No description available.

This research examines the educational history of Blacks under apartheid, the educational philosophies of different strands of the anti-apartheid movement, and the nature of education reforms in a post-apartheid South Africa. The research analyzes the implications of these reforms for a specific group of marginalized South Africans, former student militants, that is, Black African youths who participated in the anti-apartheid struggle between 1970 to 1992. It is deeply tragic that a majority of this population do not benefit from the educational and economic policies of the new South Africa, and remain poor and unemployed. Based on interviews, surveys and focused group discussions with former student militants in the Northern Province of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, this research examines the gap between the educational vision of the anti-apartheid movement and the nature of the present reforms. My research shows that although based on principles of racial equality, the impact of the reforms can only be understood in the broader context of neoliberal economic reform. The research highlights the contradictions immanent in constructing a deracialized, egalitarian education system that can benefit the Black majority at the same time as the state prioritizes economic growth and competitiveness to succeed in a global economy. The research questions whether the goal of ‘education for liberation’ can truly be attained and the historical oppressions and inequities of the apartheid regime eradicated by education reform that is based on liberal ideals of a nonracialized equal society.

The purpose of this study was to identify, study and implement the characteristics of effective science pedagogy in the multicultural classroom. The ultimate goal was to identify the instructional strategies in the learning process. The scope of the work included the development of wisdom-in-practice by a skillful teacher. A model (KMEEP) was used for describing the processes of learning and teaching within the multicultural classroom. Case studies were written with the goal of using the classroom experiences of the teacher to bridge the gap between theory and praxis.

This qualitative study of the values, beliefs and teaching practices of four teachers at a small private college with a diverse adult student population attempts to bring to light what teaching behaviors help to create an educational climate which includes people of both genders and of different ethnic, racial backgrounds and allows them to succeed in an academic environment. The teachers and students completed weekly teaching and learning journals (derived from Brookfield's (1991) student learning journals) during one semester (spring, 1994). Using grounded theory technique, I uncovered eight activities that both teachers and students felt were effective in providing an inclusive educational environment: (1) use of groups for support, creativity and personal change; (2) conscious student metacognition and self-assessment; (3) interactive classroom activities; (4) exercises which utilize different learning styles; (5) integrative learning which calls upon the different student cultures; (6) close teacher/student and peer/peer feedback connections; (7) academic support components built into the curriculum; and (8) the teacher acting as facilitator. Through a series of teacher interviews, I determined three shared values which appeared congruent with the teachers' actions in the classroom: (1) awareness of the difference between the student cultures, but a reluctance to pre-judge individuals based on cultural assumptions; (2) awareness and utilization of the affective aspects of learning; and (3) a conception of the role of teacher as empowerer. End of the semester focus groups with students added to data obtained from student learning journals to reveal three areas of the learning deemed important for growth: (1) the importance of the social dimension of teaching and learning; (2) the powerful role of the teacher in the learning process; and (3) the importance of applying and integrating the learning into the students' lives. Two problematic areas in the teaching of these four instructors were: (1) a lack of multicultural reading materials within the courses and (2) evaluations methods that were not authentic or inclusive of different learning style orientations. The results of this study hold implications for the administration of programs for adult students of targeted social groups, such as admission policies, class size and teacher training.

There are hidden difficulties in teaching a foreign language in a classroom context that have not been examined. Using ethnographic research methods of participant observation, field notes, audio-taping of classroom conversational exchange, and interviews with participants of the interactions, the hidden issues were identified through data analysis focusing on the discourse between teachers and students of Chinese language. While many classroom interaction studies focus on teaching methods or content that should be taught, this research study examines language classroom interactions from a sociocultural perspective. It provides a description of the cultural and social factors that influence the communicative process in classroom interactions. The underlying assumption guiding this study is that effective foreign language teaching and learning is a communicative process that involves more than simply instruction about the formal features of language and cultural knowledge. The purpose of this process is to develop the individual learner's communicative competence. This competence includes not only language competence and cultural competence but also the openness and readiness of the mind and the flexibility of cognition to function in cross-cultural contexts. The study reveals that a central cause of language classroom miscommunication is the difficulty participants have in creating contextual coherence and meaning. This problem is the direct result of the participants' simplified assumptions of cultural and social stereotypes. The stereotyping of individual and power relationships in the classroom hinders the learning process and can lead to underdeveloped perspectives of cultural images and social roles of individuals. With stereotyped cultural images and the narrowly defined social roles of participants in the classroom, the teaching and learning process limits opportunities to actively develop the learners' communicative competence. The practice of teaching and learning thus may reinforce inflexibility in communicative negotiation and in dealing with the cultural, social, and individual diversities in the cross-cultural interactions outside the classroom. Therefore, cross-cultural openness--the awareness of sociocultural and individual diversity in cross-cultural interactions--is significant in language teaching and learning. The significance of cross-cultural openness is that it not only influences the process of language teaching and learning, but also the content of language teaching and learning.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes that adults entering an adult basic education program went through while they learned to read and write. Two research goals were used to examine six individuals while attending The Literacy Project, Inc., Greenfield, Massachusetts. They were, (1) To examine the relationship between learning to read and write and learning to adapt to change among adults considered illiterate; and (2) To examine how local and community conditions including those of the program as community, affect a literacy program and its curriculum. This study utilized ethnographic methods. The data for the case studies was collected from observations, teacher log entries, student writings, student folders, and interviews with clients, teachers, and aides. The setting of the study was The Literacy Project which is a non-profit community based program which uses a whole-language curriculum. Teaching is also done in groups. A head teacher is in charge and several volunteers are used as aides. Changes were discovered across the case studies. Students went through at least four changes: (1) The Initial Change, (2) Change In Old Strategies: Conning, (3) Change in Self Confidence, and (4) Change in Student/Teacher Relationships, including the way in which students perceived the role of the teacher. The implications for curriculum and programs are described in Chapter 5. They were: (1) A need for teachers to broaden their ideas and concepts of curriculum to include students with opportunities to participate in the developement of curriculum. (2) A need for teachers to broaden their ideas of learning. Learning needs to be viewed as an interactive pursuit. (3) There is a need for community to be developed in the classroom. (4) There is a need for continuity in programs which includes the need for continuity in teachers.

Schools in New Jersey are beginning to transform their middle school music programs from a general music based curriculum to an elective, performance-based curriculum. These changes bring new challenges to music educators as they work to expand their performance-based curriculums to include what was taught in general music. Adding to the work that needs to be done to adapt performance-based classes, teachers are beginning to feel frustrated that their needs and the needs of their students are getting lost with the added addition of assessment guidelines and other administrative requirements,. The aim of this research project was to work within the framework of Paulo Freire’s Culture circle to support teachers during scheduled Professional Learning Community meetings. Through a series of eight bi-weekly meetings, a group of four music teachers and a dance instructor works to identify generative themes present in their teaching practice. Through problem posing dialogue they worked to understand their generative theme. The teachers in this Professional Learning Community worked together to create and implement individual action plans to address their generative theme. This group of teachers work together in support of each other while they were working within their separate contexts and classrooms. This collaborative action research study positioned the researcher as a facilitator, one who supported the needs of the group and questioned long standing beliefs that help propel the conversation forward. Teachers reflected that they saw a change in what they believed the purpose of these meetings was. They found in impactful to focus on their teaching practices rather than the more administrative tasks involved in teaching. Teachers also reported that by dialoguing about their teacher and the action plans they were working on, they felt more successful in its implementation. Through their action plans, this group of teachers began to see possibilities to have their students create and work in small groups that was not evident before. While the teachers in this study felt an impact of the culture circle, there is more to learn from this group of teachers, and the possibilities culture circles have to effect positive change in teachers and student learning.

The purpose of this study was to describe how meaning was socially constructed within a task-based small cooperative learning group. The group was composed of five native English and English as a Second Language speaking teachers and teachers-in-training enrolled in a graduate course entitled "Curriculum Development for Heterogeneous Classes" in the Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies Department in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts. This study examined the claim that participants in cooperative learning groups must be willing to set their personal beliefs, desires, and agendas aside in order to focus their attention on the learning needs of their peers and to shift the attention of their peers to explicitly relevant information (Gee, 1990). Further, groupwork is described as an interactional experience that involves conflict, tension, and individual risk-taking behaviors (McCutcheon, 1995). This study examined the claim that these behaviors can have a positive effect on a group's process when the willingness to analyze conflict and tension through the risk-taking process of revealing one's experience, perception, and self are present (McCutcheon, 1995). This study researched these claims by investigating the discourse of a small cooperative learning group in this course. This study provides an ethnographic thick description of the normative patterns that emerged through the group's work. These include the communicative norms that were co-constructed prior to and after the naming and analyzing of conflict. The results of this study reveal that participants were willing to focus their attention onto the needs of their peers and were willing to focus the attention of their peers to explicitly relevant information after conflict was named. Analyzing conflict was not easily obtained in this group. Members avoided and resisted this process. However, naming conflict was seen to have a purpose in this cooperative learning group and provided a rich source of insight about the complexities of conflict, tension, and individual risk-taking behaviors in cooperative learning settings composed of native English and English as a Second Language speaking learners.

The Hilmar Unified School District came into existence on July 1st, 1950, after three years of meetings by local patrons and County Committees, with final approval by the regional and State Commissions, as provided for in Chapter 16 of the Education Code. One of the primary objectives for the reorganization and unification was an improved curriculum. Curriculum study is complex and can include all parts of the school and its program. Curriculum is interwoven with personnel, finance, facilities, type of organization, and many other factors. For that reason, curriculum problems will vary in almost every school. In order to understand the basis of the reasoning for the several problems, it is necessary that a brief background be given, as well as information on the financial ability of the district. In this way, problems found in the Hilmar Unified School District can be studied in the light of comparable problems in other districts.

Pupils. teachers. supervisors, administrators, parents and other citizens have always needed to work together for better educational programs in their communities. Curriculum planning and improvement in our complex and changing world have been a necessity and a cooperative responsibility.