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This research is a grounded theory study of the learning choices of adult returners. For the purpose of this research, 'adult returner' has been defined as somebody who left school at the earliest opportunity who, after a period away from formal education, has identified a desire or a need to re-enter the system. Forty-three semi-structured, in-depth interviews and three focus groups have been conducted with a total of 58 adult returners at various stages of the returning process. Some adults had just started to think about returning to education, but had not identified an entry route, whereas others were progressing through their chosen entry route, whether in adult education, further education or higher education. A process of theoretical sampling and comparative analysis, whereby data are jointly collected, coded and analysed, was adopted for this research. Using this method, themes and categories were inductively generated from the data. Processes, rather than static accounts, were taken into account by conducting a number of repeat interviews. By doing this it was possible to consider how learning choices might change as adults progress through their chosen entry route. The aim of a grounded theory study is to develop a core-category and a number of related sub-categories. The core category for this research is 'parameters of choice' which describes how adults appear to have their choices framed by a number of parameters which effect the perceived degree of choice available to them. The related sub-categories which have been developed from the data are 're-balancing', 'self-assessment', 'becoming attuned' and 'awareness-raising'. By describing these categories and illustrating how they relate to each other, the research goes beyond other studies which consider easily identified and articulated influences on choice, such as those studies which look at barriers to participation. This research suggests that adults do not consider their choices to be blocked by barriers, but instead see their choices as being framed by a number of constraints. If their first choice is not possible, they will go on to consider alternatives within their existing parameters, or wait until these parameters widen. The research relates the findings to both theory and practice within the field of adult education and in relation to the notion of lifelong learning. In this way, the research serves to enrich at a theoretical and practical level the understanding of adult returners' learning choices.

This study was motivated both by my own experiences as a working class student at university and as a tutor working with so called 'non-traditional' students studying on higher education courses. The central focus is the experience of making meaning in academic writing of ten women students with whom I met on an individual basis over a period of between 1 and 3 years to talk about specific instances of their writing for undergraduate course work. Most of the study reported here is based on discussions of their academic writing at first year undergraduate level. In exploring the student-writers' experience my analysis has been significantly informed by the following writers and notions: Fairclough's three levelled framework for analyzing the production and interpretation of texts which builds on Halliday's contexts of situation and culture (see Halliday 1978; Fairclough 1989, 1992a); the work of Clark and Ivanic on critical language awareness about academic writing (see for example Clark and Ivanic 1991); the work of Ivanic on social identity and authorship in student academic writing (1993; 1998); the notion of literacy practices as developed by a number of writers (Street 1993; Barton 1994) and in particular the notion of essayist literacy (Scollon and Scollon 1981; Gee 1996); Bakhtin's dialogic notion of language and, in particular, the significance he attaches to addressivity in, and for, meaning making (1981). The central argument in this thesis is that any exploration of students' writing at university should be premised on a view of student-writers as meaning makers. This perspective has implications for the methodology necessary in order to carry out such an exploration, as well as for the specific arguments about the student-writers' experience made in this thesis. In relation to methodology, I argue for the centrality of dialogue and present a methodological framework for constructing this dialogue. In relation to the student-writers' experience of meaning making, I argue the following specific points: i.The demands surrounding student academic writing are embedded in an institutional practice of mystery. This practice of mystery is ideologically inscribed in that it works against those least familiar with the conventions surrounding academic writing, limiting their participation in higher education as currently configured. ii.Although the conventions surrounding student academic writing remain implicit, they constitute a particular literacy practice, essayist literacy, which is privileged within the university. The conventions of this practice work towards regulating individual student meaning making in specific ways. iii.The type of student/tutor addressivity surrounding student meaning making in academic writing significantly contributes to both the nature of the students' possible participation in HE and to the meanings that they make. I end by discussing the pedagogical implications of the arguments made in the study.

The overall aim of this study was to investigate mathematical meaning making in relation to the areas of construction and proof through the use of a dynamic geometry environment (Cabri II as available on the TI 92 calculator). The experimental work was carried out with 11-14 year old pupils in four schools in the North of England between 1996 and 1999. The research involved working with whole classes and a range of groups of varying sizes. The research methodologies adopted were drawn from various areas (an approach advocated as suitable for classroom research by Klafid, 1998). The researcher acted as both teacher and participant observer. The study was conducted over several cycles, with previous cycles of analysis and reference to the literature being used to inform subsequent stages. After a pilot phase when recording methods and technical approaches were clarified, there were four cycles of investigation. Data collection was by means of participant observation, with audio recording of dialogue. Screens generated by pupils were recorded in field notes. There was emphasis from the outset of the study to relate the findings to classroom practice. This led to a consideration as an ongoing part of the study, of ideas of classroom and group dynamics and how these could be combined with, and related to, the use of the technology. The study illuminated two key areas; the processes of immediate individual and group meaning making and wider aspects of social dynamics in the mathematics classroom. Socio-cultural analysis of classroom and group discourses identified progression from spontaneous to scientific concepts, illuminating the development of pupils' powers of intuition and sense of conviction. The dynamic geometry environment was used to investigate constructions stable under drag, illuminating the way in which the dynamic aspects afforded by the technology affect pupils' appreciation of the relationship between construction and proof. Various aspects of proof were highlighted and in particular the function of proof as explanation was seen to be an important aspect in the development of pupils' mathematical meaning making. Further analysis illuminated a distinction between the immediate individual sense making of pupils and the way this sense making is brought to social and consensual meaning making. At the wider classroom level the study identified issue of transparency the importance of the social use of argumentation to take forward the 'taken as shared' and the development of socio-mathematical norms and whole-class zones of proximal development. These aspects of individual and group meaning-making and whole class dynamics are advanced as ways of promoting local communities of mathematical practice as advocated by Winbourne and Watson( 1998).

The aim of the research was to discover strategies for increasing the responsiveness of civil service management training in Uganda in light of the U. K. experience in civil service management training between 1979 and 1991. While the literature has tended to advance theory on management development and training, and to outline characteristics of good management training programmes, there is need to relate the theory much more to the type of organisation. Using Case Study method, the study investigated the development of management training in six U. K. and Ugandan Civil Service organisations, with a view to testing the conjecture that the existence of structured management training in a civil service organisation is evidence that there has been a trigger for change to which top management has responded by instituting a radical change programme, one that involves transformation of policies, structures, processes, products etc.; and an indication that there has been a fundamental change in the way top management perceive the role of management training. Fieldwork findings led to the construction of a new model for understanding the development of structured management training in a civil service organisation. This states that, for structured management training to develop, there must be a trigger for change, perceived as a crisis that requires a significant top management response in the form of a radical transformation of the organisation; the definition of the response to the trigger in management terms by top, rather by senior or middle managers; top management commitment to the implementation of the change; a clear organisational vision, held by the top, shared by key groups, and which incorporates a management development strategy that involves setting up Supporting mechanisms and deliberately developing features of structured management training; sufficient autonomy; financial resources and resources of expertise. Recommendations for the U.K. relate to fostering the ongoing development of mechanisms, while those for Uganda focus on the need to implement the radical change programmes-that have already been proposed as a result of the recent Public Service Review.

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No description available.