No description available.

What students should learn in school and therefore also what teachers should teach is an important issue worldwide. Mathematics teaching (and teaching in other subjects) is often regulated by some form of governing text in a written curriculum communcating a set of standards. Another common mean through which policy is communicated is assessments, which for example can convey policy by communicating desirable outcomes in student learning. A common problem with regulating what teachers do through policy means is that it often is difficult to achieve intended changes. This study investigates the impact of a national reform in Sweden initiated in 1994, introducing mathematical competency goals by communicating them through the national curriculum and national assessments. The study is based on analysis of data obtained from the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (SSI), which conducted a quality review of upper secondary school mathematics teaching. During this quality review, the SSI collected data on a representative sample of 145 upper secondary mathematics teachers through interviews, observations, and surveys. This was done in 2009 and 2010, which means that the reform from a time perspective has had ample time to exert influence on teachers. In the study the data obtained from the SSI was analyzed in order to answer two questions:  have teachers changed their beliefs about the goals of upper secondary school mathematics in line with the intentions of the reform, and why have, or have they not, changed their beliefs about the goals of upper secondary school mathematics in line with the intentions of the reform? In research on teachers’ reception of policy messages, similar to the one introduced in Sweden, it has been found that a common response to these messages is that teachers are positive to the message. However, although positive, teachers have often been found to only adopt superficial properties of the reform while still maintaining a highly traditional view of teaching and the goals of teaching, not consistent with the intentions of the reform. Therefore, the questions in this study were examined by using a model that can explain why teachers, when confronted with a reform message, change their beliefs in profound or superficial ways, or not at all. Through analysis of the SSI-data, measures on constructs of the model were obtained, and with statistical means it was examined whether the model can account for the changes in teachers’ beliefs about the goals of upper secondary school mathematics. The results of the study suggest that the Swedish reform has had a relatively small impact, and that the model can give an explanation to why some Swedish upper secondary teachers of mathematics have changed their beliefs in line with the reform, some have changed them in superficial ways, and some have not changed them in any discernable way. Whether teachers perceive the reform as entailing an important and non-trivial change for them seems to be of utmost importance. The results of this study suggest that if teachers do not perceive this, they will not process the message deeply, which by the results of this study suggest that there is little chance for them to change their beliefs in a profound way. If they however do perceive the message as entailing an important and non-trivial change, this study suggests that chances are greater that teachers will change their beliefs in line with the reform. Teachers’ interest in the subject and their perceptions of the usefulness of the documents communicating the message are then in this study suggested to be important factors influencing whether teachers will process the reform message systematically, which in turn heavily influences whether they will change their beliefs in a profound way. One practical implication, suggested by this study is that when policy communicates a new and non-trivial message with the intention of influencing teachers, it is important that the message is communicated clearly. Such clarity makes it more difficult for a teacher to superficially interpret the message as being in accordance with the teacher’s earlier beliefs, and thus not entail any need for change. However, to attain such clarity of a complex message is not an easy task to accomplish.

This thesis examines the impact of local and national education policies on teachers' practice in six secondary schools in two similar, non-contiguous, metropolitan authorities. Ten propositions on the relationship between policy and action were generated from a literature review and related to literature on school organisation and culture. Empirical data to test them were collected between September 1987 and July 1989, during the development of National Curriculum legislation and statutory instruments but prior to its implementation in secondary schools. Extended interviews were conducted with sixty-six teachers, the six Headteachers, and both Chief Inspectors. Detailed interview reports were confirmed as accurate with each interviewee. National influences were found to be important, particularly public examination reforms. This was attributed to their public use as indicators of school effectiveness, and to teachers' own positions resting on their own examination success for legitimacy. Personal professional values led to the LEA and its officers being dismissed as insignificant: factors internal to the school were more important. Chief among these was teachers' relationships with their departmental colleagues, especially how their perception of their needs and obligations as teachers of particular subjects, with particular epistemologies, affected departmental opportunities as management units to influence individual practice and require conformity to external requirements. Relations with senior staff were also important, and how far informal networks of power and influence operated against the formal hierarchies. Lastly, personal professional values stressed classroom experience as the only satisfactory basis for offering direction or guidance to teachers. This view of the teacher as expert emphasised that teachers must ultimately have autonomy to decide how best to handle classroom situations, and not only downgraded LEA staff and teacher education as sources of assistance, but also worked to prevent teachers from acknowledging problems to their colleagues.

The aim of this study is to generate a grounded theory that explains the content of teachers' and students' work with personal development dialogues and individual development plans using written assessments, all regulated in the national result-oriented curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school. Two secondary schools participated and data was collected on two occasions. Data consists of recorded personal development dialogues, which are informed by written assessments, and copies of the individual development plans written as a conclusion stating agreements between the teacher and student. All data was continuously compared and analyzed by using a grounded theory method. Underpinning the study are the premises of pragmatic philosophy and transactional theory that are assumed to shape the focus of the grounded theory approach and hence of teacher and student transactional strategies. It is argued that teachers' and students' primary concern is to establish result-oriented individualization. This is a means for cooperation in a mutual endeavor to establish improved results, guided by the phases of visible accountability and responsible awareness. By using strategies for planning, guiding, auditing and reflecting, new ways of managing individualization are developed. It is also suggested that a new professional approach has been developed, where teachers and students work in collaborative teams, continuously focusing on improving student results.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation, Van Davy makes a case for a cohesive system of schools which can serve the public — both the national interest and individual interests — while directly addressing the current national schooling system’s failure: * to replace, for the entire student cohort...high levels of student boredom with high interest and engaging curriculum and pedagogy; * to replace, for low SES and indigenous students...low levels of learning outcomes, low enrolment levels in senior schooling, and only brief experience of curriculum choice with a curriculum paradigm providing intrinsic value, understanding of pathways from disempowerment to empowerment, curriculum choice from the earliest years, and schooling outcomes which, over time, equal those of the national cohort of students * to replace a citizenry divided in its support for public, church-based, and exclusionary schools with a community united in its support for a socially agreed set of social purposes for schooling and a new curriculum paradigm, one half of which is generated by this set of social purposes * to address a major political issue: social cohesion The proposed new and cohesive system of schools is envisaged to meet the needs - both Common Good and Individual Good - of the citizenry. It will grow from an earlier and pre-requisite national social agreement around a set of political goals which together sketch a preferred future society - these political goals in the hands of education specialists will generate an "essential" curriculum as one of two elements in a new two-tiered curriculum to be followed from the earliest until the latest years of schooling. The second element, occupying the other half of the curriculum from the earliest to the latest years of schooling, will be an elective curriculum designed to encourage all students to pursue their own interests in as much depth as desired. Studies of sectarian studies will be included in the elective curriculum. Davy’s analysis ranges across a number of disciplines, fusing together a number of viewpoints: historical, political theory, educational performance, and educational theory. It searches Australia’s schooling outcomes, identifies low SES and Aboriginal outcomes as major areas of failure, and challenges a number of widely accepted schooling practices. In the process, Davy discovers OECD and ACER data, but little official interest or analysis, concerning widespread boredom amongst Australia’s students. He argues that, in respect of both low SES students and student boredom, system responsibilities such as the nature of Australia’s curriculum, could be just as implicated as concerns for “teacher quality.” Davy’s interest extends beyond the purely educational. He examines the purposes that public and non-public school authorities articulate, as well as reasons parents give for enrolling their children in schools. From this research Davy identifies several issues and suggests that very considerable “choice” in schooling could be found in a different curriculum paradigm, and that both public and non-public schools are deficient when measured against widely-accepted concerns for religious freedom, social cohesion, and fundamental democratic principles. For Davy, a major political issue confronting Australia is the national imperative of “social cohesion.” He searches Australia’s schooling history for evidence of any social agreement around the social purposes of schooling, including more recent attempts to formulate “essential" and “new basics” and “national” curriculum. He concludes that while many educators, and the OECD, refer to the need for a pre-requisite set of social purposes that outline a preferred future society, the politics of schooling has not permitted this to eventuate and, given the absence of this management fundamental, “it is not surprising that schooling systems are shaped by internal logics (ideologies, religions, personalities, internal politics, quest for advantage and/or privilege) rather than wider concerns for the shape of the globe’s and nation’s future, and the advancement of the twins: Common Good and Individual Good.” With these problems laid bare — low SES and indigenous outcomes, student boredom, and social cohesion — Davy addresses all three simultaneously. He draws confidence from contemporary political theorists proposing political processes which engage the public in a “deliberative democracy.” He constructs a surrogate “foundation of agreed principles” which, he deduces, the processes of deliberative democracy might lead the Australian people to construct, then outlines a step-by-step means by which these principles can generate an essential curriculum for all Australian children, while encouraging a full range of choice within an elective stream. The political processes of open collaboration throughout civil society which produces the social agreement may produce a new political context. This new, less adversarial and more trusting political context is seen to be fertile ground for the replacement of Australia’s fractured schooling system with a cohesive schooling system for the Australian public — an Australian schooling system — to be managed nationally.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2007. / Half thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Environmental Education)

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / Esta pesquisa teve por intenÃÃo investigar se os professores de ciÃncias do ensino fundamental conhecem e utilizam na sua aÃÃo docente, as diretrizes, orientaÃÃes e objetivos dos PCN para o ensino de ciÃncias naturais. O estudo, utilizando a abordagem qualitativa à descritivo na anÃlise dos dados. Como metodologia escolheu-se o estudo de caso e, os instrumentos de coleta dos dados foram anÃlise documental, observaÃÃo, entrevistas e relatos dos alunos. Inicialmente foram testadas as possibilidades da pesquisa com uma revisÃo de literatura, reunindo autores para a fundamentaÃÃo teÃrica do estudo. Em seguida foi feita uma visita exploratÃria, com a finalidade de escolher as escolas e os sujeitos participantes da pesquisa, selecionados de acordo com alguns critÃrios, tais como localizaÃÃo das escolas, receptividade dos diretores e professores, a formaÃÃo inicial e o tempo de serviÃo dos docentes. Duas escolas, dois professores e seus alunos se enquadraram nos critÃrios estabelecidos, tendo, portanto, sido escolhidos. Com a inserÃÃo no campo, as escolas, os professores e os alunos foram caracterizados com a finalidade de identificar o ambiente e os sujeitos da pesquisa. No primeiro momento do estudo, com a incursÃo à literatura, abordou-se os reflexos do contexto econÃmico, polÃtico e social no desenvolvimento dos currÃculos para o ensino de ciÃncias, analisando as mudanÃas ocorridas no cenÃrio educacional brasileiro, em especial no campo das ciÃncias, destacando as implicaÃÃes para o ensino e aprendizagem a partir de uma reflexÃo epistemolÃgica. No segundo momento, foram estudadas as orientaÃÃes curriculares para o ensino e aprendizagem das ciÃncias prescritas na Lei 9.394/96 e nos PCN de ciÃncias naturais, abordando a importÃncia do uso dos conteÃdos procedimentais e atitudinais no desenvolvimento das aulas, para em seguida analisar as perspectivas atuais para o ensino das disciplinas cientÃficas. Por Ãltimo foi feita a anÃlise do ensino de ciÃncias a partir da aÃÃo docente dos sujeitos da pesquisa, com a finalidade de perceber indÃcios da utilizaÃÃo dos PCN no cotidiano das aulas. Pode-se considerar que os professores de ciÃncias em seu discurso, dÃo indÃcios de conhecerem as orientaÃÃes e objetivos prescritos pelos PCN. No entanto, em sua aÃÃo docente, percebe-se que tais orientaÃÃes se apresentam de modo muito tÃnue, ficando evidente que, a perspectiva de um ensino e aprendizagem embasados nos pressupostos de construÃÃo do conhecimento cientÃfico, proclamada em tais orientaÃÃes curriculares, nÃo à empregada de forma consistente, fato explicitado, tambÃm, pelos alunos em seus relatos sobre as aulas de ciÃncias. Pode-se intuir, portanto, que, apesar dos esforÃos envidados na elaboraÃÃo de parÃmetros e diretrizes curriculares para o ensino de ciÃncias, como sugestÃes de melhoria da qualidade do ensino das disciplinas cientÃficas no paÃs, existe um hiato entre o prescrito e o vivido no cotidiano das aulas. / This research was intended to investigate if the Science teachers of elementary school know and use in their teaching activities, the directives, guidelines and objectives of the âPCNâ for the teaching of Natural Sciences. The study, using a qualitative approach is descriptive in the data analysis. The Methodology was chosen as the case study and the instruments of data collection were document analysis, observation, interviews and reports from students. Initially the possibilities of research were tested with a literature review, gathering authors to the theoretical study. Following an exploratory visit was made in order to choose schools and subjects in the research, selected according to some criteria such as location of schools, school principals and teachers of receptivity, initial training and service time of the teachers. Two schools, two teachers and their students met the criteria established, and therefore has been chosen. With the insertion field, schools, teachers and students were characterized in order to identify the environment and the research subjects. At first the study, with the incursion of literature, we dealt with the repercussions of the economic, political and social development of curriculum for teaching Science, analyzing the changes in the Brazilian educational scenario, especially in the sciences, highlighting the implications for teaching and learning from an epistemological reflection. In the second moment, the curriculum was studied guidelines for the teaching and learning of science prescribed in Law 9.394/96 and âPCNâ Natural Sciences, discussing the importance of using content procedural and attitudinal development classes, then to analyze current perspectives to the teaching of science subjects. Lastly was the analysis of science teaching from the teacher action research subjects, in order to perceive evidences of the use of âPCNâ in the daily lessons. One can consider that the science teachers in his speech give evidence of knowing the guidelines and objectives prescribed by the âPCNâ. However, in his teaching activities, it is perceived that such guidelines are presented in a very thin, making it clear that the prospect of a teaching and learning grounded in assumptions of construction of scientific knowledge, proclaimed in such curriculum guidelines, is not employed consistently, a fact explained also by students in their accounts of the Science classes. One can perceive, therefore, that despite the efforts made in developing curriculum guidelines and parameters for Science teaching, as suggestions for improving the quality of teaching of Science subjects in the country, there is a gap between the prescribed and lived in daily life classes.

Orientador: Maria Helena Salgado Bagnato / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T20:23:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lacaz_CristianePessoadaCunha_D.pdf: 4672909 bytes, checksum: beb019961d721568531cb81455287f8b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Esta tese resulta de reflexões e questionamentos sobre a forma pela qual o corpo é entendido e representado nos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais - PCN - para o Ensino Fundamental, à luz, principalmente, de referenciais foucaultianos. Como profissional das áreas de Saúde e de Educação, procurei desenvolver este estudo motivada por reflexões a respeito de como penso o conceito de corpo e de que maneiras gostaria de vê-lo ressignificado na escola. Por intermédio dos indícios que a leitura dos PCN fornece, busquei tornar visível o invisível contido nas recomendações sobre o corpo. As análises dos PCN revelaram diferenças significativas entre as orientações sobre o corpo, nas disciplinas pesquisadas. As verdades sobre o corpo foram construídas por um discurso produzido na confluência entre diversas vertentes pedagógicas e exercem efeitos de poder e saber sobre cada um de nós: alunos, professores, pais, familiares e profissionais de diversas áreas. Conhecer com mais profundidade os escritos de Foucault sobre corpo, poder, saber, disciplina e sujeito, apontou-me possibilidades outras, de resistências, de lutas, de reflexões, frente ao que está posto. Permitiu-me também considerar outros modos de pensar e fazer a educação do corpo e no corpo. No híbrido em que se constituem os PCN, o corpo chega a ser uma questão de opção entre as diversas possibilidades apresentadas aos alunos e, em muitos dos conteúdos, precisa ser mais bem problematizado e reconstruído, indo muito além da materialidade biológica, que prevalece como base no documento oficial. / Abstract: This thesis is the result of observations and questions about the way the body is perceived and represented in the National Curriculum Parameters - NCP - for the Fundamental Education in the light of Foucault's references, especially the concepts of body, power, knowledge, discipline and subject. As a professional in the areas of health and education, I sought to develop this study motivated by thoughts about how I think the concept of body and in what ways I would like to see it reframed in school. Through the evidence that the reading of the NCP provides, sought to make visible the invisible recommendations contained in the body. Analysis of NPC revealed significant differences between the guidelines about the body, in the studied fields. The truth about the body were built by a speech made at the confluence of several pedagogical purposes and exerts power and knowledge effects about each one of us: students, teachers, parents, families and professionals from different areas. Knowing more deeply the writings of Foucault on body, power, knowledge, discipline and subject, pointed me other possibilities of resistance, struggles, reflections, against what already exists. It enabled me to also consider other ways of thinking and make the education of the body and in the body. Taking into account the hybrid way of NPC, the body gets to be a matter of choice between the various scenarios presented to students and, in a lot of the contents, needs to be further debated and reconstructed, going far beyond the biological materiality, which prevails as base on the official document. / Doutorado / Ensino, Avaliação e Formação de Professores / Doutor em Educação

Orientador: Silvio Donizetti de Oliveira Gallo / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T20:10:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Correia_WilsonFrancisco_D.pdf: 1315312 bytes, checksum: 1f3d61cfabf716c20060648e9762f904 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: A presente pesquisa, inspirada no conceito de modo de endereçamento, analisa o currículo da ética como Tema Transversal dos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais e busca respostas para as perguntas: o que esse currículo ¿pensa¿ que é? Quem ele ¿pensa¿ que seu alvo é? Esse currículo é uma inovação curricular? O percurso metodológico da pesquisa teórico-qualitativa circunscreve o objeto desta investigação ao âmbito das políticas curriculares públicas e o aborda mediante o emprego da análise de conteúdo. Com base nos resultados conceituais colhidos neste estudo, parece plausível o entendimento de que o alvo do currículo da ética dos PCN é o estudante de quem espera que seja cidadão, trabalhador e consumidor moralizado, disciplinado, controlado e útil à e na sociedade administrada e de mercado. Dessa maneira, torna-se prudente não caracterizar esse currículo como uma inovação curricular, uma vez que se fundamenta em pressupostos escolanovistas e tecnicistas das Pedagogias Liberais, surgidas no início e ao longo do século XX com o matiz justificador do ethos autoritário, excludente, injusto e desigual do sistema capitalista. Essa compreensão se torna tão plausível quanto a tese de que o sentido de um currículo depende de sua articulação com as dimensões macro, meso e micro da realidade vivida e com os aspectos econômicos, culturais, políticos e ideológicos do modelo societário em que se insere, uma vez que o currículo é um campo de relações de poder, as quais determinam o índice de acertos, ou erros, nos quais uma mensagem curricular pode incorrer. O que é feito com um currículo se torna mais significativo para a educação escolar do que aquilo que ele ¿pensa¿ ser e do que aquilo que ele ¿pensa¿ que seus destinatários são. Interessa, então, o modo como estudante e professor lidam com seus mecanismos de controle e disciplinamento curriculares, objetivando viabilizarem estilos existenciais que vão ao encontro de mais justiça sistêmica, mais liberdade fática e mais democracia real / Abstract: This research, inspired by the concept of how to address, analyzes the curriculum of ethics as a Transversal Subject of the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais ¿ PCN (National Curricular Parameters) and seeks answers to the following questions: what the curriculum "thinks" it is? Who it "believes" that its target is? This curriculum is a curricular innovation? The methodological route of that theoreticalqualitative research limited its object within the framework of public policies of curriculum focusing on the analysis of its content. Based on the results collected in this conceptual study, it seems plausible to understand that the target of the curriculum of ethics of PCN is the student who is expected to become a citizen, na employee and a moralized consumer, disciplined, controlled and useful to the administered society and market. Thus, it is prudent not to characterize this as a curricular innovation, since it is based on assumptions of Liberal Pedagogies with characteristics of the New School Pedagogy and of Technicism, which emerged at the beginning and throughout the twentieth century with the hue that justifies the authoritative ethos of the exclusionary, unfair and uneven capitalist system. This understanding is as likely as the thesis that the purpose of a curriculum depends on its connection with the macro, meso and micro dimensions of the reality experienced in economic, cultural, political and ideological aspects of the model of society of which it is part. Once the curriculum is a field of power relations, which determines the rate of successes, or mistakes, in which a curricular message may incur. What is done with a curriculum becomes more significant for the school than what it "thinks" being in what it "thinks" that the recipients are. What matters, then, is how students and teachers deal with its mechanisms of control and curricular disciplinarian, aiming to make possible existential styles of more systemic justice, more freedom and more real democracy / Doutorado / Historia, Filosofia e Educação / Doutor em Educação

Life Orientation is a new learning area in the National Curriculum Statement. The Learning area promises to improve the quality of education for all the South Africans. This study was founded upon the Structural Curriculum Theory to investigate how secondary school teachers understand, response to and implement Life Orientation. Life Orientation is a core subject area according to the Department of Education. A total number of thirty six Life Orientation teachers form five secondary schools in different circuits in Gert Sibande Region in Mpumalamga Province participated in the study. Data was collected through the focus group, individual interviews and qualitatively analysed. The results revealed that teachers are frustrated, lack knowledge, understanding, has negative response and are ignorant in implementing the subject area in schools. Teachers lack sufficient support, not suffiently qualified, disregard the importance of the subject area, low status of the subject area, limited time allocation for the learning area. In the light of the results, recommendations are made with regard to the study on training monitoring and support of teachers. The Department of Education should increase school-based support visits and monitoring by district officials. These visits should be more intense and should include practical demonstrations of curriculum implementation. District officials must monitor progress by following-up previous visits. Heads of Department should exercise control and provide guidance with regard to curriculum implementation. Learning area teachers and the Heads of Department should be empowered by the Department of Education through scheduled workshops. Specific emphasis should be given to the interpretation and practical implementation of the learning area policy components. Heads of Department should deliberately create opportunities for Life Orientation staff to collaborate to exchange creative ideas and information that will improve teachers’ understanding and interpretation of the curriculum. Schools should acknowledge the status and importance of the learning area. Life Orientation should not be disregarded and deliberately allocated to ineffective teachers or to fill up gaps in the timetable of teachers. Teaching Life Orientation should not be imposed on teachers. Higher Education Institutions should have programmes that will prepare teachers as specialists in Life Orientation as a learning area. The Department of Education and Higher Education Institutions should actively recruit students to become specialists in Life Orientation as a learning area for better implementation of Life Orientation in South African schools. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Early Childhood Education / unrestricted