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This autoethnographic exploration of pedagogy or the craft of teaching was undertaken while I worked as a reception class teacher in a large English primary school. Naturally occurring data that developed out of the process of teaching and learning were used to construct multiple case studies (Stake, 2006). An iterative process of analysis using inductive and deductive methods enabled me to explore the nuances of pedagogical practice, including those that had been tacitly or intuitively known. The work of Hart, Dixon, Drummond and McIntyre (2004) Learning without Limits, and the metaphor of craft were used as a theoretical framework to support this exploration of how and why pedagogical choices and decisions were made and justified. Analysis revealed how pedagogical thinking was embedded within the complex process of life within the community. Commitment to the core idea of learners’ transformability and the principles coagency, everybody and trust (Hart et al., op. cit.) were found to be necessary but not sufficient to explain pedagogical thinking. A principled belief in possibility was added to articulate how I could be determined for children’s learning without determining what would be achieved. Analysis of how these principles functioned was articulated as a practical cycle of choice, reflection and collaboration. This cycle ensured that the principles were shared within the community. The notion of attentiveness to imagination was developed to articulate how I worked to create and sustain an inclusive environment for learning. Attentiveness was used to reflect the necessary constancy of the process of teaching and learning. Imagination was used to articulate how the process of recognising children’s individuality was achieved by connecting their past, present and future lives, acknowledging how possibilities for learning were created by building on, but not being constrained by what had come before.

<p> According to the National Center for Child Poverty, in 2011 nearly half of the 72 million children in the U.S. were living in low-income families. Through this study, the author examined the effect that student poverty has on teachers&rsquo; beliefs about student print knowledge including school readiness and print literacy. Teachers&rsquo; beliefs were explored using a social justice framework that surrounds an explanatory sequential design. This mixed methods research helped me to identify whether or not teachers&rsquo; beliefs about students differ based on family socio-economic status (SES). The author of this study worked with a large urban school district located in the California Central Valley. The school district administers a Head Start preschool program and a California State preschool program. A total of 89 preschool teachers from these preschool programs participated in a Likert-style questionnaire. Participants were asked to share their beliefs about student print knowledge, school readiness, and parental involvement based on their 2016-2017 students. After collecting all questionnaires, 10 participants were interviewed to further investigate the effect of poverty on teacher&rsquo;s beliefs about students and families. The overall findings of this study showed that poverty level thresholds between the two preschool programs did not appear to have an effect on participant&rsquo;s beliefs regarding student print literacy, school readiness, and parental involvement. Participants were consistent in beliefs across both programs. Overall, participants were more positive in the areas of school readiness and parent involvement. Participants in both preschool programs were less positive in regards to student print literacy. </p>

This thesis will look at the changes brought about in the perception of women's role in society by the advent of Christianity. The early chapters will discuss the actual status of women in ancient Graeco-Roman and Jewish society, so far as that can be discovered; followed by St Paul's views on women, which heavily influenced St Augustine. I shall then examine the status assigned to women and slaves by Plato in his two outlines for ideal societies, the Republic and the Laws, and shall finish with an examination of Augustine's attitudes to women and slavery. Plato believed that intelligent women were just as capable as men of achieving the philosophical ideal, and he believed that there would be many intelligent women in any given society. Many of Augustine's Letters are addressed to 'holy women", though he was reluctant to accept that these women were not exceptional. Augustine had many female correspondents, most but not all of whom were consecrated virgins or chaste widows. It is quite clear that Augustine believed that these women could achieve salvation on their own account, and also that he respected the intellect of some of them. However, even these women were to live subdued, enclosed lives. In the City of God he follows Paul in circumscribing the actions of women, but his estimation of their intellect is consistently higher than Paul's. The major difference between Plato and the Christians on this issue was that for Plato, sex was a part of normal life, and indeed essential to the continuation of the State; whereas for Christians it had become a problem and a hindrance to salvation. Neither Paul nor Augustine considered it necessary to combat slavery, probably because they were more concerned with securing the afterlife than with correcting conditions in this life.