No description available.

My thesis topic on deficit thinking, democracy and an ethic of care emerges as a result of the clashes that take place under political and socio-economic agendas which are deeply connected with the conflicting interpersonal challenges that inner city students face. My thesis focuses on two major aspects regarding deficit thinking: 1. What are the different frameworks that create and support deficit thinking and deficit practices, and are there any philosophical inconsistencies or overlap amongst them? Moreover, what is the conceptualization(s) of deficit thinking that arise from these different frameworks? 2. Why is deficit thinking toward inner city students philosophically problematic and inconsistent with creating true democratic education possibilities? After presenting and highlighting my concerns about deficit thinking practices, I briefly provide an alternative vision for education. This truly democratic vision of education is comprised of four main components: critical thinking, participatory democracy, moral responsibility, and an ethic of care.

In the late 1990s, the internet was heralded as a global opportunity for new ventures. One aspect of this opportunity was the innovation of including small firms and consumers in seamless 'business webs.' The second aspect was the distance insensitivity and internationality of the internet. New ventures appeared in different countries responding to this seemingly global opportunity. In Germany, this response appeared especially strong against the background of years of slow development of the domestic information technology (IT) sector. This thesis examines the role of national government policy in a world being transformed by technology. 'Network thinkers,' following Schumpeter's concept of 'creative destruction,' believed the internet represented a global innovation opportunity. They emphasised the independence and self-governance of globally networked market players, arguing that the territorial basis of national government policy has eroded. The problematique guiding this research effort has emerged from this thinking. Can the concepts associated with network thinking account for the apparently strong entrepreneurial response to the internet in Germany. A detailed study of the development of internet ventures in Germany was carried out to examine this guiding question. The study was supported by quantitative data supplied through a 123-firm survey conducted in the Spring of 1998. This research revealed that the entrepreneurial response in Germany was much weaker than it appeared to contemporary observers. New ventures had to adopt a 'mixed-play' approach which placed them on a less innovative and less international, slower growth trajectory. Two key policy arenas were identified which constrained the development of German internet ventures: (I) The course of telecommunications liberalisation and (2) the initial lack of venture capital. Practitioners have long been aware of the importance of these two determinants for internet development. The main contribution of this thesis has been to add to the understanding of how these two factors have operated in a national environment conditioned by distinctive institutions.

No description available.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Large Scale Assessments (LSAs) of student achievement in education serve a variety of purposes, such as comparing educational programs, providing accountability measures, and assessing achievement on a broad range of curriculum standards. In addition to measuring content-related processes such as mathematics or reading, LSAs also focus on thinking-related skills such as lower level thinking (e.g., understanding concepts) and problem solving. The purpose of the current study was to deconstruct and clarify the mechanisms that make up an LSA, including thinking skills and assessment perspectives, from a validation approach based on the work by Messick (1995) and Kane (1990). Therefore, when examining the design and student data of two LSAs in reading, (a) what common thinking skills are assessed? and (b) what are the LSAs’ underlying assessment perspectives? Content analyses were carried out on two LSAs that purported to assess thinking skills in reading: the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) and the Educational Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO). As the two LSAs evaluated reading, the link between reading and thinking was also addressed. Conceptual models were developed and used to examine the assessment framework, test booklets, and scoring guide of the two assessments. In addition, a nonlinear factor analysis was conducted on the EQAO item-level data from the test booklets to examine the dimensionality of the LSA. The most prominent thinking skill referenced after qualitatively analyzing the assessment frameworks, test booklets, and scoring guides was critical thinking, while results from the quantitative analysis revealed that two factors best represented the item-level EQAO data. Overall, the tools provided in the current study can help inform both researchers and practitioners about the interaction between the assessment approach and related thinking skills.

No description available.

The publications in these two volumes reflect the author's work over the past ten years in the development of teaching thinking through philosophical enquiry in primary and secondary schools. Philosophy as an essential aspect of education for all young people was first considered in the US by Professor Lipman in the early 1970s, and is now established in more than thirty countries around the world. The publications presented here represent key documents in the author's involvement in the development of a curriculum for teaching thinking through philosophical enquiry in UK schools. The publications are organised under two themes relating to teaching thinking and philosophical enquiry which are seen as vital elements of children's learning, and are presented as a contribution to curriculum development in schools, including the developing of pedagogic methods and teaching materials, and as a contribution to the professional development of teachers. Fifteen sole-author publications are included, comprising two books, excerpts from four books, and nine published papers. In addition to the publications this volume contains the author's commentary which provides an introduction to the publications and an assessment of their significance.

The recent movement to enhance critical thinking through education is not entirely new. However, it differs from an earlier tradition which was concerned broadly with the historical origins and social ramifications of critical thought. The terms of reference of the current 'thinking skills debate' are more narrowly restricted to the objectives and methods of contemporary education systems and there is a characteristic tendency to adopt features of individual psychology and 'cognitive science'. Even where such conceptual perspectives are not made explicit, there is widespread commitment to the idea that it is possible to identify general skills of thought and teach them successfully. Various programmes maintain this commitment, despite a paucity of evidence that the 'skills' thus identified transfer readily between 'cognitive domains'. A powerful and controversial counter-argument has been advanced against this conception of critical thinking skills. The main thrust of 'domain-theory' is that the 'generalist' position is incoherent; thinking skills are specific to subject-matters of 'domains' of thought, and cannot be abstracted from them, a conclusion said to be preordained by the logic of language and thought. The present thesis is that this counter-argument is substantially correct as a refutation of the theoretical basis of many current aspirations for the introduction of 'thinking skills' programmes into education. Formal representations and generalised accounts of thinking fail to address the open-endedness and creativity of genuinely critical thought. Domain-theory falters, however, in its attempt to interpret logically self-authenticating modes of thought. They are not distinguished by seamless, internal logics or methodologies, nor are they radically distinct from common modes of discourse. Indeed, specialised disciplines derive their intelligibility from this common ground of evolving linguistic meaning and imagery. It is from this, rather than from within the constraints of 'logical domains' that some of the most innovatory developments occur; the perception of analogy; the 'thought-experiment' with revolutionary implications for established theory. Paradigms of this kind have universal significance for the elucidation of critical thought.

No description available.