In the past 30 years there has been a rapid and exponential growth in the numbers of people electing to complete all or part of their studies outside of their country of origin. This phenomenon has attracted considerable research attention, not least from those who are interested to describe the benefits seen to accrue from the opportunity this provides for an extended encounter with linguistic and cultural diversity. Notably, the widespread assumption that this can generate a new form of learning, commonly referred to as intercultural learning, which is understood to comprise increased tolerance, empathy and openness to the linguistic and cultural other. Despite the limited research data to substantiate these claims, among those interested to develop educational responses to globalization, the potential of intercultural contact to generate intercultural learning has considerable appeal and has been co-opted in the development of policy and practice to promote global citizenship at all levels of education. This has contributed to the emergence of a particular discourse about intercultural learning and is further fuelling the development of both short and long-stay study abroad programmes. This discourse is, however, increasingly called into question on account of the perceived overly-simplistic constructions of interculturality and learning on which it is premised. In particular, there is a growing recognition of the need to develop situated accounts of people’s everyday encounters with linguistic and cultural others which acknowledge the exigencies of the setting, as well as the impact of wider political economic and historical discourses on their positioning in intercultural encounters. The generation of ‘thick’ descriptions of people’s lived experiences of interculturality in global educational contact zones, it is argued, can lead to a more nuanced account of the intercultural learning these can afford. This was the aim of the study reported in this thesis. The study undertaken explores the relationship between an experience of interculturality and learning among 14 international students during their year-long sojourn at a university in the UK. Drawing upon a socially constructed relational understanding of learning informed by the transactional and dialogic conceptualization of learning developed by Dewey and Bakhtin among others, the study sought to generate a narrative account of participants’ experiences and learning generated from periodic individual and group interviews over the year as well as reflective accounts in participants portfolios and other opportunistic conversations recorded in the researcher log. Primary analysis of the data revealed that participants’ experiences generated a number of forms of learning. One of these, ‘learning about self in relation to linguistic and cultural other’ was identified as a form of intercultural learning, comprising learning to be more open to the other and learning about linguistic and cultural positioning. This was subsequently explored in more depth, revealing a complex interplay between these two elements and the strategic actions taken by participants to manage their encounters with linguistic and cultural others. These results revealed considerable differences in the learning trajectories and outcomes resulting from their intercultural encounter. The findings also point to the importance of sustained commitment to intercultural dialogue on the part of individuals and the perception of their ethical treatment by others as important to the direction their learning trajectories take. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that while an encounter with linguistic and cultural other may lead to increased tolerance, empathy and openness to other associated with the way intercultural learning is employed in much of the research literature, the strategic actions learners take to negotiate their linguistic and cultural positioning will critically inform the extent to which they develop these qualities. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the ways in which a situated and relational conceptualization of interculturality and learning is seen to contribute to a more informed and deeper understanding of the sorts of intercultural learning that are made possible by an intercultural encounter. I also identify a number of research agendas which can build upon the insights provided by the study.

The literature review on emerging concepts of 'Business model' and 'Business model innovation' finds significant theoretical and practical potential to facilitate the strategising and innovating activities of modern organisations operating in complex and dynamic business environments. However, a further review of extant literature reveals that although a significant knowledge-base has been accumulated focusing on the content and process aspects of the phenomenon, very few of the conducted studies take a practice-based perspective. Therefore, in keeping with the broader research question of current strategising practices, this research investigates the issue from many possible philosophical, theoretical and methodological angles, in turn making several contributions to the theory and practice of business models while also opening up several potential future research avenues. This research consists of four main research stages sequentially covering problem formulation, two theory creation phases and problem solving, thereby meeting the requirements of a practice-based management research through relevance rather than merely rigour, as in conventional scientific research. As a result, it offers several research contributions to both the theory and practice of business models, which can be immediately put into practice by theorists, practitioners and entrepreneurs: a pluralistic business model research classification framework; a dynamic practice-based approach to the construction of business models; a knowledge-based conceptualisation of business models and a dynamic capability matrix for business model practices. Additionally, this research also offers potential future contributions to adjacent research streams such as dynamic capabilities, strategy as practice and research methodology. Overall, by utilising the philosophy of pragmatism, this thesis advances the contemporary discipline of business models towards a practice-based science, crucially and timely bridging the knowledge gap in existing practice-based theories and frameworks business models. It is hopes that this work will gave rise to a new movement of research on business models, positioning itself as a well established applied-oriented management science among the broader disciplines of strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The issue of this dissertation is the relationship between Vocational Education and Training (VET) in general and VET for building and construction in particular, as well as implications of the fact that Swedish VET is carried out both in school and in working life. Vocational construction education includes a three year Construction Programme at upper secondary school followed by two to three years of on-the-job training in the construction industry. In this case study of an upper secondary Construction Programme, the school based daily instruction as well as work based training, is explored and documented. These constitute a base for descriptions and analysis of education as a whole from the perspective of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The aim of the analysis is to identify the main motives for vocational construction education. The case study results are further based on descriptions and CHAT-analyses of the historical development of construction work as well as of Swedish VET in general and of vocational construction area in particular. The case study illustrates that two activities form vocational construction education; the dominating activity being construction production, and school-activity. The terms of construction industry seem to greatly determine the realisation of the school based construction production activity.  E.g. teamwork is emphasised in both activities. The school activity is marked by the implementation of infusion of core subjects by vocational subjects, aimed at preparing the students for continued professional development in the trade. The conclusion drawn here is that the new Swedish apprenticeship seems to contribute to a narrow professional knowledge base, whereas the use of infused core subjects seems to contribute to a broader professional knowledge base.

The following study aims to examine the special mathematical knowledge needed in order to teach mathematics. Furthermore, the study attempts to explore how teachers’ views on the knowledge needed in order to teach mathematics affects their student’s opportunities to develop their conceptual understanding. Qualitative and quantitative empirical data was attained by observations and complementary interviews. A total of three teachers, all working at the same school, was observed and interviewed. The study used Ball, Thames & Phelps (2008) practice-based theory of mathematical knowledge for teaching, MKT, as its theoretical framework when analyzing the empirical data. The result of the observations displays that math teachers tend to use common content knowledge far more than specialized content knowledge during their lessons. The outcome of this also study reveals that there is a tendency among teachers to interfuse mathematical concepts with terminology. Conceptual understanding is equated with the use of correct terminology. The students are not exposed to the underlying ideas of the mathematical concepts. The study also concludes that there seems to be a sectioning between the mathematical content taught in grade 4-6 from the rest of the content being taught in elementary school, with a low number of connections being made between mathematical topics and concepts included in the curriculum.

This thesis explores an autoethnography which is written in the spirit of ubuntu, with and through others. Viewing this as an ethically responsible methodology for educational research conducted in and between the Global North and the Global South, this autoethnography foregrounds both self and other. The story of a practitioner- researcher unfolds around a move from disillusionment with the examinations factories of the English education system into exploring a human ethic of essential care (Boff, 2005) and a pedagogy of unconditional love (Andreotti, 2011) in a Brazilian non- government organisation. In these shifting contexts, the writer shares a journey of critical reflection (Brookfield, 1995; 2000) on ethical relationships in research and education, deconstructing the hegemonic assumptions underpinning her worldview. Borrowing insight from postmodern philosophy for education and actionable postcolonial theory in education, a journey of (un)learning unfolds as the author grapples with taken-for-granted assumptions about and in the Global South. The aims of the study emerge from a life lived forward (Muncey, 2005) through critical reflection on the ends of education and the role of the practitioner-researcher. As such, the nature of data collection becomes a process of data creation incorporating a rich tapestry of research conversations, images, sounds and other embodied memories. As ethical relations become a central focus of the author’s critical reflection, the author has sought to minimise her inflection on the data and in doing so includes many of the original contributions gifted to her throughout a two year period. Through critical self- scrutiny and reflection the author has been able to examine her own educational and cultural assumptions through a different lens in the Global South. The beauty of this autoethnography lies in exploring the kinds of intercultural spaces the author and others inhabit in twenty-first century research and classrooms.

This thesis presents an ethnographic investigation of teachers’ peer-to-peer engagement in online social spaces, using the concept of teachers’ professional identity as a framework to shape and focus the study. Using Religious Education (RE) as a strong example of the wider phenomenon of teachers’ online engagement, three online social spaces (the Times Educational Supplement’s RE Forum, the National Association of Teachers of RE Facebook Page, and the Save RE Facebook Group) were investigated as case studies. A year was spent in these spaces with digital ethnographic research taking place simultaneously in each one. Data gathering primarily took the form of participant observations, in depth analysis of time-based sampled text (three 8-week samples from each space), online and offline narrative based interviews and, to a lesser extent, questionnaires, elite interviews and analysis of grey literature. The study finds that engagement in the online social spaces offered teachers opportunities to perform and construct their professional identities across a variety of topics ranging from local practical concerns to national political issues. In more practical topics the spaces could often be observed as acting as communities of practice in which professional learning took place and identities were constructed, with such online professional development influencing offline classroom practice. However, engaging across this spectrum of topics afforded users a broad conception of what it means to be a teacher, where professional identity was understood as going beyond classroom practice and integrating engagement with subject-wide, political and policy related issues at a national level. Such engagement provided many users with a feeling of belonging to a national community of peers, which, alongside political activism initiated in online interaction and meaning making debates concerning the future and identity of the subject, provided teachers with feelings of empowerment and a sense of ownership of their subject. However, the study found that teachers’ online engagement took place within structures embedded in the online social spaces that influenced and shaped engagement and the ways in which users’ professional identities were performed and constructed. These structures were linked with the design and technical affordances of the spaces, the agendas of the parent organisations that provided the spaces, and the discourses that dominated the spaces. These aspects of the spaces provided a structure that limited engagement, content and available online identity positions while additionally projecting ideal identity positions, distinctive in each space. These ideal identity positions had a constructive influence over many users who aspired to these ideals, often gaining confidence through expressing such socially validated ideals or feeling inadequate when failing to perform such ideal identity positions. Thus, this study finds a complex relationship between agency linked with active online identity performance and the constructive influence of embedded structures that contributed to the shaping of users’ engagement and their understandings of themselves as professionals and their subject.

Articulée en trois chapitres, cette thèse qui vise à endiguer la toute-puissance de la traductologie porte, d’abord, sur l’analyse d’un extrait de Simenon inséré dans La belle Hortense, puis sur l’examen des erreurs relevées dans 40 versions d’étudiants de l’université de Venise confrontés avec un passage d’Agnès Desarthe et, enfin, sur la traduction du « Maladroit » de Raymond Queneau par Umberto Eco. Comme le titre l’indique, cette thèse revendique l’importance de la pratique. Ce n’est pas à force d’étudier des grammaires qu’un jour on se réveille écrivain, une plume ou un clavier à la main. De même, c’est une évidence, on ne devient pas traducteur sans traduire, bien que l’exercice ne puisse garantir l’excellence du résultat. C’est un truisme, une lapalissade dont il n’est pas inutile de rappeler la vérité, à un moment où la traductologie devient de plus en plus envahissante. Comme toute théorie, elle tend à l’abstraction et à la généralisation, tandis que la pratique, elle, se confronte au hic et nunc. C’est pour cela même qu’elle risque de se révéler non seulement inadéquate, mais aussi dangereuse. Car la littérature, loin d’être l’application de la norme, est le lieu de l’écart. Or, il est difficile de résister à l’autorité d’un dictionnaire, d’un traductologue ou d’un critique, plus difficile encore s’ils sont auréolés de prestige. Toute traduction comporte deux phases. La première est axée sur une analyse stylistique du texte-source et implique une excellente maîtrise de la langue et de la culture de son monde d’origine. C’est le moment de l’esclavage où le traducteur est complètement au service de l’auteur, où il cherche à comprendre sans juger, où – tel un amoureux – il écoute sa voix pour pouvoir l’interpréter. Mais le moment de l’esclavage qui enchaîne au texte originel est aussi le moment de l’apprentissage, le moment où le traducteur peut pénétrer les secrets d’une écriture d’auteur. Sans cette phase préalable, on ne devrait même pas parler de traduction. Si on ne lit pas attentivement – à la loupe – l’œuvre qu’on doit transplanter ou si on ne connaît pas assez la matière dont elle est faite, on finit par se fier aux dictionnaires, par appliquer des recettes toutes faites. C’est une autre voix que celle de l’auteur que l’on entendra, alors, au-delà des frontières. C’est dans cette phase que des préjugés ou des brouillages théoriques assez enracinés ou assez puissants sont intervenus, d’après mon analyse, dans les extraits examinés. Ils ont entraîné la banalisation de Simenon (mais non de Roubaud qui emprunte ses mots) aussi bien que la plupart des incorrections des étudiants (souvent induites paradoxalement par l’usage du dictionnaire). Ils ont poussé également Umberto Eco à remanier radicalement un texte de Raymond Queneau qu’il avait considéré comme l’un des moins réussis, alors qu’il est sans aucun doute l’un des plus importants – et peut-être le plus important - des Exercices de style. Dans la deuxième phase, le traducteur qui accepte d’écrire sous contrainte – sous les contraintes que lui impose le texte-source – connaît aussi la joie de la liberté. Car la contrainte le libérera et le poussera à exploiter toutes les potentialités insoupçonnées, toutes les ressources de la langue et de la culture d’arrivée pour rendre le plus fidèlement la voix de l’auteur, auquel l’analyse et la compréhension l’ont enchaîné. C’est un effort de Sisyphe, mais qui peut rendre heureux. Car c’est aussi en traduisant qu’on devient écriveron. / Set out in three chapters, this thesis which has the aim of investigating the omniscience of translation, starts out by analyzing an extract from Simenon in La Belle Hortense then moves to a study of the mistakes made in 40 translations by students at the University of Venice from a text by Agnès Desarthe and, finally, looks at the translation by Umberto Eco of Raymond Queneau's "Maladroit".As its title suggests, this thesis underlines the importance of practice. One does not suddenly wake up a writer one morning, a pen at the ready simply because one has studied grammar.At the same time one obviously does not become a translator without translating, although practice in itself does not guarantee the excellence of the outcome. This is a truism worth remembering at a moment when translation studies are becoming more and more invasive. Like every theory it tends towards abstraction and generalization while practice concerns itself with the here and now. But it is exactly for this that it risks revealing itself not only as inadequate but also dangerous. For literature, far from being the application of the norm, is where the gap exists. However it is difficult to resist the authority of a dictionary, of a translation expert or of a critic, even more so if they are surrounded by a halo of prestige.Every translation consists of two phases. The first is based on a stylistic analysis of the source text and implies an excellent mastery of the language and of the culture from where it originates. This is the moment of enslavement when the translator is at the complete service of the author, where he tries to understand without judging, like a lover, he listens to his voice so that he can interpret it. But the stage of enslavement which chains one to the original text is also the moment of apprenticeship, the moment when the translator can enter into the secrets of an author's writing. Without this initial phase, one should not even speak of translation. If one does not read carefully, as under a magnifying glass, the work that one must transplant and where one does not know sufficiently what makes it up, one ends up by relying too much on dictionaries, to apply ready-made solutions. There is another voice apart from the author's that one must hear, beyond the normal boundaries.It is in this phase that well-rooted and strong prejudices or theoretical garble, according to my analysis, have intervened in the extracts examined. They have caused a banalisation of Simenon (but not of Roubaud who borrowed his words) as well as most of the errors of the students (and often brought about, paradoxically, the use of dictionaries). In the same way they pushed Umberto Eco to meddle radically with a text of Raymond Queneau that he considered one of the latter's less successful ones, even though it is one of the most important, and perhaps the most important, in Exercices de style.In the second phase, the translator who accepts to write under constraint, under the constraints imposed by the source text, also knows the joy of liberty. Because the constraint will free him and push him to take full advantage of unexpected potentiality, of all the resources of the language and culture and to render the voice of the author in the most faithful way, and to whom the analysis and comprehension chained him. It is the work of Sisyphus but which can create contentment. Because it is also by translating that one becomes a writer.

A small proportion of people claim to live and consume in ways they consider more sustainable in social and environmental terms. As yet, we do not know how many exactly, but possibly no more than 5-10% of the population. The thesis intentionally focuses on this minority finding there are at least three reasons why it is interesting to do so. First because they are all but ignored in sociologies of practice in the context of sustainable consumption which considers this minority an insignificance and focuses almost exclusively on 'mainstream' majority which more closely maps onto the stereotype of 'consumer society'. Second because we think we can learn much from juxtapositioning this group empirically against the spectrum of theories of practice to devise more robust and appropriate theoretical explanation of how these subjects, in the context of everyday practice, negotiate the many interpretations and contradictions involved in trying to put 'sustainability' into practice. Third because by understanding them better we can reflect on theoretical, empirical and policy implications for nudging this minority of the population to a higher percentage. The thesis sits at one end of a spectrum of positions in theories of practice applied to consumption, and in particular with a normative interest in sustainable consumption. It aligns with those who seek to re-insert the reflexive agent into accounts of practice, with particular reference to the conceptual construct of the 'citizen-consumer' and the context of political consumption (Spaargaren & Oosterveer 2010). Referring to theories of consumption, the thesis adds perspectives on how people negotiate multiple domains of consumption simultaneously since everyday practice involves interactions across multiple domains (such as eating, mobility, householding); and yet typically in theories of practice these are artificially separated into single domains. The study therefore considers the implications which domains have on how particular practices are carried out, first separately (per domain) and then as they come together (in a cross-cutting domain perspective). The study then takes theories of practice as a springboard to develop a theoretical position and framework which better fits the narrated accounts of the 37 subjects who participated in this study. In iteratively co-developing a theoretical framework and multiple 'stages' of empirical research (using grounded theory methodology) the study seeks to explain theoretically how subjects justify their 'doings' (drawing on 'conventions' and 'orders of worth' (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006)); how they appear to muddle through as best they can (introducing 'bricolage' (Lévi-Strauss 1972)); and how subjects appear to devise decision short-cuts when approaching decisions characterised by the multiple contradictions of sustainable consumption and incomplete or 'too much' information (introducing heuristics (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier 2011)). In joining calls to re-insert the reflexive agent to account for how, when and why subjects enact changes towards trajectories which they consider 'more sustainable' in their own terms, the study takes inspiration from Margaret Archer's morphogenesis approach (1998) and explores her model of multiple modes of reflexivity, announcing certain modes as 'better fitting' conditions of late modernity. The study finally finds that contrary to a notion of the un-reflexive agent, the citizen-consumer is able to articulate visions of the 'good life'. In addition she is able to fold these visions back onto everyday practices performed in the past, present and future, laying out normative guidelines and positive accounts of how to achieve personal or societal well-being and happiness. The overarching positioning of the study is much inspired by Andrew Sayer's (2011; 2000) 'normative turn' calling upon social sciences to re-instate research into the things about which people care. The study is therefore guided by the overarching question of how people translate their environmental and/or social concerns into the ways in which they live and consume.

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