This thesis documents the everyday experiences of adults with disabilities living in a rural area of South Africa. Given South Africa’s tumultuous history, characterised by human rights violations incurred through cultural, political and racial disputes, and the country’s current state of socio-economic and political turmoil, violence has come to represent a core feature in the lives of many South Africans. This, together with the impact of unemployment, food insecurity and unequal power distribution, has significantly affected the ways in which many people make sense of their life experiences. Despite the fact that exposure to unequal power dynamics, violence, marginalisation and exclusion are documented to dominate the life experiences of people with disabilities, little is understood about the ways in which these aspects manifest in the interpretation and reconstruction of experiences. Previous research into the field of disability studies has depended primarily on quantitative measures, or on the reports of family members and caregivers as proxies, perpetuating the cycle of voicelessness and marginalization amongst adults with disabilities. Those studies which have adopted qualitative measures in order to explore the psychosocial experiences of disability have focussed largely on the limitations imposed by physical access, and have relied predominantly on the medical and social models of disability, or on the World Health Organisation’s International Classification on Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO ICF, 2001). These models consider the psychosocial experience of disability to be universal, and do not adequately take into account the impact of cultural and contextual variables. This has negatively impacted on the establishment of a research repository upon which evidence-based practice has been developed. This thesis aimed to explore and document the lived experiences of 30 adults with a variety of disabilities, living in 12 rural villages in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. A combination of narrative inquiry and participant observation was employed in order to examine the relationship between personal and social interpretations of experience. Data analysis was conducted using a combination of Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) Three Dimensional Narrative Inquiry Space, Harré’s Positioning Theory (1990, 1993, & 2009), and Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Results revealed that narratives were plurivocal in nature, giving rise to a complex relationship between personal and social interpretations of experience. The findings highlighted the impact of cultural norms, values and roles on making sense of experiences associated with disability. Four new types of narrative emerged, none of which conformed to the current interpretations of lived experience as reported in the literature. All of the narratives were pervaded by the embodied experience of violence, including evidence of structural, physical, psychological and sexual violence, as well as violence by means of deprivation. This gave rise to a sense of moral decay and highlighted the ways in which abuse of power has become woven into lived experience. In this way insight was gained into the complex interplay between impairment, exclusion, high mortality rates, violence, and poverty in rural areas. Narrative inquiry proved to be a particularly useful tool for providing insight into disability as a socio-cultural construct, drawing attention to a variety of clinical, policy and theoretical implications. These gave rise to a number of broader philosophical questions pertaining to the role of memory, vulnerability and responsibility, and the ways in which all citizens have the potential to be complicit in denying the reality of lived experience amongst vulnerable members of society. These findings demand attention to the ways in which governments, communities and individuals conceive of what it means to be human, and consequently how the ethics of care is embraced within society.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / Teacher quality is a central concern of the profession. College-based teacher education, the core of teacher preparation in the United States, has increasingly included some form of practitioner inquiry in the pre-service program to encourage teacher candidates to be reflective, adaptive teachers who systematically and intentionally examine practice to improve pupil outcomes and continue their own professional development. While it is assumed that pre-service practitioner inquiry has a positive influence on pupils' learning, there is still little empirical evidence to support this assertion. Most empirical data on pre-service practitioner inquiry is confined to a short time period and does not examine what happens to pre-service candidates when they enter their own classrooms. Additionally, this research is generally conducted using interpretive qualitative methods. Thus, this dissertation uses a longitudinal mixed methods approach to examine what happens when teacher candidates engage in practitioner research in a pre-service program focused on inquiry with the goal of improving pupil learning. A modified sequential explanatory mixed methods design was employed as the best means of addressing this complex question. The study included data from three sources in a teacher preparation program focused on practitioner inquiry. The first analysis took a broad view of the quality and range of teacher candidates' research papers through the analysis of rubric scores for 92 teacher candidate inquiry papers in two cohorts (spring, 2006 and spring, 2007). Looking at the quality and nature of these projects, content analysis on a sample of twelve papers taken from the range of these scores was conducted. Finally, in-depth case studies of two participants were developed using data accumulated during the one-year pre-service program and through the first two years in the classroom. Findings in the quantitative analysis indicated that the rubric was reliable in differentiating among papers, but that there were fewer outstanding inquiries than expected, which were not explained by analysis of the scores. Content analysis of a sample of these papers indicated that differences were in how questions were formed; candidates' ability to interpret and use data recursively; whether and how candidates connected their learning to pupil learning; and if candidates connected their inquiry to issues of social justice in meaningful ways. The case studies showed that several factors influenced whether and how candidates moved toward the development of inquiry as stance. These factors included candidates' view of inquiry; teacher capacity; demands of curriculum planning and development; understandings of learning to teach for social justice; as well as school support and context. Overall, the three analyses in this dissertation indicated that requiring teacher candidates to engage in pre-service practitioner inquiry did not guarantee that they would understand inquiry as intended, develop an inquiry stance, or continue to inquire into practice in their own classrooms. These findings suggest implications for research, practice, and policy, which are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

College requires students to read strategically in order to be academically successful (Caverly, Nicholson, & Radcliffe, 2004). Strategic readers utilize a variety of strategies, including metacognitive reading strategies (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002; Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). However, not all students use the same strategies when reading academic text. The purpose of this study was to explore whether students enrolled in a developmental reading course report using different metacognitive reading strategies than students who are enrolled in a college-level English course. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (Mokhatari & Reichard, 2002) was administered to 423 students at a community college in the southeastern United States. The results of the Tests of Between-Subjects Effects indicated that the main effect for group membership was not significant. The results of the Tests of Within-Subjects Effects indicated that problem solving was reportedly used relatively equally by the two groups, but global and support reading strategies were used less by the English group,with the interaction effect even stronger for support strategies. The implications of this study on teaching and further research were also explored. / by Sophia Munro. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis seeks to elaborate the inner qualities of integrity and presence in professional practice. It is offered as a contribution to the growing body of literature that shifts the emphasis in professional development from the transfer of skills and knowledge to the transformation of practice. Professional education has been viewed as the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required to address the presenting problems of daily practice. It has been assumed that the answers to these problems can be identified, codified and passed on to others, resulting in a kind of professionalism by protocol. But, as Dreyfus & Dreyfus (2005) have pointed out, there is a qualitative shift in the practice of experts when compared to novices and beginners. The expert evidences a deliberative skill that does not rely on the application of protocols but on extensive case by case experience. Indeed professionalism may be understood as the quality of practice that is evident at the very moment when protocols no longer apply (Coles 2002).Professional practice is not a simple concept as Kemmis (2006) has shown. The thesis contributes to this field by suggesting that professionalism is acquired through prolonged inquiry into the contingencies of quotidian practice and that this shapes the inner qualities the practitioner brings to their practice. It is offered as a first person inquiry (Reason 2001) that probes fractals of my own professional practice over a five year period. In telling my personal story, I give an account of an emergent methodology that engages with action research and narrative inquiry. A narrative mode of knowing (Bruner 1986) notices the complex, many sided and sometimes conflicting stories of professional life resulting, not in a set of propositional claims, but in an account that provides the reader with the imaginal space to enter the process and participate, with me, in making sense of professional practice.

Orientador: João Antonio Telles / Banca: Stela Miller / Banca: Solange Teresinha Ricardo de Castro / Resumo: Esta pesquisa trata de reflexões acerca da formação de alunos de Letras de uma universidade pública paulista e de meu primeiro ano de exercício profissional como professora de língua portuguesa em uma escola estadual. A partir da observação de minha prática de ensino, constatei que minha ação como professora era direcionada por vivências que havia tido como aluna e não por uma concepção de ensino que estivesse fundamentada teoricamente. Comecei, então, a questionar o fato de uma professora recém-formada ingressar no magistério sem ter uma fundamentação teórica consciente acerca do trabalho que desenvolveria com os alunos. Desta forma, decidi investigar como as dificuldades que tive ao ingressar no magistério eram também sentidas entre os alunos do quarto ano do curso de Letras que participaram da pesquisa. Por meio da análise do material produzido por eles (portfolios elaborados na disciplina Prática de Ensino de Língua Portuguesa e Estágio Supervisionado) seria, então, possível ter uma percepção mais ampla de meu próprio processo de formação, uma vez que investigaria as questões que me afetavam como professora recém-formada. Assim, escrevendo textos de pesquisa a partir das narrativas dos participantes, conforme propõe a Pesquisa Narrativa (CLANDININ & CONNELLY, 2000), produzi sentidos sobre os excertos que tratavam das expectativas dos futuros professores acerca da profissão docente e da relação que eles estabeleciam ou não entre teoria e prática de ensino. Um resultado central deste estudo indica que há uma diferença significativa entre a compreensão de uma teoria quando dela nos apropriamos e quando essa apropriação não existe. Desta forma, narro como se deu o processo de apropriação de uma perspectiva teórica que se tornou essencial para compreender e pensar em transformar minha própria prática docente. / Abstract: The research reported in this dissertation is about reflection during the pre-service education of future language teachers of a public university in the state of São Paulo. The study also includes my own process of reflection on my first year as a teacher of Portuguese in a public junior high school. As I reflected on my own teaching practice as a beginning teacher, I noticed that my classroom action was being guided by the experience I had as a student, instead of a theoretically based concept of teaching. Then, I started questioning how a teacher who had just graduated could begin her work without having theoretically conscious bases about the work that was to be developed with her students. Therefore, I decided to investigate how the difficulties I had when I started teaching could also be noticed by the pre-service teachers who participated in this study. Through the analysis of these participants' narratives (portfolios developed in the course Teaching Practicum of Portuguese), I believed that I could reach a broader perception of my own process of professional development if I focused on the matters that were affecting myself as a novice teacher. By writing research texts about the participants' narratives, as proposed by Narrative Inquiry (CLANDININ & CONNELLY, 2000), I have produced meanings from excerpts of my participants' stories about their expectations regarding their profession and the relationship between theory and their novice teaching practice. The first result of this study shows meaningful differences between understanding a theory when it is appropriated by us and when it is not. The second result illustrates my process of appropriation of a theory and how central it became in the process of transforming my novice teaching practice. My contact with Vygotski's Historical-Cultural Perspective allowed me to understand the complexity of the educational process. / Mestre

The book of 1-2 Samuel, originally one scroll, is an episodic narrative recounting how the ancient Israelite monarchy was established around 1000 BC by the prophet Samuel and the kings Saul and David. For well over a century historical critics have sought to discern the process of its composition, proposing various conclusions with little consensus. Presently it is generally believed that several blocks of traditional material on common themes (e.g. the History of David's Rise) were brought together in the later pre-exilic period as part of the so-called Deuteronomistic History. This thesis chooses to begin with the present limits of 1-2 Samuel (without including, for example, 1Kgs 1-2), and undertakes to apply rhetorical analysis to all fifty-five chapters, episode by episode, each in its final-form position. The particular structural technique that has been discerned throughout this book is inverted parallelism with an unparalleled centre, here termed 'concentrism'. The unique contributions of this thesis are firstly a careful methodology for concentrism in Hebrew narrative, based on Hebrew poetic and oral composition and proposing specific criteria for identifying and verifying such structures. Secondly, the thesis attempts to account for the current position of every episode in the book, discerning how each contributes to the larger work as regards literary structure and rhetorical message. The resulting arrangement demonstrates an overall unity of technique and authorial perspective, focused on the themes of prophecy (hence the thesis title), deliverance from military attack, religious devotion and dynastic succession. The centre of this thesis therefore provides a detailed description of the discovered structure, one chapter for each of the book's two primary segments (1Sam 1 - 2Sam 6; 2Sam 7-24). A lengthy preceding chapter addresses various theoretical issues often raised relating to such concentric patterns (often inadequately labelled 'chiasmus'/'chiastic'). A summary chapter likewise follows the central chapters, revisiting themes of the methodology and drawing conclusions together. An initial chapter outlines past and present compositional theories, and a concluding chapter suggests further avenues of future research.

No abstract available

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

The literature and research investigating why people choose social work as a career has tended to focus on motivational traits rather than on the choice experience itself. Whereas the vocational sector has moved to include a focus on the narrative processes involved with selecting a career, much of the social work research fails to capture the meaning-making processes individuals engage in to make sense of their career choices within their personal and social contexts. This research project describes the meaning-making processes two students participating in the social work program at Central Queensland University and I employ to understand our career choice experiences. Over a period of four years, using a research approach that combines Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry with Riessman’s (2003) emphasis on social positioning within narratives, Geraldine, John and I explore the interplay between individual, community and professional agendas in our past, present and imagined career choice experiences – particularly focusing on the impact of gender. Identifying the importance of caring as a hallmark of the profession and what draws us to social work, this co-constructed research text highlights the agendas that predominantly support women’s entrance into the profession and challenge men’s participation. Drawing on the metaphor of a quilt to describe our career choice experience, this project draws attention to the importance for aspiring social workers to carefully choose, cut and join together bits of gendered narrative material to create a professional story that both legitimises their entrance into the profession and to position them within the larger career sector.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, U.S. Army, 1961. / "April 1961." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in microfiche.