Initiatives in many countries to improve learner performances in mathematics in poor communities have been described as largely unsuccessful mainly due to their cursory treatment of curriculum alignment. Empirical evidence has shown that in high achieving countries the notion of coherence was strongly anchored in cognitively demanding mathematics programs. The view that underpins this study is that a cognitively demanding and coherent mathematics curriculum has potential to level the playing field for the poor and less privileged learners. In South Africa beyond 1994, little has been done to understand the potential of such coherent curriculum in the context of the NCSM. This study examined the levels of cognitive demand and alignment between the written, tested and taught NCSM. The study adopted Critical Theory as its underlying paradigm and used a multiple case study approach. Wilson and Bertenthal’s (2005) dimensions of curriculum coherence provided the theoretical framework while Webb’s (2002) categorical coherence criterion together with Porter’s (2004) Cognitive Demand tools were used to analyse curriculum and assessment documents. Classroom observations of lesson sequences were analysed following Businskas’ (2008) model of forms of mathematical connections since connections of different types form the bases for high cognitive demand (Porter, 2002). The results indicated that higher order cognitive skills and processes are emphasized consistently in the new curriculum documents. However, in the 2008 examination papers the first examinations of the new FET curriculum, lower order cognitive skills and processes appeared to be emphasized, a finding supported by Umalusi (2009) and Edwards (2010). Classroom observations pointed to teachers focusing more on rote learning of both concepts and procedures and less on procedural and conceptual understanding. Given the widespread evidence of the tested curriculum impacting on the taught curriculum, this study suggests that this lack of alignment between the advocated curriculum on one hand, the tested and the taught curricula on the other, needs to be investigated further for it endangers the teaching and learning of higher order cognitive skills and processes in the FET mathematics classrooms for the poor and less privileged. Broader evidence suggests that this would work against efforts towards supporting the upward mobility of poor children in the labour market.

This exploratory investigation examined the relationship between states' educational standardization and voter turnout, using cultural and critical theory lenses. The study documented the problem of low voter participation and current education standardization policies. The study used a complementarity mixed-methods design with sequential quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative component developed a tool for measuring states' levels of educational standardization, the Standardized Education Index (SEI). Data for voter age population (VAP) and voter eligible population (VEP) in state presidential elections between 2000 and 2012 were used as measures of voter turnout. A weak correlation was found between the SEI and voter turnout for VEP in 2000 and VAP in 2000, 2004, and 2008, with between 6% and 14% of variability explained. While no evidence of a positive relationship between higher levels of SEI and higher voter turnout was found, no counter argument could be established either. The qualitative component utilized case studies of exemplars of states with high SEI/low voter turnout and high SEI/low voter turnout, which were Arkansas and New Hampshire, respectively. Investigated elements were educational Administrative Rules, voting regulations, and cultural/geographic and demographic attributes. Data were compiled and compared. A binary sort, a Dichotomous Sort of Accountability Concepts, framed the critical analysis of educational standards data. Arkansas was found to be a location of standardized education and restrictive voting regulations. New Hampshire was a location of more differentiated education supporting civic engagement with easier access to voting. This study's results are a baseline for further investigation of the relationship of educational standardization to voter participation. If standards based reform has a positive effect on voter participation, then future correlation analysis will produce a moderate to strong positive relationship. If the relationship remains negative, then it will provide evidence that standards reform does not engender an informed electorate.

Thesis advisor: Brian Robinette / This project seeks to critique the occupation of Palestine with the categories and methods of a critical theological aesthetics. The theological aesthetics employed here is critical because it develops Theodor Adorno’s aesthetic project: beauty is dialectical, historical, and, above all, negative. Beauty is negative as it is founded on renunciation: beauty renounces ugliness. Adorno’s project is advanced through an encounter with Christ. Christ, as witnessed on the Cross, is the absolute fulfillment of negative beauty: Christ, who is absolutely personal, material, and relational, renounces renunciation itself. This fulfillment of negative beauty demands engagement and participation: to follow Christ is to do beauty; it is to renounce ugliness in a beautiful way. The occupation of Palestine, especially revealed through the phenomenon of suicide bombing, stands as an unsettling and dark ugliness. Because the occupation is funded and supported by so-called Christian Zionists, it is an occupation that challenges that character of God. Because occupation works aesthetically to occupy flesh and relationship, it is an occupation that desacralizes the living image of God. This demands prompt renunciation and beatification. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: David Blustein / This qualitative study explored the experiences of women going through a welfare-to-work program in a northeastern setting. Specifically, the women's identities as mothers, women of color, and women living in poverty were examined. Feminist and critical theory informed the research questions and literature review. Qualitative description and content analysis were used to analyze the data from 10 interviews. The concepts that emerged described the women's experiences going through the program, their identity as mothers and caregivers, the negative psychological experiences and impact of going through the system, feeling labeled and misunderstood, obstacles and barriers to success, forms of resilience and resistance, and their relationship with work. Four major inferences were gleaned from the results: the need to integrate the experience of motherhood/caregiving more explicitly into WTW, the need for more attention to mental health concerns, an alarming level of corruption and corruption within the welfare system itself, and a dialectical struggle between the theoretical and practical experience of work and employment. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Tolerância é um conceito complexo que tem a capacidade de velar, em certos discursos, essa mesma complexidade. Mas demonstrar a complexidade do conceito de tolerância é também denunciar a necessidade de uma ordem política e jurídica que assuma sua legitimidade na abertura aos processos e conflitos sociais de uma época pós-metafísica. Essa ordem parece ser mais bem abarcada pela teoria democrática proposta por Jürgen Habermas que, ao reformular a teoria crítica utilizando as ciências da reconstrução, pôde fundamentar a exigência de um conceito inclusivo de tolerância que se demonstra na abertura que o debate a seu respeito gerou. Neste sentido, afirma-se aqui que uma teoria crítica que trabalhe com as ciências reconstrutivas será capaz de exigir um conceito inclusivo de tolerância no âmbito de um mundo pós-metafísico, fazendo a normatividade depender tanto de estruturas de racionalidade como de sua situação histórica. Desse modo, a exigência de um conceito de tolerância inclusiva é resultado de uma teoria crítica que reconstrói padrões de racionalidade que perpassam as formas plurais da vida social contemporânea. / Tolerance is a complex concept that has the ability to hide, at certain speechs, the same complexity. But to demonstrate the complexity of the concept of tolerance is also to denounce the need for a political and legal order which takes its legitimacy in the opening to the social processes and conflicts of a post-metaphysical era. This order seems to be better embraced by democratic theory proposed by Jürgen Habermas that, by altering the critical theory using the reconstruction sciences, was able to justify the requirement for an inclusive concept of tolerance that demonstrates itself in the openness that the debate about it has generated. In this sense, it is stated here that a critical theory that works with the reconstructive sciences will be able to demand an inclusive concept of tolerance under a post-metaphysical world, making the normativity dependent of rationality structures and of their historical situation. Thus, the requirement of a concept of inclusive tolerance is the result of a critical theory that rebuilds rationality standards that underlie the plural forms of contemporary social life.

by Evelyn Leung Wing Sze. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-120). / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction: On Remapping the Public Sphere --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Living as Inbetweenness An Encounter with Shih-chien Chu --- p.21 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Private Life in the Public Sphere Wo Mei-mei as Metafiction --- p.43 / Chapter Chapter Four --- A Moment in Transgression Intertextuality in Ta Shuo-huang Chia --- p.66 / Chapter Chapter Five --- Conclusion: Understanding as Political Praxis --- p.90 / Works of Chang Ta-chun --- p.109 / Select Bibliography --- p.111

The research study provided a cultural description and interpretation of how Teachers Network Learning Circle’s participants related, worked and learned with each other, and how they developed and changed within a predominantly symmetrical or consensual power relationship. The participants, consisting of six Singapore primary teachers at grade 4, were engaged in group discussions that were spread over a period of one year to complete an action research project which is integrated in day-to-day work. Teachers Network Learning Circle, a formal professional development platform, employs distinctive tools for dialogue and inquiry based on the principles of voluntary participation, reflection, change and trust. The fundamental reason for choosing this site is its potential to empower and emancipate teachers evident from not only the principles and practices it espouses, but also its vision and mission that is consistent with its motto “For Teachers, By Teachers”. The literature on education change and reforms has point towards teacher empowerment for successful education change. In this regard, investing in teacher professional development and professionalism is important. The literature also point towards embracing a sociological perspective evident in the notions of community and socio-cultural theory, and bringing to bear emotions, values and identity in teacher learning – and thus investing in the ‘whole person’ (Day, 1997). As power underlies all social relations and activities including teachers’ learning, the research study took into consideration the perspectives of critical theory of Habermas, Brookfield and Mezirow. The findings of the study found that symmetrical power relation contributed to teacher development and change. First, it had contributed to a collegial collaborative relationship that took into account of emotions, moral, identity development and group solidarity. Second, it had contributed to the consciousness, critique and co-construction of professional knowledge. Third, it had empowered participants insofar as it built participants’ capacities to act successfully within an existing system and structures of power. The symmetrical power relation was undergirded by rules and principles of democratic participation as outlined by Habermas’ discourse ethics. The findings also revealed the importance of support given by the school principal and Teachers Network personnel in protecting democratic spaces, or Habermas’ concept of the lifeworld, from the system imperatives of power and money.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Mindfulness and the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme is becoming increasingly popular in the Western world. These days, there are many institutes and organisations that support and promote mindfulness, while there is also a growing body of research and academic literature on the topic. Yet, despite the implicit connection to social change, the focus of secular mindfulness in the Western world has primarily remained on the benefits that mindfulness hold for the individual. This notion prompts the question whether there is a relationship between mindfulness and social change. The key theoretical constructs that constitute the theoretical framework of my study include Habermas’s critical theory and his emancipatory-cognitive interest in knowledge creation, and Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, which expanded the Habermasian theory in terms of adult education and learning. Guided by my theoretical framework, the primary research question was formulated as follows: ‘What are the relationships between mindfulness, emancipatory learning and social change?’ In order to address this research question, I selected a case study research approach and collected data using both quantitative and qualitative instruments. For my empirical investigation I selected, as my case study, an MBSR programme offered in Cape Town, South Africa. The data were collected from 55 adult learners who participated in the programme. To my knowledge, this is the first academic research study that investigates the MBSR programme in the field of adult education and learning in a South African context.

本論文旨在探討有關提升批判性思考的學習效能。本文主要分為兩大部分：第一部分為批判性思考的技巧及態度建立量表，並以此量表分析香港中五學生在批判性思考的技巧及態度，及其兩者在學業成績組別和性別之間的關係。第二部分為探討交錯練習（interleaved practice）和同組練習（blocked practice）對提升批判性思考技巧的效應。從第一部分的結果分析顯示，男生在批判性思考的態度上優於女生；第一學業成績組別的學生在批判性思考技巧上優於第二及第三學業成績組別的學生。從第二部分的結果分析發現，無論使用交錯練習抑或同組練習，均能顯著提升批判性思考的整體技巧，而在批判性思考技巧中的解釋部分，同組練習的結果又較交錯練習為佳。整體而言，交錯練習及同組練習兩種學習模式皆能有效提升批判性思考技巧的能力，而兩者的效果相約，並無顯著的差別。 / This thesis aims to explore the learning effectiveness on promoting critical thinking competence. The first part of the thesis shows the establishment of the measuring tools of both critical thinking dispositions and critical thinking skills. The use of the tools, dispositions, skills, gender and banding of Form Five students in Hong Kong were then collected and analyzed. The second part of the thesis is to explore and compare the effectiveness between interleaved practice and blocked practice on critical thinking skills. From the results of the first part, boys scored better than girls on critical thinking dispositions; while Band One students scored better than Band Two and Band Three students on critical thinking skills. From the results of the second part, both interleaved practice and blocked practice enhanced the overall performance of critical thinking skills significantly. In the explanation component of critical thinking skills, it is found that blocked practice were more effective than interleaved practice. In sum, both of the methods can enhance the critical thinking skills with similar effect. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 張錦華. / Thesis (Ed.D.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-181). / Abstracts also in English. / Zhang Jinhua.

Tolerância é um conceito complexo que tem a capacidade de velar, em certos discursos, essa mesma complexidade. Mas demonstrar a complexidade do conceito de tolerância é também denunciar a necessidade de uma ordem política e jurídica que assuma sua legitimidade na abertura aos processos e conflitos sociais de uma época pós-metafísica. Essa ordem parece ser mais bem abarcada pela teoria democrática proposta por Jürgen Habermas que, ao reformular a teoria crítica utilizando as ciências da reconstrução, pôde fundamentar a exigência de um conceito inclusivo de tolerância que se demonstra na abertura que o debate a seu respeito gerou. Neste sentido, afirma-se aqui que uma teoria crítica que trabalhe com as ciências reconstrutivas será capaz de exigir um conceito inclusivo de tolerância no âmbito de um mundo pós-metafísico, fazendo a normatividade depender tanto de estruturas de racionalidade como de sua situação histórica. Desse modo, a exigência de um conceito de tolerância inclusiva é resultado de uma teoria crítica que reconstrói padrões de racionalidade que perpassam as formas plurais da vida social contemporânea. / Tolerance is a complex concept that has the ability to hide, at certain speechs, the same complexity. But to demonstrate the complexity of the concept of tolerance is also to denounce the need for a political and legal order which takes its legitimacy in the opening to the social processes and conflicts of a post-metaphysical era. This order seems to be better embraced by democratic theory proposed by Jürgen Habermas that, by altering the critical theory using the reconstruction sciences, was able to justify the requirement for an inclusive concept of tolerance that demonstrates itself in the openness that the debate about it has generated. In this sense, it is stated here that a critical theory that works with the reconstructive sciences will be able to demand an inclusive concept of tolerance under a post-metaphysical world, making the normativity dependent of rationality structures and of their historical situation. Thus, the requirement of a concept of inclusive tolerance is the result of a critical theory that rebuilds rationality standards that underlie the plural forms of contemporary social life.