Based on empirical qualitative data collected by interviewing eight elementary school teachers from across four different school boards in Ontario and analyzing new Ontario Ministry of Education policy and guidelines for supporting and programming for English Literacy Development (ELD) students, this research seeks to better understand how teachers’ discourses influence their perception of ELD students’ experiences in elementary schools. In particular, I look at how they view their roles as teachers, the purpose of education and schooling, their personal views on diversity, and how they program literacy for ELD students. The participants’ discourses reveal that although they prioritize having positive relationships with their students, they often struggled to relate positively with their ELD students. Reassessing how the formal school is structured and providing directed professional development on teaching ELD students could work towards creating more positive learning experiences for ELD students in Ontario elementary schools.

The voices, perspectives and experiences of girls and young women in history, political and civic education remain rare, and those of girls of color are even rarer still. This dissertation reports on the results of a qualitative study exploring girls’ perspectives on and experiences of citizenship in the Toronto area. Through the use of document analysis, semi-structured interviews; and photovoice, this study suggests that the girls easily identify traditional gendered expectations in their families, schools and in the society at large. At the same time, the girls often make deliberate choices to defy these expectations, carve out their own paths, and serve as advocates for gender equality, social justice and engaged citizenship. This study focuses on the voices of girls and the ways in which concepts of gender enhance, shape and inhibit civic action within schooling. Despite an increased emphasis on education for active citizenship in education more broadly, this study provokes serious questions about what girls are learning about their roles in society and how concepts of gender affect the ways young people understand and enact their citizenship roles. There are new fields of research in the areas of youth civic engagement, citizenship education, feminist and girlhood studies, all of which informed my understanding of these ‘citizen-girls’, however they still often remain separated and inadequately consider the intersections of multiple identity factors as well as the relationship between individual agency and the societal structures that construct dominant values. This study has important implications for educators and policymakers, suggesting a need for more spaces and opportunities both within the classroom, and outside the school, for girls and boys to critically engage with the messaging they receive about gender, democratic participation and citizen engagement. Furthermore, these girls’ experiences also suggest that we must broaden our definition of citizenship and civic participation in order to better reflect the myriad new forms of citizen expression being used by girls and young people in modern societies today.

The voices, perspectives and experiences of girls and young women in history, political and civic education remain rare, and those of girls of color are even rarer still. This dissertation reports on the results of a qualitative study exploring girls’ perspectives on and experiences of citizenship in the Toronto area. Through the use of document analysis, semi-structured interviews; and photovoice, this study suggests that the girls easily identify traditional gendered expectations in their families, schools and in the society at large. At the same time, the girls often make deliberate choices to defy these expectations, carve out their own paths, and serve as advocates for gender equality, social justice and engaged citizenship. This study focuses on the voices of girls and the ways in which concepts of gender enhance, shape and inhibit civic action within schooling. Despite an increased emphasis on education for active citizenship in education more broadly, this study provokes serious questions about what girls are learning about their roles in society and how concepts of gender affect the ways young people understand and enact their citizenship roles. There are new fields of research in the areas of youth civic engagement, citizenship education, feminist and girlhood studies, all of which informed my understanding of these ‘citizen-girls’, however they still often remain separated and inadequately consider the intersections of multiple identity factors as well as the relationship between individual agency and the societal structures that construct dominant values. This study has important implications for educators and policymakers, suggesting a need for more spaces and opportunities both within the classroom, and outside the school, for girls and boys to critically engage with the messaging they receive about gender, democratic participation and citizen engagement. Furthermore, these girls’ experiences also suggest that we must broaden our definition of citizenship and civic participation in order to better reflect the myriad new forms of citizen expression being used by girls and young people in modern societies today.

This thesis studies the economic effects of child labor and compulsory schooling laws (CLLs and CSLs). In the first two chapters I study the consequences of the enactment of CSLs on education and fertility. I use a combination of a difference-in-difference (DID) methodology with an identification strategy based on legislative borders to find that the laws increased enrollment by 7% and educational attainment by about 0.3 years of education over the long run. As for fertility, I find that CSLs imply a contemporaneous reduction in fertility of about 15%. In the long run, women that received compulsory education were expected to have approximately 0.15 to 0.3 fewer children. In the third chapter of this dissertation I look at the effect of CLLs on industrial performance. I find that industries that initially relied extensively on child labor suffered a significant reduction in growth as a consequence of the social legislation. I conjecture that the potentially sizable but narrowly concentrated effects of CLLs could explain why child labor is still common in the developing world today. / Esta tesis estudia los efectos económicos de las leyes de trabajo infantil (CLL) y educación obligatoria (CSL). En los primeros dos capítulos, se exploran las consecuencias de la implementación de una CSL en los niveles de educación y fecundidad. Utilizando una metodología que combina diferencia-en-diferencias (DID) con una estrategia de identificación basada en las fronteras legislativas, se encuentra que estas leyes incrementaron la escolarización en un 7% y, en el largo plazo, el número de años de educación en 0.3. En cuanto a fecundidad, se halla que una CSL implica una reducción contemporánea de la misma en el orden del 15%. En el largo plazo, las mujeres que recibieron educación tienen aproximadamente 0.15 a 0.3 hijos menos. En el tercer capítulo de esta tesis se estudian los efectos de una CLL en el desempeño de la industria. Se encuentra que las industrias que al principio dependían ampliamente del trabajo infantil sufren una reducción significativa en sus tasas de crecimiento como consecuencia de la legislación social. Se conjetura que el hecho que estos efectos sean potencialmente grandes, aunque concentrados en unos pocos agentes, podría ser la razón por la cual el trabajo infantil es aún hoy tan común en el mundo en desarrollo.

This thesis develops a critical realist explanatory critique of alternative schooling programs for youth at risk taking place at three case study sites. Throughout the thesis the author pursues the question, \Are alternative provisions of schooling working academically and socially for youth at risk?. The academic lens targets literacy learning and associated pedagogies. Social outcomes are posited as positive social behaviours and continued engagement in learning. A four phased analysis, drawing on critical realism, interpretive and subject specific theories is used to elicit explanations for the research question. An overall framework is a critical realist methodology as set out by Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen and Karlsson (2002, p. 129). Consequently phase one describes the phenomena of alternative schooling programs taking place at three case study sites. This is reported first as staff narratives that are resolved into imaginable historical causal components of \generative events., \prior schooling structures., \models of alternative schooling., \purpose., \individual agency., and \relations with linked community organisations.. Then transcendental questions are posed about each component using retroduction to uncover structures, underlying mechanisms and powers, and individual agency. In the second phase the researcher uses modified grounded theory methodology to theoretically redescribe causal categories related to a \needed different teaching and administrative approach. that emerged from the previous critique. A transcendental question is then applied to this redescription. The research phenomena are again theoretically redescribed in the third phase, this time using three theoretically based constructs associated with literacy and literacy pedagogies; the NRS, the 4 Resources Model, and Productive Pedagogies. This redescription is again questioned in terms of its core or \necessary. components. The fourth phase makes an explanatory critique by comparing and critiquing all previous explanations, recontextualising them in a wider macro reality of alternative schooling. Through this critical realist explanatory critiquing process, a response emerges not only to whether alternative provisions of schooling are working, but also how they are working, and how they are not working, with realistically based implications for future improvement.

This thesis considers the introduction of middle schooling to the New Zealand education system. It is a case study of a school going through the process of introducing the middle schooling concept. It seeks to identify and explain the considerable challenges that this school faced as it sought to implement this change. This research project began as a study of the factors which hinder and support the implementation of middle schooling structures and practices. It became an analysis of the features of middle schooling that make it such a challenging and problematic innovation. Middle schooling is a set of philosophical concepts, educational practices and structural arrangements for the education of students between the ages of approximately ten and fourteen years. These concepts and practices are based on the premise that students of this age have academic, social, emotional and physical needs which differ from students on either side of this age group. Middle schooling is generally understood to involve integrated curriculum which is delivered through team teaching. This approach to teaching and learning requires high levels of teacher collaboration, flexible workspaces and timetables and high levels of parental support and involvement. Ideally, middle schooling provides a separate school environment for children of this age. A number of school communities in New Zealand have gained government approval to restructure as middle schools and are at various stages in implementing this new form of schooling. The researcher began the study with the intention of developing guidelines to assist school communities to make this transition from the structures and processes of conventional schooling arrangements to those of middle schooling. To this end she initiated a programme of action research in a school that was about to introduce middle schooling arrangements for its middle years students. The innovation began to run into difficulties from an early stage and it became clear that an action research methodology was unsustainable. Instead, the researcher chose to refocus the research problem to a more analytic study of the factors that were impeding the implementation process. The research methodology evolved to that of case study. Observational data were collected in the school over two years. From these data, three factors seemed to be affecting the implementation of the middle schooling changes. These were the way in which leadership was being executed, the attitudes and responses of the teachers and the particularly complex and demanding nature of the middle schooling innovation itself. The data were then re-analysed with respect to these three factors. From this analysis, the researcher came to a number of conclusions about the relative importance and impact of these three factors. In an effort to ascertain whether the experiences of the case school were typical of the difficulties and challenges schools face when implementing middle schooling change, the case findings were cross checked against the experiences of two other schools that were five years or more into the change process. The cross checking found that the experiences of these other schools were very similar to those of the case school. All three found that implementing middle schooling change had been more difficult and demanding than any other innovation they had implemented. This study identified some aspects of leadership and teacher behaviour that may have slowed the implementation process, but these seem to have been secondary to the sheer complexity and challenges involved with this particular form of innovation. An innovation that requires such a shift in values, behaviour, structures and systems from a school community, and one that requires the sustained commitment of the entire staff over an extended period of time, will always prove to be exceptionally challenging. The case study identified five requirements that middle school implementers need to consider in order to implement the concept successfully. Failure to consider any of these requirements is likely to threaten the success of the innovation. The five requirements are: • The need to develop a shared understanding of the concept rationale and principles and how these will be operationalised within the school; • The need to develop a shared understanding of the complex, multi-faceted and integrated nature of the innovation and how this will impact on and influence the implementation process; • The need for strong, visionary, shared leadership; • The need to gain the interest and operational commitment of the entire staff and a high level of interest and commitment from the parent community and to sustain this for the life of the innovation; and • The need to develop supportive and appropriate infrastructure within the school to support the innovation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2008. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-116).

Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-197).

Syftet med studien var att identifiera vilket stöd som fanns för barn som befann sig på kvinnojourer, samt undersöka vilka rutiner som fanns kring skolgång på kvinnojourer i ett mellansvenskt län. Data samlades in genom intervjuer och en manifest ansats användes för att analysera svaren. Det var fyra kvinnojourer om deltog i undersökningen och därmed fyra intervjuer då en personal på varje jour intervjuades. Resultatet av studien visar att personalen på kvinnojourerna ofta saknar utbildning i det arbete de utför och att de är hänvisade till att söka ut- och fortbildning på eget initiativ. Studien visar också att det endast var en av de intervjuade kvinnojourerna som hade utarbetade rutiner för barnens skolgång. Hos de övriga kommer inte barnen till skolan under tiden på jouren. Även när det gäller stöd till barnen, var det endast en representant från kvinnojouren som uppgav att det fanns rutiner för hur barnen skulle bemötas och stöttas. De övriga jourerna uppgav att de anpassar insatserna från fall till fall. Samtliga kvinnojourer hade kvalitetssäkring i någon form. Den sker antingen i samarbete med kommunen, landstinget, kvinnojourernas riksorganisation eller jourens styrelse. Det finns bristfälligt forskningsunderlag och målformuleringar saknas för kvinnojourernas arbete. Arbetet vilar därmed på bräcklig grund. Då verksamheten på jourerna finansieras med kommunala bidrag kan detta konstateras. / Title: Types of support for children who live in shelters and what procedures there are to allow schooling. The aim of the study was to identify the types of support available for children who live in shelters with their mothers, and what procedures there are to allow the schooling of these children. The study was conducted in a mid-swedish county. Data was collected through interviews and a manifesto analysis method was used to analyze the responses. There were four people that were interviewed and they worked at the shelter. The results of the study show that the staff of women's shelters often lack education in the work they do and that they are obliged to seek training on their own initiative. The study also shows that only one of the women's shelters interviewed had developed procedures for children's schooling. In the womens shelters the children don´t go to school during their stay at the shelter. Even in terms of support to the children who come to the shelters, only one of the respondents stated that there were procedures for how children should be treated and supported. The other shelters reported that they align efforts from case to case. All shelters had quality assurance in some form. It occurs either in cooperation with the municipality, the county council, national organization of women´s shelters or the local women´s shelters board. There is inadequate research evidence and goal formulation are lacking for women's shelters work. The work thus rests on a shaky ground. Since the operations of shelters are funded by municipal grants, there can be stated that tax money is used for an activity that is not evidence-based.

Public sector organisations are established in order to promote the quality of citizen's lives through the provision of public services. However, the demands for public services often outstrip the limited resources at the disposal of the public sector for the delivery of such services. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are emerging as an important tool of public policy to deliver public infrastructure and the attendant services. The main aim of this study is to establish the extent to which PPPs can be used to improve the quality of the delivery of secondary education in the Gaborone City area in Botswana. The study includes a conceptual analysis of the nature of the public services in general, and in particular, the nature and the provision of secondary education in Botswana with specific reference to the Gaborone City area. The study also includes a conceptual analysis of PPPs as gleaned from published literature. Various dimensions of PPPs are analysed and these include but are not limited to definitions, benefits, models and the antecedents for the successful implementation of PPPs. Among the various models that are analysed in the study, the design, build, operate and finance (DBOF) model is preferred for improving the quality of the delivery of secondary education in the Gaborone City area in Botswana. In addition to the conceptual analysis, an empirical research study is undertaken in which the secondary school heads are the respondents to a structured questionnaire. The results of the empirical research support the conceptual analysis to the extent that in both cases, it is possible to improve the quality of the delivery of secondary education through PPPs. More secondary schools can be built and more facilities be made available to schools. Through the use of PPPs, most if not all learners can receive the entire secondary education programme, from junior to senior secondary education. Existing secondary schools can be modernised through PPPs. Ancillary services can be delivered by the organisations that have the necessary expertise. Certain antecedents for the successful implementation of PPPs are necessary. Through PPPs, secondary schools can be made attractive and intellectually stimulating. / Public Administration and Management / (D.Litt. et Phil. ( Public Administration))