Fostering students’ creativity in school subjects has recently become a central focus of educational researchers, educators, and educational policymakers around the world. In Kuwait, educational researchers and teacher educators have supported the need to foster students’ creativity via a national curriculum. Yet, the Ministry of Education has conducted few studies to explore practitioners’ perspectives on how to foster creativity through the current curriculum. The overall aims of this study were to explore science teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices in fostering creativity in science classrooms as well as to investigate the influences of sociocultural factors on teachers’ beliefs and practices in fostering creativity. The study also examined the consistency and inconsistency levels between teachers’ beliefs and practices. The study has a qualitative nature that stands on an interpretive worldview. The methodology uses eight case studies, each of which consisted of a male science teacher and one of his classes. Multiple methods were used, including semi-structured interviews (pre- and post-observational interviews), student focus groups, unstructured observations, participants’ drawings, and field notes. The analysis was based on thematic analysis model proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). Thematic findings and case studies findings were drawn from the analysis of the data collected. In general, the thematic findings indicated that science teachers are able to define the meaning of creativity and its main aspects. Professed pedagogical beliefs enforce four teaching approaches to foster creativity in the science classroom: the teaching of thinking skills, inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, and practical investigation (experimentation). The teachers believe that these approaches could promote students’ creativity in science classroom when specific sociocultural factors facilitate the effectiveness of such approaches in terms of fostering creativity. Three interdependent categories represent these facilitating factors: (1) educational setting-related factors, (2) teacher-related factors, and (3) student-related factors. Differences and similarities appeared when these professed beliefs were compared to the applied classroom practices. The thematic analysis revealed several themes underlying the main categories. Extensive teacher-centred practices and modest student-centred practices were evident; more specifically, the observations revealed primarily teacher-centred approach inside the science classes. Meanwhile, student-centred approaches were modestly applied in comparison to teacher-centred activities. The teachers justified their practices in accordance with the sociocultural factors that mediate their beliefs and practices as well as the role of their goal orientation. The science teachers perceived the mediating factors as constraints that prevent them from applying their beliefs about fostering creativity in classroom practices. Multiple constraining factors emerged, and they were categorised into personal, external, and interpersonal constraints. Concerning the case study findings, consistencies and inconsistencies were identified using a cut-off point as an analytic technique to classify teachers’ beliefs and practices into traditional (non-creativity fostering), mixed, or progressive (creativity fostering). The case study findings identified four consistency and inconsistency levels characterizing teachers’ beliefs and practices: traditional (consistent level), mainly traditional (inconsistent level), mixed (consistent level), and mainly progressive (inconsistent level). Each level was represented by an exemplary case study. The exemplary case studies revealed that sociocultural contexts influence teacher’s belief-practice relationship with respect to fostering students’ creativity in science classroom. Further, the thematic and case study findings were discussed in relation to the existing body of knowledge, followed by an illustration of significant conclusions, including some implications, contributions, limitations, and future suggestions.

In my earlier work, ‘First steps towards a rhetorical hermeneutics of literary interpretation’ (2006), I argued that academic reading takes the form of an argument between readers. Four serious weaknesses in that account are its elision of the distinction between reading and discourse on reading, its inattention to non-academic reading, its exclusive focus on ‘interpretation’ as if this constituted the whole of reading or of discourse on reading, and its failure to theorise the object of literary reading, ie. the work of literature. The current work aims to address all of these problems, together with those created by certain other approaches to literary reading, with the overall objective of clearing the ground for more empirical studies. It exemplifies its points with examples drawn primarily from non-academic public discourse on literature (newspapers, magazines, and the internet), though also from other sources (such as reading groups and undergraduate literature seminars). It takes a particular (though not an exclusive) interest in two specific instances of non-academic reception: the widespread reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as an attack on Islam, and the minority reception of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings as a narrative of homosexual desire. The first chapter of this dissertation critically surveys the fields of reception study and discourse analysis, and in particular the crossover between them. It finds more productive engagement with the textuality of response in media reception study than in literary reception study. It argues that the application of discourse analysis to reception data serves to problematise, rather than to facilitate, reception study, but it also emphasises the problematic nature of discourse analysis itself. Each of the three subsequent chapters considers a different complex of problems. The first is the literary work, and its relation to its producers and its consumers: Chapter 2 takes the form of a discourse upon the notions of ‘speech act’ and ‘authorial intention’ in relation to literature, carries out an analysis of early public responses to The Satanic Verses, and puts in a word for non-readers by way of a conclusion. The second is the private experience of reading, and its paradoxical status as an object of public representation: Chapter 3 analyses representations of private responses to The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, and concludes with the argument that, though these representations cannot be identical with private responses, they are cannot be extricated from them, either. The third is the impossibility of distinguishing rhetoric from cognition in the telling of stories about reading: Chapter 4 argues that, though anecdotal or autobiographical accounts of reading cannot be taken at face value, they can be taken both as attempts to persuade and as attempts to understand; it concludes with an analysis of a magazine article that tells a number of stories about reading The Satanic Verses – amongst other things. Each of these chapters focuses on non-academic reading as represented in written text, but broadens this focus through consideration of examples drawn from spoken discourse on reading (including in the liminal academic space of the undergraduate classroom). The last chapter mulls over the relationship between reading and discourse of reading, and hesitates over whether to wrap or tear this dissertation’s arguments up.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:10:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ZARATIM.pdf: 1986871 bytes, checksum: 6a980ea0020f8e4d487c050d177d0bb7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-08-31 / This research enclosed the inquiry field of the education superior and tied with the line educational culture and processes, treating, specifically, on the reorganization in the Pedagogy course from Education College of the University Federal of Goiás (FE/UFG), in the period between 1984 and 2004. The study evidences the tensions, conflicts which occurred in the period in epigraph, they were fruit of the explosion of forces articulated, grew and transformed. It examines the disputes between the different theoretical fields represented there by the several fields of knowledgement in relation to the reorganizational process of the Pedagogy course, as well as of the formation projects that these disputes expressed. The methodological procedures have been adopted the documentary analysis, bibliographical revision of authors who have turned on the subjects related to the object of study and participation in syndical movements and meetings of deliberative bodies or evaluation in the scope of the UFG. The inquiry had as starting point the analysis of the educational system of the Brazilian State in the period after-1964, a time that influenced directly the decisions that organized the Pedagogy course in the Education College. The research identifies the importance of the FE/UFG as historical landmark of the reorganization of the Pedagogy course in Brazil in the period of redemocratization of Country. It analyzes the theoretical shock and the each agreement on the Education College that occurred between professors Ildeu Moreira Coêlho and Jose Carlos Libâneo, both professors of the FE/UFG, in 1992. It demonstrates that the economical transformations occurrence in the world of the work and the call globalization , influences in the formation of pedagogues in Brazil. It analyzes the course of Pedagogy offered in 1999 and 2003, in form as accord, for the workers in Education of City department of education (SME) of Goiânia. City that shows that experience was used later as reference for the modification in the regular resume of the course of Pedagogy occurred in 2004. It makes historical feed-back of what it represented the period between 1984 and 2004 in the reorganization of the course of Pedagogy of the Education College of the UFG. According our objectives, we they with this study, to make with that the rise of the debate on the understanding of the professional identity and the formation of pedagogue that still have a lot of ambiguities and contradictions. / Esta pesquisa está tematizada no campo de investigação da educação superior e vinculada à linha cultura e processos educacionais, tratando, especificamente, sobre a reestruturação do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Goiás FE/UFG, no período compreendido entre 1984 e 2004. O estudo evidencia as tensões, os conflitos e os embates ocorridos, fruto da explosão de forças que se articulavam, cresciam e se transformavam. Examina as disputas entre os diferentes campos teóricos ali representados em relação aos processos de reestruturação curricular do curso de Pedagogia, bem como dos projetos de formação do pedagogo que essas disputas expressavam. Para percorrer essa trajetória, o método adotado partiu das mediações existentes entre o contexto histórico, as concepções dos professores e os seus respectivos entendimentos teórico-conceituais e a análise documental que permitem analisar como se deram as reestruturações do curso de Pedagogia da FE/UFG no período analisado. A investigação teve como ponto de partida a análise do sistema educacional do Estado brasileiro no período pós-1964, uma vez que esse período interferiu diretamente nas decisões estruturais dos cursos de Pedagogia nas Faculdades de Educação. A pesquisa identifica a importância da FE/UFG como marco histórico da reestruturação do curso de Pedagogia no Brasil no período de redemocratização do País. Analisa o embate teórico ocorrido entre os professores Ildeu Moreira Coêlho e José Carlos Libâneo, ambos docentes da FE/UFG em 1992, e a conseqüente influência de suas idéias na formação do pedagogo. Demonstra que as transformações econômicas ocorridas no mundo do trabalho e a chamada globalização, exercem ampla influência na formação de pedagogos no Brasil. Analisa o curso oferecido, em forma de convênio, para os trabalhadores da Secretaria Municipal de Educação (SME) da cidade de Goiânia, demonstrando que essa experiência foi utilizada, posteriormente, como referência para a modificação no currículo regular do curso de Pedagogia assumido a partir de 2004. Faz um balanço histórico do que representou o período entre 1984 e 2004 na reestruturação do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação da UFG, evidenciando os avanços qualitativos que ocorreram no período em epígrafe.

My diploma thesis deals with the implementation of drama education as a separate subject in the school system after 1990 and characterizes the transformation of schools, the changes in teacher training after 1990 and describes alternative schools that are important for changing the way of teaching in the school system. I also deal with the curriculum of the framework educational program, the characteristics of the school educational plan, drama education and small schools. In the practical part I describe the conditions for the implementation of drama education in the school curriculum of a small school and three ways how to implement this subject. As part of my work, I created a survey of parents' opinions and an interview with the principal to find out what the awareness of drama education is and whether there is an interest in it. I present the research results in the appendices. At the end of the thesis I summarized my research at a small school and the implementation of drama education in the school curriculum, it also contains a list of what is needed for such implementation and what was the result of my efforts at Kindergarden and Elementary school in Suchodol. KEYWORDS History of pedagogy, implementation of drama education, drama education, Framework education programme for elementary...

1 Leo Vaniš: Abstrakt dizertace (EN): The dissertation theses "ART EDUCATION - LITERARY EDUCATION: The subjects of" higher "culture in aesthetic education on the example of geometric art" is based primarily on the field of educational sciences, focusing on two areas of the educational process: art and literary education. Two equivalent school subjects matters (which the very graphic concept of the name by capital letters suggests, as well as the intentional duplication of the word education) is based on the study of culture, which is conceived on two levels - "higher" and "lower," possibly simple, unprofessional, but not necessarily of lower quality. The intentional introduction of the word "higher" in quotation marks already in itself suggests that it will be a problem of defining what such a culture means, what it can look like and how it can be understood in an educational context. collection of so-called canonically anchored works, in the field of verbal and artistic creation, while cross-sectionally focusing on one researched aspect - geometry. Whith the concept of dual geometry (often referred to in the theses as the "phenomenon of simple and artistic geometrization") the author tries to show the projection of already established great artistic values into contemporary educational reality, defining...