This thesis explores the discourses available to teachers in navigating and making sense of their role in the securitization of high schools. My analysis is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with nine teachers working in urban schools in Toronto. Drawing on frameworks from post-colonial, critical race, and urban education studies, I argue that school securitization is not just complicated by racism, but structured and enabled by it. While there is an urgent need to resist the implementation of particular security and surveillance measures that intensify the targeted disqualification of racialized youth, it is equally if not more important to uncover and resist the ways that racial thinking organizes a much wider range of classroom encounters and pedagogical practices. I urge teachers to interrogate their investments in the categories and subject positions that race thinking makes available, including those that are desirable and pleasurable.

Research on racial border patrolling has demonstrated how people police racial borders in order to maintain socially constructed differences and reinforce divisions between racial groups and their members. Existing literature on border patrolling has primarily focused on white/black couples and multiracial families, with discussions contrasting “white border patrolling” and “black border patrolling,” in terms of differential motivations, intentions, and goals (Dalmage 2000). In my dissertation research, I examined a different type of policing racial categories and the spaces in-between these shifting boundaries. I offer up “multiracial interracial border patrolling” as a means of understanding how borderism impacts the lives of “multiracial” individuals in “interracial” relationships. In taking a look at how both identities and relationships involve racial negotiations, I conducted 60 in-depth, face-to-face qualitative interviews with people who indicated having racially mixed parentage or heritage. Respondents shared their experiences of publicly and privately managing their sometimes shifting preferred racial identities; often racially ambiguous appearance; and situationally in/visible “interracial” relationships in an era of colorblind racism. This management included encounters with border patrolling from strangers, significant others, and self. Not only did border patrolling originate from these three sources, but also manifested itself in a variety of forms, including benevolent (positive, supportive); beneficiary (socially and sometimes economically or materially beneficial); protective, and malevolent (negative, malicious, conflictive). Throughout, I discussed the border patrolling variations that “multiracial” individuals in “interracial” relationships face. I also worked to show how people’s participation in border patrolling encouraged their production of colorblind discourses as a strategy for masking their racial attitudes and ideologies about “multiracial” individuals in “interracial” relationships.

The function $sin x$ as one of the six trigonometric functions is fundamental in nearly every branch of mathematics, and its applications. In this thesis, we study an integral equation related to that of $sin x$: $mbox{~for~}xin[-frac{hat{pi}_{p}}{2},~frac{hat{pi}_{p}}{2}] mbox{~and~} p>1$ $$x=int_0^{S_{p}(x)}(1-|t|^{p})^{-frac{1}{p}}dt.$$ Here $hat{pi}_{p}=frac{2pi}{psin(frac{pi}{p})}=2int_0^1(1-t^{p})^{-frac{1}{p}}dt.$ We find that the function $S_{p}(x)$ is well defined. Its properties are also similar to those of $sin x$ : differentiation, identities, periodicity, asymptotic expansions, $cdots$, etc. For example, we have $$|S_{p}(x)|^{p}+|S'_{p}(x)|^{p}=1mbox{~~and~~}frac{d}{dx}(|S'_{p}(x)|^{p-2}S'_{p}(x))=-(p-1)|S_{p}(x)|^{p-2}S_{p}(x).$$ We call $S_{p}(x)$ the generalized sine function. Similarly, we define the generalized cosine function $C_{p}(x)$ by $|x|=int_{C_{p}(x)}^{1}(1- t^{p})^{-frac{1}{p}}dt$ for $xin[-frac{hat{pi}_{p}}{2}$,~$frac{hat{pi}_{p}}{2}]$ and derive its properties. Thus we obtain two sets of trigonometric functions: egin{itemize} item[(i)]$~S_{p}(x),~ S'_{p}(x),~ T_{p}(x)=frac{S_{p}(x)}{S'_{p}(x)},~RT_{p}(x)=frac{S'_{p}(x)}{S_{p}(x)},~ SE_{p}(x)=frac{1}{S'_{p}(x)},~ RS_{p}(x)=frac{1}{S_{p}(x)}~;$ item[(ii)]$~C_{p}(x),~ C'_{p}(x),~RCT_{p}(x)=-frac{C'_{p}(x)}{C_{p}(x)},~ CT_{p}(x)=-frac{C_{p}(x)}{C'_{p}(x)},~RC_{p}(x)=frac{1}{C_{p}(x)},~ CS_{p}(x)=-frac{1}{C'_{p}(x)}mbox{~¡C~}$ end{itemize}These two sets of functions have similar differentiation formulas, identities and periodic properties as the classical trigonometric functions. They coincide when $p=2$. Their graphs and asymptotic expansions are also interesting. Through this study, we understand more about the theoretical framework of trigonometric functions.

Thesis (M.A.) in Mathematics--University of Maine, 2001. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 45).

This study explores the complexities associated with graduate language instructors’ identities and teaching practices, specifically with regard to the teaching of culture in the FL classroom. These areas are important to study because negotiating various identities has been shown to impact language learning and teaching (Dippold, 2006; Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Menard-Warwick, 2008). In addition, instructors’ identities and the influence on their teaching practices may impact pedagogy (Menard-Warwick, 2008). The study investigates the identities and experiences of eight graduate instructors of German – four (two male and two female) native and four (three male and one female) non-native speakers of German – in the spring semester of 2009 at the University of Texas at Austin. The participants included novice and advanced German instructors at different levels in their graduate studies. Three questionnaires, three self-reflective journal entries, three observations, one focus group interview, and individual interviews with each participant provided the data for this study. These data were analyzed using qualitative methods, specifically grounded theory and discursive psychology. The themes and categories, as well as interpretive repertoires and subject positions which are based on Edley’s (2001) analytical framework, offered an in-depth understanding of teacher identities and the impact of identities on teaching practices in regard to culture. Findings illustrate that the participants negotiated their identities in interaction and dialogue with others (Bakhtin, 1981) and in different communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). In discussing their identities, instructors also used various interpretive repertoires, underscoring their individuality and their experiences. The study’s findings suggest, furthermore, that the issue of teacher identities needs to be included in teacher training and must play a significant role in FL education, in order to support language teaching and learning. / text

<p>This thesis explores the shifting cultural identities of young Owambo migrants living in Babilon, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Windhoek, Namibia. Through an investigation of their social, cultural and economic lives, I show how these young people invoke their Owambo-ness, but how they also transcend their ethnic identifications through engaging in an emerging Namibian youth culture, which cuts across rural-urban, ethnic, and socio-economic divides. I argue that young migrants from Ovamboland, who intend to escape their poverty stricken rural homes and arrive on packed busses, bringing with them few possessions and great expectations, constantly shift and resituate their cultural identities while trying to make a living in the city. These young people are eager to engage fully in a better life and hope to find employment in the urban economy. For many, however, this remains just that &ndash / hope. In their daily lives, the young migrants replicate, reproduce and represent rural Owambo within the urban space. Using the examples of &lsquo / traditional&rsquo / food and small-scale urban agriculture, I explore how their ideas of Owambo-ness are imagined, enforced and lived in Babilon. I argue that although migrants identify themselves in many ways with their rural homes, and retain rural values and practices to a large extent, this does not mean that they would remain &ldquo / tribesmen&rdquo / , as earlier, how classic studies in Southern African urban anthropology argued (Mayer 1961 / Wilson and Mafeje 1963). They also appropriate &ldquo / ideologies&rdquo / and practices of the emerging Namibian youth culture, especially popular local music and cell phones. My study thus shows that the migrants develop multiple, fluid identities (with reference to Bank 2002) / they identify concurrently with the urban and the rural and develop a synthesis of both. The thesis is based on ethnographic research, which was conducted between February and May 2008. During the fieldwork, I engaged daily in informal discussions with many residents of Babilon, and carried out life history interviews, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews with key research participants.</p>

Early childhood teachers spend their professional lives in social interactions with children, families and colleagues. Social interactions shape how people understand themselves and each other through discourses. Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand negotiate their subjectivities, or self-understandings, within initial teacher education (ITE), professional expectations, education and society. They are shaped by historical and contemporary discourses of early childhood teaching professionalism as they gain status as qualified and registered teachers. Early childhood teachers’ understandings of their personal professional identities influence self-understandings of everyone they encounter professionally, especially young children. This poststructural qualitative collective case study investigates five newly-qualified early childhood teachers’ negotiations of their personal professional identities. My research study is based in postmodern understandings of identities as multiple, complex and dynamic, and subjectivities as self-understandings formed within discourses. In contrast, institutionally-directed reflective writing in early childhood ITE can reflect modernist perspectives that assume essentialist, knowable identities. Tensions exist between my postmodern theoretical framework and my data collection strategy of facilitated self-study, an approach that is usually based on the modernist assumption that there is a self to investigate and know. My participants explored their subjectivities through focus group discussions, individual interviews, and reflective writing, including institutionally-directed reflective writing. Three dominant discourses of early childhood education emerged from data analysis that drew on Foucault’s theoretical ideas: the authority discourse, the relational professionalism discourse and the identity work discourse. Positioned in these discourses, all participants regarded themselves as qualified and knowledgeable, skilled at professional relationships and as reflective practitioners. They actively negotiated tensions between professional expectations and understandings of their multiple, complex and changing identities. I concluded that these participants negotiated understandings of their personal professional identities within three dominant discourses through discursive practices of discipline and governmentality, seeking pleasurable subject positions, and agentic negotiation of tensions and contradictions between available subjectivities.

This thesis explores the experiences of school for gifted and talented adolescents in New Zealand. The foci of inquiry are a) what it is like to be gifted and talented in a New Zealand schooling context, and b) the understandings of a group of students, their parents and teachers, about the achievement and underachievement of gifted learners. The research relates specifically to a group of 11 gifted and talented students, their experiences and ideas about what it means to be gifted and talented and to achieve as gifted and talented learners. Adopting a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, the voices of the students were prioritised in the research process and thesis writing. Semi-structured interviews are the main source of data. Multiple interviews were conducted with the adolescent participants over a period of 18 months, within their first two years of secondary schooling, and with their parents and teachers. Written reflections by the students provide supplementary data. The thesis explores and problematises understandings of achievement and underachievement that are presented in literature and were held by the research participants. The implications of these understandings on the decisions that gifted adolescents make, about what constitutes achievement and whether and how they seek to achieve in school, are highlighted. The essences of the lived schooling experiences for the gifted and talented adolescents in this study are drawn together and summarised in three main themes. The first theme relates to culture and context and how this influenced the students’ understandings about what it meant to be gifted and talented within the particular socio-cultural milieu of a New Zealand school. The participants showed an understanding of the preferred New Zealand values of modesty and the downplaying of any perceived advantages. The second theme relates to the concept of ‘potential’ as an enigma and a nebulous term that is assumed to mean different and particular things for gifted and talented learners. It is argued that it is not theoretically sound to structure definitions of underachievement for gifted learners around the idea of ‘not reaching your potential.’ The third theme relates to the negotiation of adolescent identities. Being gifted and talented added to the complexities around identity development for the students who participated in the study, as they worked to find their fit within the socio-cultural context of a New Zealand school. Four different identity profiles are developed to provide an illustration of the variation and complexity of gifted and talented students’ identity negotiations. There is little research literature that centres on the lived experiences of gifted students within New Zealand society. This study seeks to address this gap. The research and theorising from this thesis will add to the growing research base in New Zealand on educating gifted and talented learners. Readers of the thesis, who may include a range of education professionals, are invited to draw implications from the study about the experiences and achievement of gifted adolescents and relate the findings to their knowledge and understanding of gifted and talented learners, within their own work situations and cultural contexts.

This research attempts to identify the factors which influence the choice of science subjects in Mauritius among girls at the end of the third year of secondary education, the level up to which science is a compulsory subject. This low uptake of science subjects by girls beyond the compulsory level is a matter of concern. The study was undertaken in four purposely selected schools in Mauritius, two mixed-sex and two girls’ schools. Using mainly a qualitative approach, data were collected through: (i) non-participant observations of 60 science and 20 non-science lessons, (ii) 16 semi-structured face-to-face interviews of teachers, and six group interviews with pupils and (iii) 135 questionnaires administered to the parents of the pupils in the classes observed in the four schools. Based on the results of a pilot study, modifications were made for the main study. The data provided insights into teachers’ teaching approaches, the behaviour and interest of pupils in the lessons and other factors such as pupils’ perceptions of science, their self-identity and role models, and the extent to which parents and peers influence the choice of subjects among girls. The findings show that teaching approaches were mainly traditional and that both girls and boys prefer hands-on activities and contextual examples reflecting real-life situations. The majority of the girls’ experiences of science were negative and this deterred them from taking science beyond the compulsory level although they were aware of its importance. Teachers had positive opinions about girls’ ability to do science but stated that lack of infrastructure facilities did not allow them to involve the pupils in practical work as much as they would wish. However, brighter girls’ decisions to study sciences were not outweighed by these factors. Parents felt that they did not influence their daughters in the choice of subjects or eventual careers though they held science in high esteem.

This study examines why teachers sometimes struggle to develop caring relationships with their students, despite their intention to do so. To do this, the notion of caring relationships (Mayeroff, 1971) is explored, as well as the influence of teachers’ emotions on these dynamics. The study also examines environmental factors in schools that influence caring teacher-student relationships. In all, fourteen teachers with early, middle, and senior years experience participated in two focus-groups each, and seven of these participants were interviewed individually. Because this study adopts a grounded theory approach, the coding of data is foundational to the data analysis. More specifically, open (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 1978), focused (Charmaz, 2006), and selective coding (Glaser, 1978) are used to identify the emergent categories in the data, and how they interrelate with each other. Theoretical coding (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 1978) is used to link emergent categories to extant literature to further develop the study’s conceptualization. The findings suggest that teachers’ emotions and more specifically, fear, guilt, and shame, reflect the dissonance that they sometimes experience as they align their idealized views of themselves with their roles in their teaching (McCall & Simmons, 1978). Building on earlier work by Beijaard (1995) and Nias (1989, 1996), this study’s findings suggest that teachers rely primarily on their students to gauge their success in their role and their identities as teachers. Also, teachers’ competitive relationships with their colleagues often reflect their unintentional attempts to protect their relationships with students from the influences of other adults, so as to safeguard their students as their primary source of role support. This not only raises questions about the caring nature of teachers’ relationships with their students (Mayeroff, 1971), but it also underscores the fact that teachers’ collaboration in schools is frequently superficial in quality. This study also suggests that teachers tend to isolate themselves in their classrooms and have little awareness of how their responses to their emotions in teaching influence their caring relationships with students. Finally, the findings indicate that school administrators can act as important role support for teachers as they develop caring relationships with their students.