The addition of the 19-25 age range in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (2014) presents wide scale change in the post 16 education landscape. Organisational change is a well-established field of psychology and research suggests that the effective management of change is key to effect practice. Within a critical realist paradigm, this research employs a case study design to explore the views of professionals implementing Special Educational Needs and Disability policy reform. Qualitative semi-structured interview data was analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke (2006)). Implications for the Educational Psychology Service and central and local government are proposed, which take into account both supportive factors and potential constraints of implementing policy reform.

Women’s perception of university education and professional life during the period 1900 to 1945 is the focus of this study. In order to examine these perceptions, the thesis undertakes a close textual analysis of autobiographical writings by two medical doctors, Rahel Straus (1880-1963) and Charlotte Wolff (1897-1986) and the aviator Elly Beinhorn (1907-2007). The images employed in these texts indicate the intricate ways that individual women in the professions define their sense of who they are in relation to their surroundings and how that sense may shift in different settings and at different times, or may ostensibly not shift at all. I have developed a differentiated language for the purposes of articulating the fluidity. This language allows me to take apart narrative levels and to examine the importance that is attached to gender in relation to religion, race, nationality, sexuality and professional identities. Through differentiating between narrative levels I am able to juxtapose life experiences that at first glance seem unconnected and to show this can be done without imposing binary classifications such as ‘emancipated’ or ‘un-emancipated’, as ‘political’ or ‘apolitical’ or ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’. The language that I have developed enables me to explore the articulation of self where it cannot be classified and where self should not be judged.

This phenomenographic study, explores the collaborative open learning experience of academic staff and open learners in cross-institutional academic development settings, and adds to what is known in these settings. It provides new insights for academic developers and course designers about the benefits of crossing boundaries (i.e. open learning) in an academic development context and proposes an alternative model to traditional academic Continuing Professional Development (CPD). It engages academic staff in experiencing novel approaches to learning and teaching and developing as practitioners through engagement in academic CPD that stretches beyond institutional boundaries, characterised by diversity and based on collaboration and openness. Data collection was conducted using a collective case study approach to gain insights into the collective lived collaborative open learning experience in two authentic cross-institutional academic development settings with collaborative learning features designed in. At least one of the institutions involved in each course was based in the United Kingdom. Twenty two individual phenomenographic interviews were conducted and coded. The findings illustrate that collaborative open learning was experienced as two dynamic immersive and selective patterns. Boundary crossing as captured in the categories of description and their qualitatively different variations, shaped that experience and related to modes of participation; time, place and space; culture and language as well as diverse professional contexts. Facilitator support and the elasticity of the design also positively shaped this experience. The community aspect influenced study participants' experience at individual and course level and illuminated new opportunities for academic development practice based on cross-boundary community-led approaches. The findings synthesised in the phenomenographic outcome space, depicting the logical relationships of the eleven categories of description in this study, organised in structural factors, illustrate how these contributed and shaped the lived experience, together with a critical discussion of these with the literature, aided the creation of the openly licensed cross-boundary collaborative open learning framework for cross-institutional academic development, the final output of this study. A design tool developed from the results is included that aims to inform academic developers and other course designers who may be considering and planning to model and implement such approaches in their own practice.

My thesis focuses on the experiences of people with albinism in higher education (HE) in Tanzania. Albinism is a genetically inherited condition and it affects people of all ethnic backgrounds worldwide. In Tanzania, the condition affects one in every 1,400 people. People with albinism in Tanzania often face social discrimination, superstition, and prejudice including murder threats due to myths and beliefs that their body parts are a source of wealth and prosperity. They also experience physical challenges including threats from the African tropical sun and visual impairment. All these factors interact with educational opportunities. Information about the oppression, killings and amputation of body parts of people with albinism in Tanzania has been widely reported in the media globally. However, albinism remains socially under-researched and under-theorized – especially in relation to how it interacts with HE opportunity structures. This research attempts to contribute to existing literature and construct new insights into albinism and HE. In so doing, I draw upon a range of theoretical approaches including Sarah Ahmed's concept of affective economies and fear of difference, Margaret Archer's notions of the internal conversation and reflexivity as well as various established feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir to analyse and explain issues arising from the study including misogyny. I also draw upon Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence. My research is a case study of albinism in HE in Tanzania. Using qualitative methods I draw upon feminist methodological approaches, values and principles to explore albinism and explain what constrains and enables students with the condition to interact with HE opportunities. The data for this research were collected from 35 participants in Tanzania, namely: 14 students with albinism (involving current and graduate students with albinism); six teaching staff and five HE support staff members. Other participants included officials from four non-governmental organisations (NGOs), four government officials, one parent and one student reader/note-taker. I conducted 19 face-to-face semi-structured interviews with six current students with albinism, three teaching staff, four NGO officials and four government officials. Likewise, I conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with one parent and one student reader. I also conducted one Skype interview with a current student with albinism as well as three focus groups discussions with 14 participants. The first group was of seven graduates with albinism, the second involved three teaching staff and the third was of four HE support staff. I also used desk-based research methods, conducting telephone conversations with 52 statistics officers in order to investigate where students with albinism are located within HE in Tanzania. Looking at literature and my research questions, the data were then compared across different participants and universities to establish patterns and common themes among them. The findings from this research indicated that the systems of power that work to oppress people with albinism are multifaceted with structural, cultural and socio-economic conditions. Some key findings included how people with albinism were subjected to misogyny, myths and fear of the ‘other'. However, the 14 students with albinism in this study demonstrated a high level of agency, creativity, autonomy and motivation to improve their lives and thus overcome discriminatory social structures, oppression and harassment. They also illustrated their commitments to contribute usefully to society despite the constraints and limited support that they often encountered. Access to HE was seen as a major way to transform their identity by challenging deeply ingrained social prejudices, which often label people with albinism as having limited cognitive capacity. The implications of this research are that government commitment will be required in order to allocate sufficient funds to promote awareness of, and create change about, albinism and the elimination of household poverty, particularly that of female-headed households (FHH), as well as to adequately finance HE institutions so they can put in place support services and arrangements for students with albinism.

Higher education has expanded in many countries, including Ghana. This is attributed to the realisation that economies can only be developed and sustained through the development of human and knowledge capital, which is obtainable through higher education participation. Consequently, higher education institutions in Ghana have experienced some diversity and heterogeneity in their composition in terms of participants' ages, socio-economic status, culture and gender, among others. However, it is important to ask how different groups of students fare once entered. A recent ESRC/DFID research project by Morley et al (2010) found that mature students are most at risk of dropping out of higher education. Yet, the experiences of mature students are under researched in Ghana. My study employed the interpretive qualitative research approach to examine life narratives via interviews with eight mature undergraduate women from different socio-economic backgrounds in one public university in Ghana. The study is based on the idea that women who combine domestic work with academic work experience tensions, and therefore must devise strategies to manage their conflicting roles in order to navigate their way through higher education. The women in this study were sampled from the departments of Sociology and Basic Education, where they are known to be clustered. The rationale was to explore their experiences, describe the strategies they adopt to navigate through HE, and to use the findings to make suggestions for institutional development and learning. The findings indicate that the women students' different socio-economic backgrounds, marital status and family lives influence the way they experience higher education and the strategies they adopt for progressing through it. Most of the participants found academic work difficult and made reference to gaps in terms of their knowledge deficit, unfamiliar courses and teaching methods. Again, some women students felt out of place in the higher education arena and therefore had to ‘cut down much of their years' psychologically so that they could mix easily with the younger students. The implications drawn from this study are that there is need for the formulation of an institutional policy on mature women students in higher education, which would also ensure the regular provision of professional development programmes for higher education practitioners. It is expected that when higher education practitioners are regularly trained and sensitised about the heterogeneity in the composition of higher education, and particularly about mature women students' conflicting roles, it will improve their practice, enhance the qualitative experiences of mature women students and consequently, help to retain and increase their participation in higher education.

After critically reviewing evidence in historical debates of a persistent claim of a declining interest in the sciences, the thesis draws on contemporary HESA data to calculate firstyear STEM intake figures to Higher Education from 2002-03 to 2014-15 to estimate both a level of STEM recruitment and the number of STEM graduates produced after completing a graduate and post graduate programme over the same period. The supply of graduates is then considered against a level of demand estimated through two proxy indicators, the vacancy rate and salary levels for science and technology graduates. An analysis of the recruitment patterns for science and engineering to identify factors a↵ecting recruitment was also conducted. The research study was supplemented with a ‘before and after' survey of the London Youth International Science Forum initiative, to assess its impact on recruitment to STEM subjects. Despite the perception of a shortfall in STEM numbers, the findings show graduate recruitment numbers rising over the period under examination, although a regional variation in supply, and shortfalls in some STEM disciplines, may account for claims of a shortfall in graduate numbers. The contribution to knowledge of this research lies in the in-depth analysis of the student recruitment patterns to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UK over the period from 2003 to 2015. While the analysis identified several relevant factors: contextual, political and financial acting as constraints to STEM recruitment, nevertheless, the research found no quantitative evidence of a crisis in recruitment.

This submission represents a journey of learning about learning within accounting education, and, in particular, the role of learning technologies and students’ skills in the process of learning. The work presented was published over the past decade and a half and addresses issues concerned with accounting education both past and present, and includes research on the author of the first printed text on double entry bookkeeping, Fra’ Luca Pacioli. The overriding research interest at the core of this submission and which has guided the various and varied phases and themes within in it is a concern to learn from how learning technologies are and have been an integral part of the educational environment, and to gain insight into how learning technologies might best be utilised in the field of accounting education. The work is presented in two themes with an additional two publications related to methodological approach. The first theme is related to students’ skills and technology and the second theme includes historical research into early accounting education. The published work in these themes is predominantly represented by research published in leading refereed journals in the fields of accounting education and accounting history. The additional two publications are included as they relate to and illustrate the methodological approaches that underlie the overall approach to the research that is presented and developed in the two themes: an approach that privileges, as far as practical, subjects’ contextual understandings of their worlds. Given the diversity of the work included in this submission there is no single research question and there are a diverse range of contributions. The work included contributes to our understanding of the introduction and utilisation of learning technologies in the teaching of accounting, both printed books in the 15th century and Information Technology (IT) in the late 20th/early 21st centuries, and the skills required to facilitate learning within the discipline of accounting. The practical value and importance of the research is supported by, inter alia, reference to the author’s applied work (not part of the submission) that illustrates how the published work contributes to good practice in skills development and the introduction and integration of learning technologies in the accounting curriculum. The papers on IT skills adds to our understanding of the IT skills that students bring with them to university, and raises awareness of the need to challenge the taken for granted assumptions about the abilities of new generations of students. The work on generic skills, whilst showing the importance of skills development also highlights the complexities in this area particularly in relation to issues concerned with confidence in making choices, in the subject matter, via modelling choices, and in time management: not knowing what to do, what to study. The paper on matrix accounting in a Russian university illustrates the potential of an approach to accounting education that is facilitated by the use of IT based learning. The work on Pacioli contributes significantly to our knowledge and understanding of Pacioli as a pioneer in the field of accounting education, and the role of his writing within Summa in the education, development and spread of double entry bookkeeping and accounting, in particular by relating the works to literature in fields such as renaissance art, educational systems and social development. In contrast, the sole authored work on Pacioli concentrates on an element of the minutiae of the bookkeeping process, the accounting for goods inventory, traces the longevity of this method of recording transactions, and shows how this had potential to provide important decision information to merchants, who were the prime market for Pacioli’s writing at the time. The two themes addressed in this submission include works that have individually made unique and significant contributions to the fields of accounting education and accounting history, and the two publications included to illustrate the methodological approach have made a contribution methodologically and to the finance literature. Taken together the works presented also provide a significant and original contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the role of learning technologies in accounting education and, by investigating new learning technologies in the different periods of time, provide a platform for further research to help us to appreciate the importance of technologies in accounting, and in accounting education.

This interactionist study follows a group of adults, who, after a break in their formal education, return to study in an institution of public sector higher education. It is based on a series of interviews, before and during the first year of their courses to examine their subjective interpretations of the reality of the return to study in comparison with what they expected it would be like. The increasing numbers of adults returning to higher education through a variety of access courses would seem to make this an opportune time to examine such experiences. However, this research raises questions about why this should be the case and examines answers at the level of the institution and the individuals themselves. It addresses the claims that the reasons for the increase are based on ideological assumptions in line with social justice but the reality which meets this group questions whether in fact provision and practice is in line with philosophy and purpose. By allowing a group of mature students to speak for themselves it questions the assumptions of those who would advocate a separate theory of adult education. Such humanistic beliefs may be within the perception of the educators but be beyond the reality or requirements of men and women who must fit their studies into already busy lives and who may thus have an instrumental approach to education. To suggest it should be otherwise is ethnocentric. This study seeks to examine whether or not one particular polytechnic takes cognisance of the needs of adults to meet the aims it claims to hold at an ideological level. At the same time, however, it asks about the relevance of humanistic approaches considering the conflicting demands of accountability within the changing status of public sector higher education corporations.

The UK Higher Education (UKHE) sector has expanded overseas student numbers in recent years bringing significant economic and financial benefits to the sector and the economy. Yet, overseas student numbers are now under threat due to international competition, UK immigration law and the recent referendum decision to leave the EU. As a result, two key challenges arise for UKHE: the need to operate effectively in an international market; and, to meet the increasing expectations of international students (Grove 2015).Chinese students form the largest overseas country group studying in the UK with 21% of all overseas students. Business studies, including accounting, is the most popular subject area with nearly 40% of all overseas students (UK Council for International Student Affairs, 2016). This DBA study explores the learning experiences of a cohort of overseas Chinese students who have transferred from two years of study at colleges in China to a professionally accredited accounting undergraduate degree programme at a Scottish university. The overarching aim is to understand the nature of the students' learning experiences in the context of the degree programme in which the study takes place. The research was conducted from a critical realist theoretical perspective and used a qualitative research method to develop an understanding of the nature of the learning experiences as perceived by participants. Research data, gathered from focus group interviews with student participants, was analysed thematically. Findings show that issues with English lead to low levels of integration with other students, resulting in participants turning towards a learning strategy of independent learning among themselves. This further restricts exposure to English, including specialised accounting vocabulary, accounting concepts and theories, and cultural experience. The findings make a contribution to knowledge in terms of how this group of overseas Chinese students perceive and respond to their learning experiences of a Scottish accounting degree programme including aspects of the specific accounting subject discipline. Recommendations offer considerations to enhance LTA practice in the wider HEI context and the accounting discipline.

The South African classroom music curriculum has changed in the twenty years since the transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994. The broad imperative for the main music education policy shifts is a political agenda of social transformation and reconciliation. Policy aims are to include many more learners in the music classroom by promoting the study of diverse musics that were previously marginalised and by providing a framework for music education that allows learners to progress at their own pace. This research study investigated to what extent music teachers are able and likely to fulfil the requirements of the new, post-apartheid curriculum, with particular reference to the National Curriculum Statement music policies (NCS). Specifically, it considered whether teachers have a particular allegiance to Western and/or African music. Twelve South African music teachers were interviewed for this purpose. The latest music curriculum revision in the form of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS, 2011) has modified knowledge content by streaming music into three distinct but parallel genres. In addition to Western music, the curriculum incorporates Indigenous African music and Jazz as representative of the diverse cultural interests of South Africans. An analysis of post-apartheid music policy documents draws on post-colonial thought to frame the affirmation of African music by giving it a prominent place in the curriculum. In order to appreciate the role different musics are expected to play in the curriculum, the work of prominent ethnomusicologists provides a means to conceptualise the range of emerging musics, including World Music, Global Music and Cosmopolitan Music, and their differences. For teachers to comply with the policy directive to teach different musics to diverse learners, they are required to expand their knowledge and adapt their teaching styles to achieve these aims. This study highlights a lack of resources and of structured teaching support through continuing professional development as well as a need for policy to give clearer direction in the way it instructs teachers to execute the changes demanded of them in the curriculum. An investigation of teachers’ own musical education and their views of the new curriculum reveals that they are willing to teach a variety of musics. Their perceptions of the differences between Western and African music illustrate a reflective understanding of the challenges they face in this undertaking.