This research considers the impact of the implementation of an alternative curriculum in a school for pupils with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties, who were, in the main, disaffected with education, had low attendance, poor behavior and unsatisfactory academic attainment. This paper suggests that one of the reasons for the pupils’ disaffection lay with the curriculum that was followed at the school. In order to measure the success of the new curriculum, many types of data were analysed, including data on pupils’ attendance, their behaviour and attitudes to learning and their academic achievements. Three sets of data were compared – one set gathered before the new curriculum began, a second set whilst it was in operation and a final set once it had finished. Changes in the data were used to determine the extent to which the alternative curriculum was successful in realising improvements in these three areas. Although not all the data supported the research hypothesis, there was sufficient evidence to confirm that the introduction of a new curriculum in this particular school at this particular time did increase attendance, improve behaviour and lead to an improvement in achievement for most of the pupils who followed the new curriculum.

This study investigates the interaction between adults with learning disabilities and their care staff. Many people with severe learning disabilities have little or no speech; for these individuals, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may enhance their communication. However, AAC non-use is a widely reported phenomenon. The study explores power and communicative competence within such interaction, as possible factors in AAC non-use. An ethnographic approach was adopted; data collection was carried out in five community homes, focusing on four residents. Field notes were accompanied by video and audio recordings of natural interaction between participants. Aspects of Critical Discourse Analysis were applied to the data within the themes of turn taking, topic control, exclusion from conversation, activity exchanges, test questions and politeness; the theme of AAC was also critically scrutinized. Findings regarding interaction between residents and staff were set in the context of the institution and of wider society. Substantial asymmetries in both communicative competence and power were evident. Staff tended to constrain interaction such that immediate participation of residents was facilitated; however, in the longer term, AAC use is likely to be thereby inhibited. Further application of critical approaches to AAC research is warranted.

This study investigates the very popular Urdu women's magazines and their readership, to find out what images of Pakistani life and values the digests promote, who reads them, and whether there is evidence that this vision influences the readers for good or ill. The study involves a content analysis of 30 issues of the digests for the past seven years, a thematic analysis of interview with five editors/producers of the digest and 21 of their readers, and a survey of 308 Urdu speakers - including both avid and non-readers of the digests. The individual and group interview with readers and non-readers provide further explanation of the choice and possible impact of reading digests. The findings show the digests as very conservative, intolerant of romance outside marriage, with no portrayal of alternative life styles, and a largely unsympathetic portrayal of western women and values - although there are some interesting tensions in the images used for the revenue-generating advertisements. The readers are generally moderate Muslims, who read the digests to pass time, for enjoyment, or to learn more about something meaningful to their lives. Regular digest readers are likely to have more leisure time than self-reported non-readers or occasional readers, and are also more likely to seek other entertainment via TV and films. Intriguingly, both the regular and non-readers have very similar values and ideals in their life - about relationships and religion, for example. Therefore, the digests appear to be 'mental chocolate', with no evidence here of insidious influence from the continuously conservative portrayal of Muslim women. If so, and if editors and publishers of these digests accept that this is so, then they can afford to offer their readers a greater variety of 'flavours', particularly by adding a more rounded liberal view of Pakistani women, and of women more generally. This finding has lessons for the conduct and validity of past and future research in this area. Where this study differs from the 'established wisdom' of prior research, it is largely because it compares the views of readers with non-readers, whereas most studies only consider readers, and because it looks at textual content, the intent of the text producers, and the reactions of the readers in one study.

The number of students with intellectual disabilities who continue studying past compulsory education in Malta is abysmal. This has spurred the choice of my research which aims to identify the factors that affect this phenomenon. This study uses first-hand accounts by individuals with intellectual disabilities on their experience of further education (FE) in Malta and attempts to highlight the associated benefits and barriers experienced. The results of this study have shown that although factors affecting FE inclusion in Malta are varied, the participants of the study focused primarily on the negative barriers arising from past school experience. The level of bullying and isolation experienced in mainstream school environments is considered a predominant factor in the choice of not pursuing FE. Another emerging factor is the lack of choice for students with intellectual disabilities to stand by their own wishes including the choice of whether or not to enter FE. This is considered to be due to an entrenched paternalistic attitude inherent in Maltese society which may originate from the island’s Catholic roots. These socio-cultural attitudes relegate people with intellectual disabilities to passive receivers of charity. It is perhaps these same attitudes that limit the accessibility also within FE in Malta as reported by the study participants. These factors are seen as playing a significant part in the reasons for such low participation of students with intellectual disabilities in FE locally. These barriers limit the opportunities for this student cohort to enjoy the benefits of FE which were identified primarily to be social integration, employment and independence.

Historically, society has developed and presented the concept of ‘disability’ in negative terms. This in turn led to the identification of individuals/groups with some medical conditions as ‘different’ from the general population. However, this theory has more recently been challenged by the narrative of inclusion which has contributed to questioning the term ‘difference’ and has replaced it with ‘diversity’. Young people with cleft have previously been identified in society by their ‘difference’ due to speech and appearance issues. Existing literature, largely from medical professionals, suggested that young people with cleft underachieve. Studies to date have been mainly carried out using quantitative methods. These investigations suggested a number of areas of challenge – primarily linguistic, cognitive, self-concept and concerning the expectations of others. In contrast, this research set out to attempt to understand more deeply the reasons for the suggested underachievement using qualitative research methods to explore the social and educational lives of young people with cleft at three different stages in their development. This research found that the narrative of underachievement among the young people with cleft involved in the study did not follow the pattern expected as it emerged from the medical literature. Overall individuality characterised the learning trajectory of the young people with cleft. All young people were making progress in their learning albeit at their own speed and as appropriate, with support. The experiences of learning at clubs/associations was more inclusive than those at school where no support was required and there were different expectations of adults supporting learning in clubs and schools. Labelling was a contentious issue but in individual cases this had negative consequences which were counterbalanced by friendship circles often formed at nursery school. This study highlighted teachers’ lack of knowledge of this medical condition and its potential consequences for educational experiences in individual cases and a lack of interpersonal and inter-agency communication. This study therefore challenges the deeply integrated societal stereotypes of young people with cleft. It highlights the importance of listening to children’s voices and offers suggestions to both educational and medical professionals for improving the experiences of the young people concerned.

Research suggests that many factors contribute to the formation of the student teachers' reflective practice, including the nature of their teacher education, their experiences in a community of practice, and how they build their professional identity as adult learners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the significance and development of reflection and reflective skills for Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) student teachers from a major teacher education institute in Malaysia. The research addressed three questions: To what extent do student teachers use reflection in their lessons? In what ways do their capacities for reflective practice develop over the practicum? What facilitating factors and barriers exist in the development of their reflective practice? Adopting a purposive sampling approach, ten student teachers, three mentor teachers and a supervisor were selected. All of the student teachers were studying for a bachelor's degree in TESL. They attended three phases of semi-structured interviews during the three months of their final practicum; the interviews took place after classroom observations every month. Mentor teachers and supervisors were also interviewed. Adopting an interpretivist approach, the weekly reflective diaries of the student teachers and the transcripts from the final phase of the post-observation interviews provided highly personal information from which vignettes of the participants were drawn. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed four significant issues affecting reflective practice: relational issues, such as how student teachers navigate issues arising within a community of practice; situational issues, for instance how they implement the curriculum; developmental issues, including how the quality of reflection may be judged; and experiential issues, which include how the student teachers construct their professional identities. The findings support most of the existing literature and provide valuable insights into the significance of reflection for these novice teachers, the extent to which they master reflective skills in their practice, and the factors that influence reflection. However, further analysis and discussion revealed that whilst the student teachers' use of reflection during their practicums is evident, the role and quality of this reflection is ambiguous. Similarly, whilst supervisors and mentor teachers may insist that reflection be actively encouraged, the rationale behind how and why it is used goes unexplored. The findings also highlighted the role that andragogy, communities of practice and experiential learning may play in partnership with reflection, serving to reconstruct reflective practice in teacher education. The study concludes by reviewing the implications of the research and putting forth ideas for further study.

This thesis traces how feminist subjectivities are shaped, formed and lived through a focus on English schoolteachers from postwar (1945-1979) and neoliberal (1980-2015) generations. The data is located in British society at a time of resurgence in feminist activism which is also simultaneously a period of ‘postfeminist sensibilities’ combined with the pervasiveness of neoliberal rationalities. In this contradictory scenario, and using a feminist approach and qualitative methods, this research is based on fifteen life story interviews that include five further in depth thematic interviews which have been thematically analysed. The core arguments of this thesis are located in a feminist poststructuralist framework. This approach highlights the fluidity of selfhood shaped by experiences, relationality and language. Subjectivity within poststructuralism is understood as neither completely free nor absolutely determined and power relations are not only limiting but also become productive in forming the subjectivities. Accordingly, this thesis explores how feminist subjectivities are constructed and shaped in multiple ways. In particular, the feminist schoolteachers in this thesis narrated the emergence of early forms of ‘protofeminism’ located in an unarticulated sense of injustice. They spoke of the influence of ‘significant women’ and the bonds of ‘imagined sisterhood’ as enabling a more fully developed awareness of gender injustice. They also talked of their practices to support gender justice, mostly non oppositional in form or as micro resistances to patriarchal practices. All these, I argue, are experiential resources for these women to draw upon in order to enable them to form alternative and counter narratives to patriarchal discourses, and thus construct feminist subjectivities and live feminist lives to resist patriarchal regimes in neoliberal times.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you". Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Deficit theory can still haunt the academy, and nowhere is this more prolific than in rhetoric used to explain the position and overall experience of Black Students in universities, in comparison to their White counterparts. The adoption of a Critical Race Theory (CRT) approach is helpful in illuminating how and why this happens, especially if combined with auto/biographical narrative enquiry. And how, in thought and practice, the academy can be made more inclusive. The study illuminates something more complex and human than theory alone in that the lives of three women (Zara, Gail and Mary, the researcher), are redolent with the imprints of family, gender, generational change, migration and cultural richness attesting “community cultural wealth” and a challenge to “cultural capital”, narrowly defined. To understand us and our narratives, requires an auto/biographical imagination or what Wright Mills (1959) coined the ‘sociological imagination’ where there is an inquisitiveness to find out the individual’s historical and social as well as intimate experiences in society and to give meaning to these. To examine Black women’s role in education and in diversity issues. Rather than a deficit model, the argument is that Black students demonstrate forms of resilience, and that the academy needs to learn, in theory and practice, from what we have to offer. There is, as part of the above, an interrogation of what being a university is and might be. There can be emptiness in policy statements, as well as avoidance, on the one hand; on the other, moments of courage, and struggle, of which the thesis is a part, to remind us of what a university can be; a place where difficult issues are addressed, in passionate, reflexive, intellectual yet also humane ways. It identifies our responsibilities and roles as champions of social justice as the very essence of being an academic. The thesis is written for a lecturer who did not see, and colleagues who did not understand, and the institution that needs to listen and act. It paints a picture of what the more inclusive university might be like, alongside an understanding of how difficult it is for humans to engage with difficulty and complexity, of race, stereotyping and discrimination as it pertains to the academy. Most importantly the thesis is written for the countless Black students “who still rise” through their resistance, resilience and aspiration in the face of an ideological discourse, however disguised, of deficit.

Despite the increasing volume of literature related to early childhood education (ECE) leadership (Moyles, 2006; Siraj-Blatchford and Manni, 2007; O’Sullivan, 2009; Bush, 2012; Male, 2012; Rodd, 2013; Sims et al., 2014; Davis and Ryder, 2016), a key aspect of this qualitative study lies in its exploration of a relatively new area. This thesis aims to address the existing gap in the knowledge of ECE leadership in a non-Western context and to inform policy and practice in this context. The purpose of this research is to explore leadership in Saudi ECE, focusing on leadership behaviour and whether it is compatible with the notion of pedagogical leadership. The factors that influence leadership in Saudi ECE and the challenges associated with ECE leadership in the Saudi context will be identified. In this research, pedagogical leadership beyond the simplistic forms of teaching and learning aspects is considered and is examined from wide perspectives, from which interaction, relationship building, professional development, students and teachers’ capacity building, and fostering creativity and innovation are taken into consideration (Sergiovanni, 1998; Cecchin and Johnsen, 2009; Heikka and Waniganayake, 2011). Additionally, departing from modelling leadership, pedagogical leadership here is concerned with the context in which leadership operates, which is shaped by the interaction of a set of “social realities” (Male and Palaiologou, 2016). In keeping with the exploratory nature of this research and to seek an in-depth understanding of the participants’ experiences in ECE in Saudi Arabia, a qualitative interpretive approach was employed. Therefore, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with twenty-four ECE leaders. An inductive analysis of the collected data was carried out using Nvivo to manage and organise the data transcripts. This thesis suggests that contextual pedagogical leadership should be used to present the notion of context dependent pedagogical leadership. Since the rapidly changing 21st century and the implementation of dynamic educational processes, pedagogical leadership actions have been dependent on each situation. Despite the common leadership factors and challenges that are shared among educational institutions, there were contextual differences that were peculiar to each educational setting that was analysed in this research.

Against the background of continuing political rhetoric promising better outcomes for disadvantaged children and advocating the importance of parents’ roles, this study gave voice to a group of parents from a disadvantaged community. The author’s experiences, as a headteacher in challenging schools, of disadvantaged children’s outcomes not improving coupled with diminishing parental voice, provided the passion which drove this study. The participant parents’ children attended a non-selective secondary school within a highly selective authority in England. Through an innovative combination of a Facebook group and follow up interviews, the parents chose and discussed schooling issues which they identified as relevant to their experiences. The themes interpreted from the parents’ discussions were used to analyse government speeches in order to explore the extent to which there existed a relationship between parents’ views and government rhetoric. Interpretations of the parents’ views, and their relationship with government rhetoric, highlight three contentions which add to current discourses about disadvantaged parents’ experiences of schooling. Firstly, notions that exclusion and marginalisation cause parents’ disadvantage, do not fully explain the complexity of the participant parents’ views and their relationship with government rhetoric. Secondly, the thesis proposes the existence of two separate fields of schooling. An ambitious field which the parents consciously resist and are excluded from, and a less ambitious field focused on disadvantage, which the participant parents’ views are most aligned with. Thirdly, the existence of two separate fields of schooling is argued to evidence political intentionality, which is demonstrated by speeches adopting deterministic and less ambitious rhetoric when focused on issues of disadvantage. Finally, the thesis adopts a notion of social justice which advocates parents’ participation and roles for organic intellectuals (Gramsci, 1971), as a route to ameliorating experiences and outcomes for disadvantaged parents and children.