MA Dramatic Art, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand / This study explores how contemporary performance, through a practice led process, can shift the consciousness of entrenched Ga cultural myths that silence the self. In doing so, this study attempts to reveal how cultural mythology plays an integral part in why the Ga people continue to make illness invisible even in the face of the growing crisis of HIV/Aids in Ghana. The study argues that continued silence rather worsens the condition of the victims, and posits that breaking the oppressive silence through contemporary performance’s deconstruction of cultural mythology offers a chance of liberation. This study employs qualitative research methodology within a practice as research paradigm and is achieved through a collaborative practice as research performance process. The performance process draws upon the personal experiences of the collaborators who use stories, games, dances and masks that emanate from the collaborators’ respective cultures in Ghana. The research data comprises photographs, journaling and informal dialogue. It also consists of interpreting phenomena brought to bear on the process. This research places emphasis on the process of exploration as opposed to a final product. In Chapter One the reader is introduced to the history and journey of the self. Chapter Two focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of this research while Chapter Three, an exploration of methodology, demonstrates how elements of the creative process form the base of contemporary performance. Finally, in Chapter Four the researcher draws a number of conclusions based on the outcome of the process oriented performance. This study concludes that the contemporary performance processes offer a constructive alternative towards inciting a shift in the consciousness of Ga cultural myths, without disregarding the ingenious indigenous knowledge of the Ga community. It also shows how the process of contemporary performance can become a means of self-development and change. The study demonstrates how in the midst of the constraints and fear that cultivate silence, often promulgated by the Ga communal ideal, the individual can still discover and give expression to his/her unique voice.

In this thesis, I present a modest polemic about science cultural myths and their influence on school science. My analysis is critical because I seek ultimately to free teachers and students from repressive science cultural myths. Within this thesis, my critical analysis reveals the character of prevailing science cultural myths and provides evidence of their power within school science to legitimate specific forms of science knowledge to the exclusion of other forms. Subsequently, I propose a philosophical science framework for enabling teachers and students of science to transform their teaching and learning practices. These three aspects provide the framework of my thesis.The first step in my critical analysis involved the identification of the major characteristics of cultural myths. A cultural myth is a shared network of beliefs that regulate and order social practices that forgets how it was created. I argue that myths are characterised by their apparent invisibility once their historical evolution has been forgotten. Using this definition, I then examined the genesis of myths during the emergence of experimental philosophy in Western Europe in the 17th century and identified the following science cultural myths: myths associated with a naive realist perspective of observation and experimentation; myths that present science as justified, true knowledge; myths of a mechanical cosmology; and myths associated with the apparent transparency of language.Next, I examined literary aspects of school science, specifically textbooks, to search for the presence of these science cultural myths. I argue that the science presented in school science can be described as science stories, and that within these stories there is an iterative relationship between the 'facts' selected for the telling and science cultural myths. I identified four different types of stories that I ++ / call heroic, discovery, declarative and politically correct science stories, each of which helps to maintain specific myths of science. Using literary theory, I developed an approach to analysis and reconstruction of school science stories that can be used by teachers and students to assist them to transform science stories. Such an approach would help students to hear the multiple voices of science, rather than the mythical single dominant voice.I examined also the power of science cultural myths to assist or enforce the enculturation of pre-service teachers into school science. This examination was a twostep process. Firstly, using repertory grid analysis and interviews, I identified the dominant notions of science held by pre-service teachers before they began teaching Later, in follow-up interviews conducted after they had gained some teaching experience, I obtained critical insights into the interaction between the notions of science held initially by the pre-service science teachers and those endorsed by the school science culture. The results indicate the power of science cultural myths to obligate pre-service teachers to adopt uncritically specific practices within school science.Finally, I propose a philosophy of science for science education that consists of five key referents: construction, tentativeness, dynamism, neopragmatism and critique. This holistic philosophy offers science educators a framework for evolving a school science culture that is critically aware of science cultural myths and their power and that can promote the multiple voices of science.

Semiotics and the concept of signs can be used to analyse the signs that can be found in a Swedish primary school in order to understand and expand our understanding of the role of signifiers, including cultural ones, in child education. The study identifies what signs can be found, what purpose they have and what category of sign they belong to, whether they are signs as defined by Saussure, how they might be categorized within Peirce‘s triadic typology and, applying Barthes’ notion of cultural signification, the extent to which they contribute to maintaining and promoting a school’s identity and values. In order to analyse the signs, a Swedish public primary school located in Halmstad was visited and the visible signs were photographed and catalogued. In order to confirm the intentions behind the design and meaning of signs, an interview with a senior teacher was arranged. The result, and signs, that were documented and described; these included drawings, emergency escape signs, posters, diplomas and other instructions with picture or sign language representations. The signs were categorized and analysed using semiotic theories of signs suggested by Saussure, Peirce and Barthes. The study facilitates a clearer understanding of the range of functions of signs in schools, both for practical purposes and as signifiers of culture and identity, and also highlights the possible applications and limitations of using semiotic theories in investigating generated meanings in physical locations.

The purpose of this thesis is to generate new ways of understanding and imagining what it means to educate for and from a critical consciousness (Freire, 1974). My research is focused on my experience of trying to put critical pedagogy theory into practice in the context of teaching a grade 11/12 high school class. In contrast to oppressive pedagogies that functioned to “prepare students for dominant or subordinate positions in the existing society” (McLaren, 1994, p. 191), as a critical pedagogue, I was guided by the goal of liberating the students in my class by raising their consciousness. However, when I attempted to put critical pedagogy into practice, I soon found myself reproducing an oppressive, transmission-style pedagogy. If the goal of critical pedagogy was to emancipate students by providing them with a transformative educational experience, why did I continue to view myself and my students in ways that were oppressive and paternalistic? Critiques of critical pedagogy (Ellsworth, 1989; Gore, 1993) offer important insight into this question. Yet, a limited amount of research had been performed into how dominant cultural myths about teaching (Britzman, 1986, 2003) inform teachers’ desires and efforts to put critical pedagogy theory into practice. My thesis aims to shed light on the relationship between critical pedagogy and cultural myths about teaching by examining the discursive roots and mythologies reflected in my desire to “make a difference” in the lives of my students with critical pedagogy. In exposing how pedagogy, desire, and identity intersect in complex, creative, and contradictory ways, my research makes visible one of the most difficult lessons that teachers who wish to educate for and from a critical consciousness have to learn: “That the sincerity of their intentions does not guarantee the purity of their practice” (Brookfield, p. 1). / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-04-27 23:32:14.497

Like most wars, the Spanish-American War had its heroes: the heroes who rescued Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros, the heroes who gave aid to starving, suffering Cubans, and the heroes who investigated the possibility of a sinister element in the mysterious explosion of the battleship Maine. Even the yellow press could be construed as a hero since its leaders spared no expense in sending reporters to Cuba to capture the events leading up to the Spanish-American War for the American public. Designed to explore the hero and the heroic in journalistic coverage of war, this thesis involved qualitative textual analysis of front-page newspaper stories published in New York City during the Spanish-American War. Using Joseph Campbell's power of the myth and the hero as a framework, this thesis explores three major themes: 1) the story of Evangelina Cisneros, 2) the desperate situation of the Cuban people, and 3) the sinking of the battleship Maine. The following research questions are explored: What events in the nine-month period leading up to the war call for heroic action? Who were the heroes according to the yellow newspapers of Hearst and Pulitzer? How did these yellow newspaper stories mirror Campbell's concept of the mythic hero and his/her heroic journey? The analysis shows that these articles answered the human need for excitement, for drama, for a hero, and the need to be a hero. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Elliott School of Communication. / "July 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 60-64)

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