains from the experience, including examination of what a degree symbolises in personal, fiscal and psychological terms. Based on a synthesis of literature reviews and empirical data, the study categorises the Mature students into three groups according to experiential themes within the student journey, drawing out theoretical and policy contributions from the process. Although mismatches are shown to exist between student and staff expectations of institutional purpose, a contemporary, and valid, role for the Ancient institution is outlined in terms of developing individual agency.

Diplomová práce "Výchova tancem. Evaluace dopadů předmětu taneční a pohybové výchovy se zabývá zhodnocením efektů předmětu taneční a pohybové výchovy, který byl před několika lety zařazen do RVP (Rámcově vzdělávací program) pro základní školy. Cílem této práce je podat přehled o oblastech, v nichž může taneční a pohybová výchova být přínosem a naopak poukázat na případné negativní nebo problematické stránky tohoto předmětu. Informace o této problematice byly získávány prostřednictvím kvalitativních výzkumných metod, tedy pomocí polostrukturovaných a skupinových interview a také metod zúčastněného a nezúčastněného pozorování v hodinách taneční a pohybové výchovy. Informátory/kami v tomto výzkumu byli lektoři/ky taneční výchovy, pedagogové/žky tříd, v nichž je tento předmět vyučován a také žáci/kyně. Největší přínosy taneční a pohybové výchovy lze shledat ve sféře sociálních vztahů, ale i v oblastech seberozvoje jedinců a rozvoje některých klíčových kompetencí. Taneční výchova například přináší potenciál pro transformaci nefunkčních kolektivních vztahů, stává se v některých případech nástrojem začlenění jedinců upozaděných nebo vyčleněných z kolektivu. Taneční a pohybová výchova také stimuluje dětskou fantazii a do určité míry může vést k rozvoji kreativních schopností u některých jedinců. Podporuje...

Le « dessin » pour vivre et respirer le monde contemporain dans sa diversité au quotidien. Une exploration de la question du dessin, à travers ses trois composantes fondamentales, l’espace, le temps, le mouvement, en s’appuyant sur une expérience personnelle remontant à l’enfance. La mise en abyme de cette pratique permettra d’avoir à disposition un solide matériau de recherche et de questionnement. Une enquête approfondie relative à cet art, à ses pratiques, à ses évolutions, menée à travers l’histoire, permettra, par ailleurs, de naviguer du plan pratique au plan théorique, et de pointer certaines des problématiques du dessin rencontrées fréquemment par les artistes. Ces investigations conduiront à se placer sur des champs variés de la connaissance, à travers des disciplines telles celles, des arts, de la littérature, de la philosophie, de l’anthropologie, de la psychologie, des mathématiques, de l’histoire et la géographie, et bien d’autres encore. Les occasions seront multiples d’aller à la rencontre, des grands maîtres de la peinture et du dessin, tels, ceux de la Renaissance, et un peu plus tard, ceux qui se sont plus particulièrement distingués dans la pratique du dessin au trait, tels, Ingres, Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky, Warhol, et des artistes contemporains qui aujourd’hui s’affichent sur la scène de l’art. Référence sera faite à d’illustres penseurs, philosophes, scientifiques, en particulier, Platon, Aristote, Descartes, Kant, Merleau-Ponty, Freud, et des écrivains, tels Paul Valéry, etc., qui viendront largement éclairer des aspects parmi les plus mystérieux du dessin. / The art of « drawing », to breath the dayly life in its full contemporaneousness. An exploration of the question of « drawing », through its three fundamental components : space, time, movement, based upon a personal experience coming from childhood. To begin, the exercice of a « mise en abyme » of our own pratical experience will provide a solid research tool, in order to be able to set up different problematics of the artists. A meticulously investigation confrontating theory and experimentation, through history and history of arts, will be carried out, introducing therefore to many specific fields of knowledge, as, littérature, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, mathematics,, history of arts, history and geography, etc. Chances to study famous artists, such as, painters of the italien Renaissance, and further on, painters who are specialists of « line drawing » like, Ingres, Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Kandisky, Warhol, and among them, also some contemporary artists. Aspects of drawing, among the most mysterious, will lightly find favour sights with many thinkers, philosophers, ideologists, theorists, writers, as Platon, Aristote, Descartes, Kant, Merleau-Ponty, Freud, etc.,

La pregunta por la identidad cultural puertorriqueña se ha formulado en el pasado y se sigue formulando en la actual literatura de un país que ha creado una literatura nacional a pesar de no haberse constituido como nación independiente. Si tal interrogante se repite con insistencia a lo largo del pasado siglo XX , sus respuestas en cambio se articulan desde la pluralidad de enfoques, aunque en ellas se pueda percibir también una preocupación común que se fundamenta en la condición colonial vigente hoy en día en la isla, estrechamente vinculada al problema de la identidad nacional. A contramarcha de los acercamientos teóricos que proponen el desmantelamiento de la idea de la nación mediante conceptos tales como globalización, transnacionalización, postnacionalidad, en Puerto Rico la pregunta por la identidad nacional sigue generando todavía discusiones, debates, polémicas y, desde el eje de la producción literaria, articulando diversas "ficciones de la puertorriqueñidad", algunas de las cuales procuro analizar en mi trabajo. A lo largo de este estudio me centro particularmente en la compleja relación entre nacionalismo y representación literaria atendiendo a la construcción discursiva y textual de un imaginario de lo puertorriqueño que, en este caso, implica asimismo considerar el peculiar contexto histórico colonial del país. Para concretar el análisis de esta cuestión me detengo en la narrativa de dos autores centrales cuyas ficciones de la puertorriqueñidad pretendo indagar: Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá y Manuel Ramos Otero. Ambos escritores coinciden en comenzar a publicar a comienzos de la década de los años setenta, en un momento de intensa ruptura cultural en las letras puertorriqueñas, como lo testimonia la novela de Luis Rafael Sánchez, <i>La guaracha del Macho Camacho</i> (1976), obra que proyectó de manera significativa la rica literatura puertorriqueña hacia el ámbito latinoamericano. Asimismo tanto Rodríguez Juliá como Ramos Otero se reconocen marcados por el peso histórico que tuvo en Puerto Rico el desarrollo del Partido Popular Democrático liderado por Luis Muñoz Marín, responsable en gran parte del establecimiento del Estado Libre Asociado. Sus historias vitales y textuales están atravesadas por la utopía populista pero también fuertemente signadas por su fracaso, una de cuyas consecuencias más dramáticas lo constituye la emigración forzada de miles de puertorriqueños a Nueva York desde 1952. En este sentido me interesó particularmente analizar los diferentes lugares de enunciación postulados por cada autor, ya que mientras Rodríguez Juliá escribe desde la Isla, Ramos Otero en cambio lo hace desde Nueva York, cuestión que plantea entonces la ampliación de las fronteras nacionales a la hora de pensar qué textos forman parte de la literatura puertorriqueña actual.

The last two decades have set the global trend of internationalized education on a new course. Besides the usual flow of international students from their home countries to Western universities, an opposite flow emerged. In the Middle East, for instance, the number of international campuses nearly doubled between 2000 and 2009, and Egypt has been no exception. Starting 2003, Egypt has witnessed a remarkable surge of private international universities that use English as a medium of instruction, adopt foreign curricula and have partnerships with universities in Europe, North America, and recently Asia. This trend has raised identity loss concerns among many intellectuals and educational researchers whose worries mainly revolved around national, religious, and linguistic identities. This longitudinal qualitative study, thus, aimed to understand how Egyptian freshman students at an international University in Cairo construct and negotiate their national, religious and linguistic identities. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 12 students at three different points of their first year at the university, and a focus group was organized at the beginning of their second year. Results revealed a more complex picture than the widespread simplistic rhetoric about international universities’ influence on students’ identity construction. The participants’ social and academic backgrounds and unique life experiences were an important factor in their identity construction and negotiation; they seemed to determine the ranking of those identities on their hierarchy of identities, which in turn shaped how they constructed and negotiated them. Moreover, participants realized and used their agency to negotiate their identities and resolve identity crises when these happened. They also resorted to other identity agents, particularly family and students’ clubs. This study contributes to the Egyptian debate on educational reform and adds to the literature on English as a medium of instruction, identity formation, and internationalized education by shedding light on the intricate ways in which students navigate through international education, and by suggesting pedagogical and policy implications applicable not only to liberal-education institutions in the region, but perhaps also to other universities in Europe and North America that attract international students, particularly with the recent waves of refugees from the Middle East.