Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1978. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-220).

This research project was an in-depth case study, an investigation of a small sample of white South African male academics from the University of Cape Town who were part of the USHEPiA (University Science, Humanities, and Engineering Partnerships in Africa) initiative. The project investigated these University of Cape Town academics experiences and perceptions of another African country and university, and considered the effect that this might have had on the academic's own life.

This research project was an in-depth case study, an investigation of a small sample of white South African male academics from the University of Cape Town who were part of the USHEPiA (University Science, Humanities, and Engineering Partnerships in Africa) initiative. The project investigated these University of Cape Town academics experiences and perceptions of another African country and university, and considered the effect that this might have had on the academic's own life.

The world environmental crisis has ed to a growing international concern to promote sustainable development. Environmental education is being heralded as one of the foremost responses to the promotion of sustainable development The Southern African Development Community Environment and Land Management Sector initiated a programme to support environmental education in the region. Among other things, this programme offers various forms of training for environmental educators in an attempt to meet the needs of southern Africa. The purpose of this report is to investigate the environmental education training needs in the southern African region. The research itself concentrates on the environmental education training needs as articulated by participants in, and applicants to, the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC-REEP). The report documents the establishment of the SADC-REEP and the environmental education training it offers within the context of current thinking on environmental education processes in the region. It then goes on to document the training needs articulated by the research respondents. This leads to a discussion of the articulated needs in relation to the current training offered by the SADC-REEP. The research reveals common themes expressed amongst the research respondents as to the training needs of the region. These themes include such issues as a broader understanding of environmental education processes, networking and the ability to disseminate information. These themes have led to recommendations for the SADC-REEP for the enhancement of their training programmes. / Thesis (M.Sc.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: David G. Scanlon. Dissertation Committee: R. Freeman Butts, L. Gray Cowan. Includes bibliographical references.

This aim of this study was to explore the mediatory role of the Rhodes University (RU) / Southern African Development Community (SADC) International Certificate in Environmental Education course in developing capacity for reflexive mainstreaming of environment and sustainability education in teacher education in southern Africa. This course was a change-oriented intervention to support capacity and agency for mainstreaming environmental education across many sectors of education. The discourse of the course included environmental education and education for sustainable development and for this study this was referred to as environment and sustainability education (ESE). Environment and sustainability education is a developing notion in southern Africa and the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme (REEP) was set up to support capacity for mainstreaming ESE. ESE was one of the responses taken by the SADC region to respond to prevalent environment and sustainability issues across the region. This study focused, in general, on establishing the mediatory roles of the reflexive mediatory tool, the change project in the course. More specifically, the research explores the mediatory role of course interventions and activities that were used to develop understanding of and to frame the change project in fostering agentially motivated changed practice in the teacher education sector. Drawing on realist social theory, which is a form of critical realism, especially the work of Margaret Archer, the study used the principle of emergence to interpret changes in the course participants' practices. The study was framed using the research question: How do mediated actions in a regional professional development programme and the workplace influence Environment and Sustainability (ESE) competencies, practice, learning and agency in Teacher Education for Sustainable Development (TESD) change projects? The following sub-questions refined the study: • What mediated actions on the course influence ESE competences, practice, learning and agency on the professional development programme? • How do these identified mediated actions influence ESE competences, practice and learning on the professional development programme? • What mediated actions in workplaces influence ESE competences, practice, learning and agency in the change projects in teacher education institutions? • How do these identified mediated actions in workplaces influence ESE competences, practices and mediated actions in the workplace? Notions of practice, agency, reflexivity, competences and capabilities were used to sensitise explanations of features emergent from course interactions; the process of analysis was under-laboured by the theoretical lens of critical realism and realist social theory. Mediation theory was used to explain the role of interventions across the course. The study used a case study approach with three cases of teacher educators from two institutions in two southern African countries. Data were generated through document analysis of course portfolios, semi-structured interviews with research participants, observations of participants during their teaching and through group discussions in a change management workshop to establish features that emerged from the course and change project interactions. The principle of emergence recognises that any interactions result in new features of characteristics that are different from the original. In this case, the study investigated those features shown by participants after being exposed to the course's mediatory tools. In order to describe the cases, a narrative approach was used. The study was conducted at the interface of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) and the Global Action Plan for Education for Sustainable Development, therefore the outcomes have implications for capacity development for ESE during and beyond the Global Action Plan for Education for Sustainable Development. The key finding is that capacity development for ESE needs to foreground reflexive engagement with one's own practice for it to be meaningful and relevant. The change project provided course participants with the opportunity to engage with their own practice and particularly their competences and capabilities through its mediatory tools. Course participants showed emergent properties that were evidence of expanded zones of proximal development (ZPD) in competences, capabilities and agency. The study illustrates that meaningful learning happens when immersed in context and when learners are able to make connections between concepts, practices and experiences (their praxis). The study also illustrates that capacity building creates opportunities for practitioners to expand their repertoire through the course activities. Some of the course activities stimulated, enhanced and gave impetus to their agency or double morphogenesis for them to continue to expand that repertoire by trying and retrying changes in practice that they value on their own and in communities of practice. Capacity development courses need to be structured to involve a variety of mediatory activities as some of these are relevant and are valued for different teacher education contexts. The study also shows how knowledge and understanding of classical Vygotskian mediation can be used to frame and structure courses for developing the ZPD retrospectively and how the repertoire which forms the ZPD has potential to be expanded and to keep expanding, whether at individual level or in community with others, as an object in the post-Vygotskian mediation process. The change project provides the starting point, the vehicle and momentum to teacher educators to critique and to reflexively transform competences or aspects of their practice that they value. The study showed that capacity development through the change project generated momentum for potentially morphogenetic changes in teacher education practice. The course initiated interactions at the phase T2-T3 that disrupted teacher educators' habitus. On-course phase activities such as assignments, lectures, discussions, practical tasks, excursions and regional knowledge exchange groups contributed smaller morphogenetic cycles to the main cycle. Reflexive engagement with one's own practice becomes a useful tool for building capacity for scaling capacity for mainstreaming ESE during and after the Global Action programme for ESD. Contributions of the study therefore go beyond the SADC region to contribute insights into capacity development for ESD in similar conditions of teacher education across the world.

This thesis is situated at the intersection between the three themes of education in Africa, impact assessment, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Specifically, it seeks to develop a critique of current practices regarding monitoring and evaluation of ICT for education within Africa, and explores plausible alternatives to such practices that would make the benefits of education and technology more available and structured towards the poor and marginalised. Two participatory case studies of ICT for education programmes in Malawi and Ethiopia were used as the main empirical focus for the research. These involved working in partnership with implementing organisations, whilst simultaneously abstracting myself so as to evaluate the evaluation process and assess the underlying reasons for what was occurring. These case studies were supplemented by three international participatory workshops and a pan-Africa survey of ICT for education practitioners. The findings from the empirical work are examined within four analytical contexts. The first of these analyses the different methodological approaches employed in the case studies and considers the limitations and opportunities encountered. The second focuses on the role of partnerships within ICT for education programmes, especially in regard to their impact in defining the nature of monitoring and evaluation processes. The third investigates the marginalising of pedagogy within many ICT for education programmes, especially in regard to educational outcomes. The fourth explores the significance of aspiration within technology related development initiatives, focussing on consequences for effective impact assessment. The applied nature of the research emphasises the need for both critical rigour and innovative alternatives in assessing ICT for education in Africa. This thesis concludes by demonstrating the ways in which monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment can be positively reframed in the light of the research findings to emphasise process, participation, capacity enhancement, and the centrality of education.

This thesis constitutes an interpretive ethnography of children’s educational experiences in rural Rwanda. It advances a theoretical argument for conceptualizing subjectivity, one which attends to how impersonal forces of political economy and history converge to inform children’s awareness, expectations, and perceptions of possibility. A decade ago, children from poor families in Rwanda had few opportunities to continue their studies beyond primary school. With the government’s recent introduction of basic education, more children now have access to more years in the formal education system—yet, poor education quality excluded them from meaningful participation within that system. Study findings suggest that children’s schooling functions as a contradictory resource: the same education policy reforms that aim to transform Rwanda into a knowledge-based economy have also introduced the perception of inequalities along the lines of economic status, ethnicity, language, and geographic location. The core of my study included a collaboration with 16 focal students. Their subjective experiences were the microcosm through which I investigated the nexus of individual and collective processes. Students grappled with what value their education had, what status it would confer, and whether it would lead to opportunities for social mobility. However, in absence of alternatives, most felt obliged to continue their studies—even as their educational experience produced a growing sense of disillusionment.

It is against the background of new developments and initiates taking place in various countries to make basic nursing education systems more responsive and relevant to the ever-changing nature of society that a cross-national study of the current systems of basic nursing education of francophone African countries of WHO Afro Region was undertaken. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze the current systems of basic nursing education in Francophone African countries of WHO Afro Region with 'a view to providing guidelines for change toward a basic nursing educatian system that is in line with the recommendations of WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, 1966) and the various countries' health care delivery systems' policies. In the first phase, data was generated by means of a self-completion mailed questionnaire, administered to the members of the national regulatory bodies of nursing and nursing education from eighteen countries. The design of the above named questionnaire was based on the WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, and 1966) recommendations pertaining to basic nursing education systems. The main results of the findings of this phase showed two major trends. Firstly, more differences than similarities existed between the WHO (1994, 1985, 1984, and 1966) recommendations and the current basic nursing education systems of the countries under study. Secondly, discrepancies existed between the various countries' health care delivery systems' policies and the existing systems of basic nursing education. Finally, all the respondents expressed the views that the current basic nursing education systems are faced with educational and organizational changes and they agreed that there is a need to change the current basic nursing education systems. In the second phase, data was generated by means of three rounds Delphi questionnaires, administered to the national members of the regulatory bodies of nursing and nursing education as well as the members of national nursing associations from eighteen countries. The design of the first round Delphi questionnaire was based on the results of the first phase of this study, while the preceding round informed the design of the questionnaire of the next round. The main results of the findings showed similarities between the future orientation of the basic nursing education systems and the recommendations of the WHO as well as the global trends in the development of the basic nursing education. The stakeholders expressed the view that the national governments, the National Associations of Nurses and the Regional Office of WHO Afro Region need to play an active role in the transformation and the development of the basic nursing education systems in the Region. They suggested that the systems of educating nurses should move toward meeting the demands of the health care services and the global trends in the development of nursing and nursing education. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

This thesis is a survey of the development of religious and secular colonial education for African girls and women in Afrique Occidentale Francaise, from 1819 to 1960. The historiography of colonial education in AOF has dismissed the education of African girls and women as they were numerically too insignificant to merit any special attention. / This study argues that an examination of educational objectives, institutions and curricula provides a rare and valuable window on French colonial discourse on African women. It was a discourse fed by sexism and ethnocentrism, that ultimately intended to refashion women's gender identities and roles to approximate those prescribed by the French ideology of domesticity. / The system took the form of a number of domestic sciences training centres that aimed to change the very social definition of what constituted an African woman--to remake her according to the Euro-Christian, patriarchal ideal of mother, wife and housekeeper. Colonial educators argued that such a woman, especially in her role as mother, was the best conduit for the propagation of French mores, practices, and most importantly, submission to French hegemony. / The final decades of formal colonial rule in AOF saw the emergence of a small African male bourgeoisie. Members of this class, called "assimiles", accepted to varying degrees French language, lifestyle and values. This study further examines how many of them embraced the ideology of domesticity and became active in the debate on African women's education and the need to control and transform their gender identities.