This research grows out of an interest in what scholars commonly call the wisdom tradition of the ancient near east. This tradition or movement involved groups of thinkers and writers, known collectively as scribes, who were concerned in a philosophical way with the problems of living, and with principles of living well. Such communities are known to have flourished in Egypt, the various kingdoms of Mesopotamia, and western Asia, from at least the middle of the third millennium B.C. These scribal communities are also known to have sponsored schools, intended primarily for training in statecraft and the professions, but also for training in the scribal profession per se. The documentary and historical record indicates that such schools provided education from the most rudimentary level of literacy and writing to the most advanced levels of scribal scholarship. These advanced levels of training were functionally equivalent to what is nowadays known as higher education; and the ideals, the philosophy, which guided this enterprise found expression in a corpus of literature bearing the name "wisdom." The problem for this dissertation is whether or not there was in ancient Israel, specifically in the Solomonic era (10th century, B.C.), such an advanced scribal school associated with a Hebrew wisdom tradition. This is a research problem precisely because the evidence for such a school in Israel is both less abundant and less accessible than for the rest of the ancient near east.

Internationally, the practice of admissions entry testing in Higher Education (HE) has gained momentum over the past few decades, sparking ongoing research on its effectiveness. On a national level, three factors have signalled a timeous evaluation of admissions practices at HE institutions. Firstly, changes in the school curriculum and the new format of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) have impacted on the admissions criteria of HE institutions. Secondly, with the merging of HE institutions an alignment in admissions practices between the institutions involved were necessitated. Thirdly, South Africa has embarked on the development of National Benchmark Tests (NBTs). The primary aim of this research study was to develop a set of recommendations to guide admissions testing practices in the South African HE context. These recommendations had to place special emphasis on the multicultural and multilingual context of this country. To achieve this aim a systematic review was conducted on HE admissions testing in Israel, as it was identified as a multicultural and multilingual country that had successfully implemented national HE admissions testing. More specifically, a retrospective systematic review was performed on research regarding the national HE admissions test, the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), used in Israel. The systematic review also contained a narrative overview on the educational landscape in Israel and the specifications of the PET, from which themes were also extracted. Eight broad themes emerged through the systematic review and narrative overview as being of critical importance to an effective national HE admissions test. These were the components of the test, the implementation of the testing programme, the method in which the test results are used to make HE admission decisions, the reliability xi of the test, the validity of the test, bias inherent in the test, other psychometric aspects related to the admissions test, and the effect of coaching or specialized preparation on test results. These themes, together with their sub-components, were used to develop eight recommendations that can guide the development and implementation of the National Benchmark Test (NBTs) in South Africa. Both the themes that emerged during the systematic review and narrative overview as well as the recommendations that were made to guide the development and implementation of a national admission test, represent an important contribution to the field of admission testing and decision-making in South Africa.

This study examines patterns of negotiation between teachers and parents in junior high schools in Israel. These negotiations were examined on "parents' days" in three schools between four class teachers and 80 parents of students in their classes. Guided by interpretive approaches to the study of micro-social processes and their application in the models of Hargreaves (1972, 1991) and Strauss (1978, 1990), dealing with negotiations, strategies and working agreements, the study focused on observations of teacher-parent interactions and interviews with teachers and parents. It was found that teachers are guided on parents' day by both pedagogic and survival goals: they seek to advance the students in their studies and to care for their well-being through contact with the parents, but also to shift responsibility to the parents. The parents' goals on these days are to learn about their children's situation in the school, but also to win the teachers' support and sympathy for their children in order to help them advance. To achieve their goals each side uses resources to impress and convince the other side. The teachers emphasize their professional authority, their bureaucratic status and the knowledge they possess of the parents and their children. The parents use their status and rights as parents and the knowledge they possess of the school and the teachers. The findings also indicate that the teachers stress mainly the instructional aspect. This approach perpetuates the hierarchy existing in the education system and does not help to narrow the gaps between students from different socio-economic backgrounds. This indicates a direction for further study and investigation of the question as to how the school can be made to contribute to greater equality, among other things through changing the teachers' educational perception. Perhaps the main purpose of parents' day lies in its ritual functions, which are designed to serve the school organization and constitute a restatement of the common goals of teachers and parents, while supporting the ideology of parent participation and confirming the statuses and roles of teachers and parents. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Socio Education)

This study examines patterns of negotiation between teachers and parents in junior high schools in Israel. These negotiations were examined on "parents' days" in three schools between four class teachers and 80 parents of students in their classes. Guided by interpretive approaches to the study of micro-social processes and their application in the models of Hargreaves (1972, 1991) and Strauss (1978, 1990), dealing with negotiations, strategies and working agreements, the study focused on observations of teacher-parent interactions and interviews with teachers and parents. It was found that teachers are guided on parents' day by both pedagogic and survival goals: they seek to advance the students in their studies and to care for their well-being through contact with the parents, but also to shift responsibility to the parents. The parents' goals on these days are to learn about their children's situation in the school, but also to win the teachers' support and sympathy for their children in order to help them advance. To achieve their goals each side uses resources to impress and convince the other side. The teachers emphasize their professional authority, their bureaucratic status and the knowledge they possess of the parents and their children. The parents use their status and rights as parents and the knowledge they possess of the school and the teachers. The findings also indicate that the teachers stress mainly the instructional aspect. This approach perpetuates the hierarchy existing in the education system and does not help to narrow the gaps between students from different socio-economic backgrounds. This indicates a direction for further study and investigation of the question as to how the school can be made to contribute to greater equality, among other things through changing the teachers' educational perception. Perhaps the main purpose of parents' day lies in its ritual functions, which are designed to serve the school organization and constitute a restatement of the common goals of teachers and parents, while supporting the ideology of parent participation and confirming the statuses and roles of teachers and parents. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Socio Education)