published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Change is the central feature of our current age. The past two decades has not only witnessed the surge of emotion study in education, but also a return of large-scale change in the global educational filed. Given this context, the Senior Secondary School (SSS) curriculum reform in Mainland China, which has been put into practice since September 2004, can be regarded as a local response to this global trend. / There has been an emotional revolution in the field of social science since the beginning of the 1980s; emotion has gradually become a remarkable research topic in many subjects encompassing philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, and anthropology, etc. Accompanying this emotional revolution is an unceasing increase of research on emotion in the field of education since the middle of 1990s. However, compared with the emotional studies in the domains of teaching and educational leadership, there is far less than sophisticated understanding of teacher emotion during the process of curriculum implementation in the literature. / This research is informed by symbolic interactionism in interpreting the relationship between curriculum implementation and teachers' emotions. To be more specific, all research findings are integrated into a 3-level "Self-Interaction-Society" framework. On the level of self, emotion is the product of teachers' efforts to reframe their identities in curriculum implementation, and teachers' emotional labor reflects their presentation of self by the use of emotions. On the level of human interaction, teachers' emotions are influenced by the emotional geographies and emotional dilemmas, which respectively result from "teacher-others" interactions and "reform-situation" tensions in curriculum implementation. On the level of social structure, teachers are not only constrained by the particular emotional rules in curriculum implementation, but also employ many strategies to cope with the constraints of the situations, which effectively bridges the interactions between the curriculum implementation and teachers' emotions. / Through the exploration of teachers' emotions and changes in curriculum implementation, this research adds the once-neglected dimension of teacher emotion into curriculum implementation research. This research finds the adaptive functions that teachers play in curriculum implementation, confirms teacher's position as change agent in reform, and recognizes the value of cultural-individual perspective in understanding curriculum implementation and teachers' emotions. These findings remind us that if curriculum implementation wants to achieve the ideal effects, reformers need to take into consideration subjective meanings that individual teachers attach to the reform. Teachers' emotions are one integral part of the meanings. Furthermore, they also need to concern the reciprocal influences between the subjective meanings and curriculum implementation. When the pace of large-scale reform and individual teachers' emotional and behavioral changes are well accommodated, curriculum implementation is more likely to achieve its goals. These findings bring some implications for the implementation of SSS curriculum reform in Mainland China. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / 尹弘飈. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 230-252). / Advisers: Chi Kin John Lee; Sin Pui Cheung. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: A, page: 0868. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 230-252). / Yin Hongbiao.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

Perceptions and experiences of a women-specific curriculum (Women’s Studies course) taught in a Western Canadian high school constitute the focus of this study. The available sample of fifteen adolescent girls and three professional women were interviewed, individually and in small focus groups. Supplemental data were obtained through an online survey completed by seven additional previous student respondents. Research literature that shaped the study includes Women and Gender Studies, Education (Adolescent Development and Identity, Curriculum Studies, Anti-oppressive Education), and Feminist Sociology. Benefits and challenges of integrating women-specific curricula into high school are discussed with the recommendation that such courses are needed in senior secondary education in public schools. / viii, 201 leaves ; 29 cm

According to the Draft White Paper on e-Education (DoE, 2003), the objective of ICTs in education is to build digital and information literacy so that all learners become confident and competent in using technology to contribute to an innovative and developing South African society. International researchers have acknowledged that little is known about learners’ perceptions of their own learning, but that learners are aware of how technology can be used and have the potential to contribute ideas about ICTs can be used to support their learning. To add to this growing body of research, this study sought to establish secondary school learners’ experiences and perceptions of the value of integrating ICT into the curriculum and the extent to which they believe that ICT is meaningfully integrated into the curriculum. Although some of the schools do not have the necessary ICT infrastructure, this did not preclude the learners from having opinions about the potential benefits and drawbacks of ICT. The findings display the learners’ perceptions on ICT use within the curriculum and how this relates to the available infrastructure in schools.

The purpose of this study was to explore the Zimbabwean physics teachers’ interpretation of the Advanced Level Physics curriculum. The study was motivated by the teachers’ lacklustre approach to adopting new practices and the poor alignment of their understanding with the practice envisaged by developers (Fullan, 2007:39; Ndawi&Maravanyika, 2011:68). Zimbabwean Advanced Level physics teachers are in this predicament, as evidenced by the low numbers of undergraduate students and the misconceptions displayed by physics learners enrolling for first year university work in physics-related disciplines (Kazembe and Musarandega, 2012:4). Having an idea of physics teachers’ perceptions, experiences and current practices with regard to the revised Advanced Level physics curriculum maybe fertile ground for intervention measures and policy decisions. To obtain a more holistic picture of the physics teachers’ practices, a mixed methods research approach using the convergent parallel research design was adopted for the study. A closed survey questionnaire was used to solicit for information from 56 physics teachers in four educational provinces. Random sampling was used to select the survey respondents. From these participants, 10 were purposively selected for face-to-face in-depth structured interviews basing on their availability and accessibility. Ten schemes of work,one from each interviewed teacher, for one school term and six past examination practical paper 4 question papers were collected and analysed using a document analysis guide. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square, whereas qualitative data was collated into themes for discussion purposes. The findings of the study reveal that the physics teachers have embraced the ideals of the physics curriculum and adapted it to their operating context through the reiterative interpretation process to construct personal meaning. The teachers are mainly utilising teacher-centred approaches to impart knowledge to the learners which is not consistent with the physics curriculum anticipations of using learner-centred approaches. The physics teachers are superficially interpreting the physics curriculum.The physics teachers need to embrace the learner centred teaching approach andbe empowered to enhance their curriculum interpretation and teaching practices through staff development. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)