This thesis investigates how external sources inform and impact Somaliland’s national teacher education policy making processes. In this research, external factor is mainly constituted by INGOs that are helping Somaliland’s education and teacher education re-construction which are considered to be part of wider global-national interactions. The conceptual frameworks of policy making processes, policy transfer, lesson drawing and policy learning are used to develop the theoretical perspectives that inform the research question. Constructivist’s qualitative research approach which utilises critical discourse analysis as the principle methodology has been used to gain an understanding of the discursive construction of meaning about Somaliland’s education reforms and analyse the discourses of teacher education and teacher professionalism that are evident in three contemporary education reform policy documents and interview data. This thesis considered policy making processes as a contested, dynamic and multidimensional phenomena and has acknowledged the centrality of power and resources in policy making processes. The analysis of the research data constructed Somaliland’s education reforms as a discourse of human capital. This had implications for the strategies for managing change, quality and improvement perception, and reconceptualisations of teacher education and teacher professionalism. The thesis concludes with concerns about the contextual visibility to implement the new discourses of education and teacher education and calls for increased policy learning, capacity building, resource increase and modernisation of institutions as well as change of the culture of work.

Based on ethnographic research with Class V students (generally aged 9-11 years old), their teachers and parents, this thesis explores how gendered and classed identities are constructed in two MCD government elementary schools and one Kindergarten-Class XII (K-XII) private school in West Delhi, India. I consider how local, national and global understandings of gender, class and education shape and are shaped by these identities. Through this thesis, I highlight a conformity of aspirations, among both boys and girls, in the two government and one private school, in which education is viewed as a route achieve middle class lifestyles and careers. Across the schools, students’ identities are shaped within a middle-class culture of schooling in which students are expected to be on track to become individual, self-responsiblised, entrepreneurial subjects who are committed to the development of the nation. However, more importantly, schools encourage students to develop relational identities in which they pursue individual aspirations within the broader context of an emphasis on the prioritisation of family, the nation and religion. As a result, both a (neoliberal) middle class culture of schooling and- more importantly- (Hindu) religious nationalist notions of national identity play a central role in shaping the classed and gendered identities of students in these primary schools. Within the framework of Hindu cosmopolitanism, it is the Hindu, middle-class boy that emerges as the normative school child, against which both girls and the ‘poor’/working class are placed in deficit.

This thesis focuses on the effects of globalisation on educational field of architecture, in Turkey, in recent decades. The aim of the study is to develop a method of analysis in order to read the four early established educational institutions of architecture in a critical and comparative manner*. This reading is very crucial in order to comprehend their attitudes and methods of constructing their particularities while being a part of the globalised world of education. Globalisation / rapid developments in communication technology, instantaneous mobility of knowledge and student-staff exchanges lead to a common worldwide architectural education area, where educational institutions of architecture do co-exist with awareness of other institutions operating in the field. However, the interdisciplinary character of architecture, and the regional, cultural, institutional distinctiveness of schools leads to a certain diversity of educational models in the educational field of architecture. In this context, this thesis proposes a method of analysis in order to read the four schools in a comparative and critical manner. Through the reading of the institutons with their structures and educational components, in the tension between universality and particularity, the purpose of the thesis is to find out several clues for the institutions that may be applied while constructing their particularity in the globalised world of education. The accidental, evolutionary and inentional actions of schools in the tension between universality and particularity are the findings of the research. At the end, the positive as well as the negative dimensions of the methodology are criticised with reference to the findings of the research.

Thesis (PhD (Education))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / The dissertation investigates whether liberal conceptions of autonomy are relevant to higher education in African. And if they are relevant, the dissertation further examines the extent to which liberal conceptions of autonomy can enhance governance arrangements of the higher education system. The focus of the research is on governance arrangements. It proceeds by exploring selected cases of African universities in order to show that these universities function autonomously along a continuum of less autonomous to more autonomous (or substantively autonomous) systems, and argues that universities with the least autonomy can be said to function as less liberal institutions and those with more autonomy function as liberal universities. Different philosophical conceptions of autonomy are examined (in Chapter 4) to foreground what may be considered as constitutive meanings or marks of liberal autonomy. The constituent elements include freedom, rationality and objectivity, authenticity and identity, responsibility, critical thinking, and the enhancement of a vibrant critical community. This discussion has considered autonomy from a specific historical context of conceptual theorisation. In view of this, autonomy can be considered as more liberal and / or less liberal depending on the characteristics of the constituent elements. A continuum exists in conceptions of autonomy. This dissertation argues for a liberal communitarian position of autonomy where the “encumbered self” is acknowledged together with its life circumstances (Callan, 1997; Sandel, 1984). The recognition of the situatedness of being further sustains the concept of a deliberative process of engagement and promotes the public good. The dissertation has also examined the development of higher education in Germany, England and the United States in order to understand how conceptions of autonomy in each of these systems have developed against the background of the particular societies at the different historical moments. For instance, Wittrock‟s (1993) account of the universities in Western Europe, England and iv America acknowledges that as much as universities are situational; that universities are neither disembodied nor mindless in terms of how they frame their missions, yet again the same universities represent a particular function and identity as reflective spaces in different societies across generations. This discussion has further looked at university autonomy through the symbolisms of the University of Reason, the University of Culture, and the University of Excellence (Readings, 1996). Chapter Five has argued that neoliberalism and globalisation can make university governance less autonomous. Despite that neoliberalism and globalisation have been ushered in to make the university space the most dynamic in research and technology, such an approach has ushered in a competition-concentrated model of higher education in Europe and America (Scott, 2006: 129-130). While acknowledging that “ economic and technological forces have impacted on the university, undermining some of its modernist assumptions based on the idea of autonomy and underpinned by academic self-governance”, Delanty (2004: 248-249) considers these shifts and forces as multidirectional and not uni-linear in the sense of one replacing another. The dissertation argues that the African higher education system has similarly been affected by globalisation and neo-liberalism. Despite their being founded on notions of freedom, globalisation and neoliberalism undermine the practice and governance of higher education on the African continent. This dissertation argues that the function of universities is not just to focus on its economic extension but also and more importantly its civic role, and proposes that higher education in Africa can fulfil its civic role by the creation of a cosmopolitan citizen. In this way, the African university has a real chance to widen its autonomy. In conclusion, the implications of this envisaged civic role of the university on academic freedom and institutional autonomy are also examined.

Current literature on teaching research methodology in the social sciences points to the changing nature of our world in terms of its complexity and diversity and how this affects the way in which we search for answers to related problems. New ways of approaching research problems that relate to the demands of practice need to be explored, which is in contrast with the ‘either-or’ world we coach our students for, that is to be either qualitative or quantitative researchers. Also, educational policy reform in South Africa has sought to address the issue of real-life relevance of curricula, and specifically, reformists have turned to proponents of Mode 2 knowledge to inform initiatives for change. This means that tertiary institutions will have to adjust the way in which they deliver education to future generations of South Africans. The aim of this study was to map the content of undergraduate research methodology courses at South African universities and to explore the beliefs held by some academics that inform the way in which these courses are constructed. Critical theory allowed the researcher to search for unequal distributions of power and is defined in this study in its oppressive role, that is, its productive ability to bring about inequalities and human suffering. As some critical social theorists embrace specific, and at times divergent, methodologies, a pluralistic approach, based on Habermas’ idea of the relative legitimacy of all theories and methods, was used to. The study revealed that there is a heavy reliance on the methods that are traditionally linked to the positivist paradigm. It also revealed that alternate paradigms focusing on philosophies that dictate the use of qualitative methods are increasingly included in methodology courses and juxtaposed against or used to supplement positivist approaches to research. As academics may struggle to let go of traditional paradigms, they may find a compromise in presenting both. By acknowledging the limitations of past curricula, academics actively seek to change these discourses, but by doing so they may be instituting new hegemonies. One of the findings of this study is thus that distinctions about the content of research courses are being made on a methodological level instead of also acknowledging the epistemological and pragmatic grounds for making choices. Moreover, it is argued that the consensus achieved regarding the curriculum for a research course is the result of conversations held between academics in an ideal speech situation that excludes other significant voices. The lecturers' dominance over the students is maintained in the dialogical activities that they undertake with colleagues that confirm their position of authority in academic society. Students recognise this authority and consent to it. It is proposed that the way forward for curriculum construction lies in establishing academic communities of practice that should be viewed as the type of university that Habermas would advocate: where academics need to share power and be open to the challenges that they face such as negotiating what is accepted as knowledge. / Thesis (DPhil (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / unrestricted