The central aim of this study was to investigatethe role of principals in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy (PCS) in Zimbabwe. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine and evaluate the role and strategic leadership skills of polytechnic principals in the development of PCS, understand the challenges faced by polytechnic principals in the development and implementation of PCS, investigate the extent to which principals provide lecturers with opportunities to enhance their teaching skills through professional development and derive a suitable model to be used in drafting and implementing PCS. The main research question which this study sought to answer was, „What is the role played by strategic leadership in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy?‟ In an attempt to realise that end, a mixed method research design was used to collect data, making use of questionnaires and interviews. The participants included 5 polytechnic principals, 123 lecturers, 77 students and 9 company training managers. The participants were selected through purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques drawn from five polytechnics selected for the study. The findings suggest that most polytechnic principals are rendered ineffective in implementing the PCS. Though the principals have a sound theoretical knowledge of their roles, they however experience a litany of practical impediments. These barriers include, inter alia, lack of curricula knowledge in the currere approach, action research, Basil Bernstein‟s and Paulo Freire‟s pedagogical discourses and reconceptualisation of curriculum, shortage of relevant instructional resources and poorly evaluated polytechnic curriculum, low level of staff incentive, training and development. Two systemic impediments in the principals‟ role of implementing PCS are: lack of autonomy in crafting and implementing PCS and lack consensus between Curriculum Research and Development Unit (CRADU) and National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) in crafting policies on curriculum standards. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)

The central aim of this study was to investigatethe role of principals in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy (PCS) in Zimbabwe. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine and evaluate the role and strategic leadership skills of polytechnic principals in the development of PCS, understand the challenges faced by polytechnic principals in the development and implementation of PCS, investigate the extent to which principals provide lecturers with opportunities to enhance their teaching skills through professional development and derive a suitable model to be used in drafting and implementing PCS. The main research question which this study sought to answer was, „What is the role played by strategic leadership in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy?‟ In an attempt to realise that end, a mixed method research design was used to collect data, making use of questionnaires and interviews. The participants included 5 polytechnic principals, 123 lecturers, 77 students and 9 company training managers. The participants were selected through purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques drawn from five polytechnics selected for the study. The findings suggest that most polytechnic principals are rendered ineffective in implementing the PCS. Though the principals have a sound theoretical knowledge of their roles, they however experience a litany of practical impediments. These barriers include, inter alia, lack of curricula knowledge in the currere approach, action research, Basil Bernstein‟s and Paulo Freire‟s pedagogical discourses and reconceptualisation of curriculum, shortage of relevant instructional resources and poorly evaluated polytechnic curriculum, low level of staff incentive, training and development. Two systemic impediments in the principals‟ role of implementing PCS are: lack of autonomy in crafting and implementing PCS and lack consensus between Curriculum Research and Development Unit (CRADU) and National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) in crafting policies on curriculum standards. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)

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Muslims have the starring role in the mass media’s curriculum on otherness, which circulates in-between local and global contexts to powerfully constitute subjectivities. This study inquires into what it is like to be a female, Muslim student in Ontario, in this post 9/11 discursive context. Seven young Muslim women share stories of their high schooling experiences and their sense of identity in interviews and focus group sessions. They also respond to images of Muslim females in the print media, offering perspectives on the intersections of visual media discourses with their lived experience. This interdisciplinary project draws from cultural studies, postcolonial feminist theory, and post-reconceptualist curriculum theorizing. Working with auto/ethno/graphy, my own subjectivity is also brought into the study to trouble researcher-as-knower and acknowledge that personal histories are implicated in larger social, cultural, and historical processes. Using bricolage, I compose a hybrid text with multiple layers of meaning by juxtapositing theory, image, and narrative, leaving spaces for the reader’s own biography to become entangled with what is emerging in the text. Issues raised include veiling obsession, Islamophobia, absences in the school curriculum, and mass media as curriculum. Muslim females navigate a complex discursive terrain and their identity negotiations are varied. These include creating Muslim spaces in their schools, wearing hijab to assert their Muslim identity, and downplaying their religious identity at school. I argue for the need to engage students and teacher candidates in complicated conversations on difference via auto/ethno/graphy, pedagogies of tension, and epistemologies of doubt. Educators and researchers might also consider the possibilities of linking visual media literacy with social justice issues.

Muslims have the starring role in the mass media’s curriculum on otherness, which circulates in-between local and global contexts to powerfully constitute subjectivities. This study inquires into what it is like to be a female, Muslim student in Ontario, in this post 9/11 discursive context. Seven young Muslim women share stories of their high schooling experiences and their sense of identity in interviews and focus group sessions. They also respond to images of Muslim females in the print media, offering perspectives on the intersections of visual media discourses with their lived experience. This interdisciplinary project draws from cultural studies, postcolonial feminist theory, and post-reconceptualist curriculum theorizing. Working with auto/ethno/graphy, my own subjectivity is also brought into the study to trouble researcher-as-knower and acknowledge that personal histories are implicated in larger social, cultural, and historical processes. Using bricolage, I compose a hybrid text with multiple layers of meaning by juxtapositing theory, image, and narrative, leaving spaces for the reader’s own biography to become entangled with what is emerging in the text. Issues raised include veiling obsession, Islamophobia, absences in the school curriculum, and mass media as curriculum. Muslim females navigate a complex discursive terrain and their identity negotiations are varied. These include creating Muslim spaces in their schools, wearing hijab to assert their Muslim identity, and downplaying their religious identity at school. I argue for the need to engage students and teacher candidates in complicated conversations on difference via auto/ethno/graphy, pedagogies of tension, and epistemologies of doubt. Educators and researchers might also consider the possibilities of linking visual media literacy with social justice issues.

Muslims have the starring role in the mass media’s curriculum on otherness, which circulates in-between local and global contexts to powerfully constitute subjectivities. This study inquires into what it is like to be a female, Muslim student in Ontario, in this post 9/11 discursive context. Seven young Muslim women share stories of their high schooling experiences and their sense of identity in interviews and focus group sessions. They also respond to images of Muslim females in the print media, offering perspectives on the intersections of visual media discourses with their lived experience. This interdisciplinary project draws from cultural studies, postcolonial feminist theory, and post-reconceptualist curriculum theorizing. Working with auto/ethno/graphy, my own subjectivity is also brought into the study to trouble researcher-as-knower and acknowledge that personal histories are implicated in larger social, cultural, and historical processes. Using bricolage, I compose a hybrid text with multiple layers of meaning by juxtapositing theory, image, and narrative, leaving spaces for the reader’s own biography to become entangled with what is emerging in the text. Issues raised include veiling obsession, Islamophobia, absences in the school curriculum, and mass media as curriculum. Muslim females navigate a complex discursive terrain and their identity negotiations are varied. These include creating Muslim spaces in their schools, wearing hijab to assert their Muslim identity, and downplaying their religious identity at school. I argue for the need to engage students and teacher candidates in complicated conversations on difference via auto/ethno/graphy, pedagogies of tension, and epistemologies of doubt. Educators and researchers might also consider the possibilities of linking visual media literacy with social justice issues.

Muslims have the starring role in the mass media’s curriculum on otherness, which circulates in-between local and global contexts to powerfully constitute subjectivities. This study inquires into what it is like to be a female, Muslim student in Ontario, in this post 9/11 discursive context. Seven young Muslim women share stories of their high schooling experiences and their sense of identity in interviews and focus group sessions. They also respond to images of Muslim females in the print media, offering perspectives on the intersections of visual media discourses with their lived experience. This interdisciplinary project draws from cultural studies, postcolonial feminist theory, and post-reconceptualist curriculum theorizing. Working with auto/ethno/graphy, my own subjectivity is also brought into the study to trouble researcher-as-knower and acknowledge that personal histories are implicated in larger social, cultural, and historical processes. Using bricolage, I compose a hybrid text with multiple layers of meaning by juxtapositing theory, image, and narrative, leaving spaces for the reader’s own biography to become entangled with what is emerging in the text. Issues raised include veiling obsession, Islamophobia, absences in the school curriculum, and mass media as curriculum. Muslim females navigate a complex discursive terrain and their identity negotiations are varied. These include creating Muslim spaces in their schools, wearing hijab to assert their Muslim identity, and downplaying their religious identity at school. I argue for the need to engage students and teacher candidates in complicated conversations on difference via auto/ethno/graphy, pedagogies of tension, and epistemologies of doubt. Educators and researchers might also consider the possibilities of linking visual media literacy with social justice issues.