This thesis documents and analyses a process whereby practice-based applied knowledge achieved formal legitimacy in British Columbia. The study is a historical case study representing a unique case, the creation of a Bachelor of Technology degree at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). The central research question is: What were the external and internal factors that enabled Or constrained the legitimation of applied knowledge to baccalaureate status at BCIT? The study is situated within both a theoretical and comparative context. The theoretical framework recognises the changing base of knowledge through discussion of pure and applied knowledge, knowledge stratification and its overt expression in terms of educational credentials, and the demarcation of knowledge units. A comparative backdrop to the study, traces the legitimation of applied knowledge in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada. Methods of investigation included: interviews with stakeholders representing government, the corporate sector, professional associations, and BCIT personnel, past and present; analysis of archival materials and contemporary policy documents; and, participant observation resulting from the author's intimate involvement with the process. The study concludes that this new level of legitimacy conferred on applied knowledge in British Columbia results from the convergence of factors both external and internal to BCIT, the integrative factor being "timing." Practice-based applied knowledge was elevated to baccalaureate status for the following reasons: the proposal for a Bachelor of Technology degree aligned with government's vision; government had confidence in BCIT as a degree granting institution; the political environment was "safe"; and, the approach was cost effective and accountable. Constraining factors pertained primarily to, the effects of degree granting on BCIT's valued diploma programs. Future research could investigate the impact of degree status on the diploma programs and on the overall culture of the institution.

This research project seeks to provide a critical and reformist perspective of the rationale for a school district race relations policy. By conducting a comprehensive critique of established assumptions behind traditional race relations models, and by bringing to light the motivations and understandings of committee members who established a school district race relations policy, the researcher hopes to make clear that stated purpose for the policy can be interpreted from variety of perspectives. The policy aims to foster a learning environment in which racial, ethnic, cultural and religious differences are recognized and valued. These differences must not be the basis of discrimination (Taylor School District. 1992) It is not clear what ethnic, cultural, and religious differences are to be recognized and valued. A reformist perspective would promote social structural equality and prepare young, developing citizens to work towards what Freire called "conscientization" (Freire, 1985: 103), to have the desire and skills to question society, see through versions of 'truth' that allow unfairness to be masked, and then to be empowered to "envision, define, and work towards a more humane society" (Sleeter, 1994: 212). This project will contribute to the body of knowledge on the underlying assumptions, factors, and motivations that impact race relations work as well as make recommendations for the implementation of effective race relations strategies. Race relations work that is "Multicultural and Social Reconstructionalist" (Sleeter, 1994: 209) is designed to reflect the concerns and aspirations of diverse groups of people. In education, rather than being limited to additional curricula or increased minority hiring, it is a "different orientation and expectation of the whole educational process" (Sleeter, 1994: 209). It also contends that major institutions such as schools are incapable of being vehicles in the elimination of racism until their institutional reason for being, their purpose, or guiding mission undergoes significant change. Proposing idealistic rationale statements is a fabulous start if the statements mirror, or initiate more subsequential changes within the foundations of educational institutions. Unless there are fundamental changes in the motivations and goals of the ministry, school boards, administrators, teachers, parents, students - all shareholders, we cannot expect to obtain different results when traditional beliefs, motivations, and practices are retained. In order to effectively understand and then employ critical and reformist approaches to race and race relations education, I begin with theorists who are making "strategic interventions" (Apple, 1993: viii) into the debates on race, racial differences, and race relations education. To define culture, I begin with the work of Bullivant (1981) to ascertain whether traditional race relations approaches reflect the following components of his definition of culture: culture is holistic, culture is transmitted, culture evolves, and culture is made up of problem solving approaches to life. To understand the progress being made in the theorization of race, I begin with the traditional biological definitions that still exist. I then look to Omi and Winant (1993) to provide an excellent alternative perspective based on a "racial formation process" (Omi and Winant, 1993: 3) in which race is understood as a social construct. I then use their work to understand the foundations upon which a critical, process orientated, socially comprehensive theory of race must stand, specifically; race must be interpreted in the here and now, race must be seen in its global context, and race must be recognized as a legacy of the modern era. McCarthy (1993) provides a critique of contemporary approaches to multicultural education and also outlines an alternative approach that is critical, reformist and takes into consideration factors that go beyond psychology as well as incorporating the evolving conceptualization of race. Finally, West (1993,1993) provides a call for a "new cultural politics of difference" (West, 1993: 11) in which cultural critics are to attempt creative responses to the particular local and global circumstances we are in regarding matters of race. By also employing the ideas of Sleeter (1993), Calliou (1995), and McCarthy (1993) I can understand why a critical and reformist approach to race relations education is necessary, what it entails, and how it might apply to specific work being done in race relations such as a newly created school district policy. To provide insight into how a critical, reformist approach might apply in the real world, the study also offers a snapshot of how nation-wide cultural and demographic changes are represented in one suburban West Coast school district in British Columbia, Canada. The study provides an in depth look into how the committee members perceived race relations; why they were involved in the formulation of the policy, what their individual motivations were and what they viewed as the purpose of the policy. The research was undertaken during the 1996 - 1997 school year, three years after the committee was first formed. I use an ethnographic sensibility to questioning the committee members to obtain rich, in-depth insights. This is seen as the most effective way in which to ascertain the often hidden, subconscious cognitive and social frameworks, which inform and determine the perspectives of individuals within our contemporary society.\ By asking open-ended questions, I encourage the respondents to elaborate upon their own ideas by active listening and co-participating in the dialogue (Spradley, 1979). By reviewing my notes after each interview I created a verbal understanding of the 'reflective thinking" (Hampton, 1995) that took place in each of the interviews. I have been all too to aware that it can be extremely difficult to articulate a clear perspective within an area in which viewpoints are often subconsciously framed by a myriad of socially and personally developed cognitive articulations. Theorists such as Bullivant and Peter believe we must go through a process of critical inquiry into the basic assumptions of established theories and models in order to address the perspectives that we claim to maintain (Bullivant, 1986: 35).

The term participatory evaluation is commonly understood as stakeholder involvement in evaluation decision making and is generally accepted as a means of increasing the use of evaluation information. In spite of the popularity of participatory evaluation, there are few empirical studies which explain the casual processes of the participation-use relationship and few theories of participatory evaluation. Furthermore, it is not yet known what variables mediate participation and use, or what evaluation methodology best identifies these variables. This dissertation was designed to test causal relations between participation and use in a proposed model of participatory evaluation. The constructs in the model were Participative Climate, Level of Participation in Decision Making, Influence in Participative Decision Making, Process Outcomes, and Instrumental and Symbolic Use. An intervening mechanism design (Chen, 1990) was used to test the hypotheses that (a) Participative Climate, Level of Participation in Decision Making, and Influence in Participative Decision Making predict Process Outcomes and (b) Process Outcomes predicts Instrumental Use and Symbolic Use. The sample included 315 elementary and secondary teachers who participated in the 1995/1996 British Columbia (B.C.) School Accreditation Program, which is a participative school evaluation program sponsored by the B.C. Ministry of Education. Structural equation modeling was used to test the fit of the model. Overall, the analysis indicated that both hypotheses were tenable and the model was a plausible representation of the data. Furthermore, cross-validation strategies indicated that the model would likely replicate in other independent samples. Specifically, the findings indicated that (a) teacher participation in pre-evaluation decisions, (b) influence in decision making, and (c) teacher perception of the participative process mediated the relationship between Participative Climate and Use of evaluation information. Moreover, teacher perceptions of Process Outcomes is a key factor in understanding the nature and function of participatory evaluation. The model tested in this study provides an empirically based explanation of how participatory evaluation can be expected to work and thereby provides a basis for further development of a theory of participatory evaluation.

This study identifies differing interests which have impacted how Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) prevention programmes in Vancouver have evolved. Drawing largely upon the writings of Michel Foucault with respect to power, knowledge and sexuality, discursive trends in materials are identified, categorized and compared to consider how pertinent subjugated knowledges have developed. The interplay between knowledge-regimes (the benedicted) and subjugated knowledges (the interdicted) are explicated through textual analyses of the materials collected. The findings suggest that knowledges cultivated within the male homosexual communities of Vancouver ensured the implementation of prevention programmes contextually relevant to their own milieu. These strategies were also integrated into broader prevention initiatives designed for society in-general, once their efficacy was apparent. Implications for community education and public health education are discussed, and areas for future research are identified.

This research explores clusters of meanings, understandings, and shared reference points that people with white skinned privilege may share. The literature often refers to these as "White culture". Interviews with nine English-speaking diversity educators of European ancestry provide the primary data. W e discussed their perceptions of the social constructions of whiteness and privilege, the consequences of selective privileging, how is this maintained and the problems involved in addressing systemic inequality. I bring the salient points from these discussions together with the literature to offer a comprehensive, grounded portrayal of situated conceptions of "White culture", privilege and dominant culture. I employed qualitative methods of open-ended, in-depth interviewing, which incorporate feminist research methodology (research a s praxis, research as empowerment) and critical perspectives (critical ethnography, grounded theory, interpretative analysis). This approach is consistent with my values of being inclusive, gaining insight into the perspectives of others and creating a mutually enriching, collaborative process of inquiry. The significance of this investigation lies in raising awareness about interactions among factors within whiteness, privilege, dominance and oppression; enhancing educators' abilities to recognise other contributing factors; identifying why/ how the system is maintained, recognising its consequences and considering how to alter this condition in society. Multicultural education in Canada has generally focused on Others, and can be enhanced through fostering a dialogue among the relatively privileged as well as between dominant and oppressed peoples living within a society of cultural/ racial privilege. The product of this research includes concrete representations summarising various aspects of privilege and dominant culture. Through charts, tables and figures I make privilege more visible and dominant culture more tangible. To portray the complex dynamic among aspects of the dominant culture, which shapes these into a multitude of different configurations, I employ the metaphor, constellations of privilege. Essentially, I offer a possible model for understanding the elements and interrelationships that comprise and maintain a system of selective privileging, which underlies dominance and oppression within society. I conclude this study with a discussion of transformative learning theory and how we may use it to incorporate the insights uncovered through this research into educational practice.

Urban School Boards and City Councils in British Columbia worked in tandem with provincial officials in Victoria to expand the state school system in the 1890s. In discharging their responsibilities, the Boards functioned with considerable independence. They built and maintained schools, appointed and ranked teachers, and organized students. During the course of the decade, City Councils acquired the responsibility for school finance. Nineteenth-century British Columbia education history, written from a centralist perspective, has articulated the idea of a dominant centre and subordinate localities, but this interpretation is not sufficient to explain the development of public schooling in Nanaimo hi the 1890s. The centralist interpretation does not allow for the real historical complexity of the school system. Neither does it accommodate the possibility of successful local resistance to central initiatives, nor the extent to which public schooling was produced locally. It is important, then, to examine what kind of context Nanaimo constituted for state schooling in the last years of the century. This study concludes that civic leaders and significant interest groups in the community believed schooling played an important boundary making role in forging civic, racial, gender, and occupational identities. In carrying out their interlocking responsibilities for providing physical space and organizing teachers and students, the Nanaimo School Trustees created opportunities for local girls and, within limits, for women. The Trustees limited opportunities for local men, and went outside the community for men who had the professional credentials which were increasingly desirable in the late-nineteenth century. Both the traditions of self-help and the imperatives of corporate capitalism intersected in school production in late-nineteenth century Nanaimo. The focus on securing identities through the differentiating processes of boundaries and hierarchies which was evident in Nanaimo was typical of a wider colonial discourse at the end of the nineteenth century.

This study is a micro-analysis of a particular educational milieu: a history of the development of rural schools and community in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia from 1874 until 1930, focussing mainly on the period from 1920 to 1930. The teacher, or more specifically the female teacher, is the main subject. A series of oral interviews conducted with surviving rural teachers and pupils from the 1920s comprise the primary data. Personal narratives form the core of the text. Also used were the pertinent printed and manuscript records of the Department of Education, penned by teachers, school inspectors and other officials, local histories, the 1931 Census of Canada and photographs. The purpose of the study is two fold. First, it is to delineate what the job of teaching in a rural school in the 1920s entailed. The physical and pedagogical conditions of that work are described. The role and status of the teacher in the local community are also highlighted. Teaching in an isolated community, especially for the novice, was an arduous assignment and one that demanded the acceptance of considerable physical, professional, mental and emotional hardships. The underlying relationship that existed between the individual teacher and the local world of education in rural districts and how the nature of that relationship influenced the quality of teacher experience is a central theme of the study. Social background and up bringing, as well as personal disposition, were found to be key variables determining the extent to which teachers were able successfully to adapt to living and working in a remote rural district. Second, the study examines the social context and meaning of the experience of teaching as work for women. By focussing on how involvement in the profession fitted into the larger structure of the female life course, a more complex, yet clearer, vision emerges of what teaching actually did for women in terms of how they used the profession to accommodate their own personal agendas. For many women their experience as a teacher, albeit brief, played an important, and for some a profound, role in their lives. Despite the strenuous and often frustrating nature of their working and living circumstances many teachers enjoyed their jobs. Motivated by a determination to succeed many regarded their experiences in rural schools as a challenge. They had their sense of self-worth and confidence enhanced by their ability to prove to themselves that they could survive under such adverse conditions. Teaching also afforded women economic independence and relative autonomy and thus expanded their personal and career horizons beyond the traditional domestic roles. Moreover for a substantial number of women teaching was by no means just a prologue to anticipated marriage but rather a life-time commitment. At the same time women's career pathways, unlike that of the majority of their male collegues, were not organised to enhance career aspirations. Women negotiated their work interests with traditional sex role and family expectations. Decisions concerning work were deeply entrenched within, and contingent upon, their changing personal and family circumstances. Home and family obligations, both real and perceived, defined their lives and played a key role in their life planning. Pursuing a "career" as a teacher in the traditional sense was not necessarily always the main priority in women's lives and certainly had little to do with what they viewed as commitment to the job. The study contributes to a fuller understanding of the phenomena of rural schooling and teaching in British Columbia and provides some insights into rural life itself. It also raises important questions as to the meaning of teaching as work to women and the nature of their participation in the workforce. It demonstrates that any evaluation of women's work must be derived from women workers' own perceptions and definitions of work and career. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

This research was undertaken to clarify the nature of barriers to persistence in natural resource sciences distance education at the tertiary level in order that participation through to completion may be improved. Its aim was to provide insights and theoretical concepts useful in clarifying distance education access as a whole, while also providing understandings helpful in improving education and communication initiatives concerning sustainable development and the environment. Ethnography was used to illuminate the declarative and tacit understandings of withdrawal and persisting students. Ethnographic interpretations of student understandings were complemented by demographic and other data collected through questionnaires and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a psychological survey instrument. Statistical analysis of quantitative data yielded predictive relationships that accounted for 24-39% of the variability in student withdrawal/persistence. However, many variables defy meaningful measurement and quantitative analysis. Overall results suggest that student withdrawal is related to a set of complex multivariables that act additively and interactively in numerous context-dependent ways to result in a dropout decision that is almost idiosyncratic in nature. Nonetheless, important common barriers to persistence are evident. Both withdrawal and persisting students experienced situational, institutional, dispositional and epistemological problems that acted as barriers. A number are relatively unique to second chance learners, who are effectively disadvantaged. Many of the problems students experienced reflect the social contradiction between their roles as students and their roles as mature adults. The newly elucidated cluster of potential barriers to student persistence termed epistemological problems are the result of incongruency between the student's cognitive and affective perceptions of knowledge, and the nature of the knowledge presented in the courses. Although the courses mainly present hard, applied knowledge with a generally positivistic, empirical viewpoint, they also demand high levels of integration and inference. as well as abstract and relativistic thinking. A number of students found the courses' diverse epistemological stances problematic: some thought the content too scientific and technical; a few found it too abstract and ambiguous. Some were challenged by demanding prerequisite knowledge requirements. Still others found it difficult, in the absence of face-to-face interaction with instructors and peers, to make the epistemological shift from learning by rote to higher level thinking. It was concluded that more facilitative instructional design and student support are needed. Distance education persistence could be enhanced by providing students with all the resources and support they need in order to exercise personal control over their learning. A dialogic construct reflecting empathetic response to the views, values, frames of reference and varying dependency states of individual adult learners is suggested. Elucidation of the epistemological problems also provides understandings useful in general improvement of natural resource management education and communication initiatives. Because the highly structured, technical and specific nature of the disciplinary content and the dense formal jargon of the disciplinary discourse in themselves impede effective communication, it appears that natural resource scientists could more effectively share their knowledge if they simplified it, assumed no prior understandings, and helped people learn by informally and subjectively putting it in a more holistic context for them, including making inferences to application and implication. / Science, Faculty of / Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for / Graduate

This study addressed the controversy among academics in conventional universities over the credibility of distance education for degree credit. Faculty scepticism has slowed the development and expansion of distance education despite increased demands for it. Distance education is an educational method in which the teacher and learners are separated in time and space for the majority, if not all, of the teaching-learning process; two-way communication occurs primarily via print, postal service, and telecommunications (Keegan, 1990). There is little empirical evidence about the reasons for the antagonism between the supporters and opponents of distance education. The purpose of this research was to explain why some faculty support distance education while others do not. Support was defined as how faculty would speak about and vote for proposals to offer distance education courses for degree credit. The conceptual framework drew on studies of faculty attitudes towards university expansion and distance education, and literature on academic culture and change. An interpretive perspective and qualitative methods dominated the two-phase study. First, a mailed survey (n=487) investigated the extent of faculty familiarity with and support for distance education. Then faculty (n=50) were interviewed from three categories of support for distance education identified by the survey: supportive, divided support, and opposed. The interviews explored how faculty understood the compatibility and feasibility of distance education. Compatibility was defined as the congruence of distance education with faculty beliefs and values about the accessibility and quality of university education. Feasibility was the perceived ability to successfully implement distance education. In general, faculty were not very familiar with or supportive of distance education, except for undergraduate courses. There was very little support for a graduate program by distance education. There were significant differences in faculty support by discipline and gender. The reasons for variations in faculty support for distance education are best explained by the concept of compatibility. Faculty supported distance education if it was congruent with their beliefs and values about university education in general. Faculty thought about distance education as promoting social justice, as an educational method, or as the distribution of information. Faculty who were supportive held the beliefs and values Trow (1973) associated with mass education while those who were opposed tended to believe in an elite approach to university education. There was a substantial divided group who were in a conflict about the priority that should be given to the major values involved, the accessibility and quality of university education. The study contributes to the development of theory about different conceptions of university and distance education and provides insight into the study of disciplinary cultures. It presents a revised conceptual framework for further research on the topic. The results have implications for educational planning and for the development of distance education. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Refugees are on welfare and get into difficulty because the Federal Immigration policy does not give them work permits and Povincial Education policy does not provide English as a second language. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate