The 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century have brought a lot of changes in all people´s lifes. There was The big economic crisis, two world wars, totalitarian regime and terrorostic attacks. But there were also some positive events. The 20th century was influenced by progress in car and aircraft industry, medicine and the media. These events intervened in society, in every individual´s life. This happened in the Czech republic too. Except for these events, our country was influenced by totalitarian regime and the following coming of demokracy. How has it changed people´s lifes and children´s behavior in a century, that is also called {\clqq}the century of child``? The aim of this Diploma Work was to map the Influence of the Social Climate on the Childrens Behaviour at Primary Schools in South Bohemian region. A partial aim of the Diploma Work was to compare facts from literature from 70th and 80th years of 20th century and from 90th years of 20th century and after year 2000. I used a secondary data analysis. I compared books and articles about upbringing. Some of them were edited in 70th and 80th years of 20th century and some books and articles were edited in 90th years of 20th century and after year 2000. This method was supplement wit semistandardized interviews with 25 primary and secondary school teachers. The main quota was the teachers´age. They had to be older than 40 years to be able to compare children´s behavior before and after 1989. The results of the interviews showed, that most of asked teachers feel the change in children´s behavior after coming of demokracy in the Czech republic. These teachers think, that it is caused by political change in our country. This fact agrees with literature resources I used in my Diploma Work only partialy. Most of the resources coincide, that the change of the children´s behavior is caused by general development of society, the coming of demokracy is only a part of this development. In the research following hypotheses were determined: Hypothesis 1 Behavior of today´s children isn´t caused only by the coming of demokracy. Hypothesis 2 Playing PC games and watching TV is the most frequent way of spending children´s free time. Hypothesis 3 Older generation of teachers adapt badly to modern teaching techniques. This Work should help teachers to realize, that not only a political system changes children´s behavior. This Work should also help parents and schools to realize, that society development changes children´s behavior. Today´s children are surrounded by many stimulations, material things etc. This could also change their behavior, values and attitudes.

M.Ed. / Educators face the pressure of accountability from parents, employers, the state and the society. The success of teaching and learning at schools depends on the educator’s commitment and capabilities. The central question was : How can we describe the effectiveness of the developmental appraisal system at Thokoza primary schools and what are the reasons for a lack of commitment, capabilities and performance in the teaching staff? The focus of the study was a package of factors including the network of relationships in which educators are involved, which may be addressed to revitalize educators’ performances. The study was geographically confined to Thokoza Primary Schools in the East Rand. A convenient sample was chosen. Tools used were, questionnaires and interviews among educators and principals, and a critical review of the related literature. The project did not aim at generalization of the results but a sample, in depth understanding of the education situation concerning the developmental appraisal system at Thokoza Primary Schools.

The aim of this study is to increase the understanding of digitization in school. More specifically it investigates the use of digital tools implemented in teaching activities. The study also aims to find out what opportunities digital use gives rise to in the role of primary school teachers and how digital progress has influenced the professional role. The three formulated questions that characterize the study are; “How do primary school teachers use digital tools in their professional activities?”, “To what extent do primary school teachers use digital tools in their professional activities?”, “What possible and changed ways of working have digital tools given rise in the professional education of primary school teachers?”. The empirical study is based on 63 questionnaires completed by primary school teachers in Uppsala County, which is the selection for this study. The theoretical framework consists of Engeströms activity theory, which is based on the socio-cultural perspective of learning founded by Vygotskij. The study is also based on previous research concerning the digitization of schools, including the digital tools as aids and digital literacy.   The result shows that the digital tools characterize the profession as a primary school teacher and that these tools have come to play a major role in teaching. The digital tools are used to a very large extent every day and have brought in many opportunities and also contributed to changed working methods in school. The result also shows that the digital tools can have negative effects, but most of the digital tools are seen as an asset.

Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Education Sport, Arts and Culture offers as one of the primary school curricula, an AIDS curriculum which all Grades 4 to 7 teachers in Zimbabwe’s primary schools mandatorily implement with a view to contributing towards the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS among the young primary school learners. The purpose of this research was to explore and describe teachers’ understanding and implementation of Zimbabwe’s primary school AIDS curriculum regarding the ways in which they articulated teaching practices and processes in their classrooms. The study also aimed to elicit the teachers’ views on how personal and contextual factors impact their adaptation and enactment of the curriculum. The study also sought to establish teachers’ perceptions of their practical experiences with the implementation of Zimbabwe’s primary school AIDS curriculum and their suggestions for improving practice. The study follows a qualitative case study design with minimal quantitative results. It involved three purposively selected primary school grade six teachers (n=3) each of whom was asked to teach five lessons while being observed over a period of three months. Each teacher availed his or her teaching scheme/plan to the researcher who conducted document analysis to glean their symbolic conceptualisation of actual classroom practice of the curriculum. This was followed by three semi-structured interviews with each participating teacher to elicit their perceptions. A content analysis using ideas borrowed from the grounded theory approach was employed resulting in thematic findings. The findings of the study confirm and enhance the theoretical significance of the phenomenological-adaptive perspective of educational change and Honig’s (people, policy, places) and cognition model for describing teacher implementation of the mandatory AIDS curriculum. The findings also confirm the complex ways in which human-generated personal and contextual factors played out in framing and shaping teachers’ personal adaptation of the mandatory AIDS curriculum. The study confirms the adaptation claim that as cognitive sense-makers, teachers mutate and enact a curriculum according to their personal subjective interpretations in the context of unique use-setting implementation realities. Although one of the participants’ understanding and practice displayed considerable comprehension of the requirements of the curriculum, the other teachers displayed an understanding of this curriculum in a superficial way, and experienced few positive experiences and several conceptual and operational constraints in its implementation. Drawing on their practical experiences with the implementation of the curriculum, teachers offered suggestions for transforming the implementation proficiency of this curriculum, which formed part of the conceptual strategy I developed for improving practice. Thus the resultant achievement of the study was a conceptual strategy that was constructed from the key findings of the study to provide educational change leaders with nuanced ideas and insights for improving practice.

The research reported in this study is located in a major curriculum reform programme commissioned by the Cypriot government and introduced into all public primary schools in September 2011. The study has a specific focus on teacher professional identity in changing times, not least through examining how teachers engage with an external intervention. The study identifies and deploys conceptual tools to examine how and why teachers have been positioned through this reform, and how there is a need to recognise their role as architects and key agents to curriculum reform policies. This research uses a case study approach and operates on three levels. At the micro level, I report on four primary school teachers’ professional lives utilising multiple sources of evidence. At the meso level, I locate these four teachers into a wider context by reporting on data collected from 308 questionnaires distributed to teachers in 29 schools before the implementation of the reform programme and a year after. Finally, at the macro level I report on the national policy context by looking at documents and interviews with two purposively selected curriculum coordinators. Research data revealed that teachers’ professional identity and its underpinning constructs such as emotions, job satisfaction and professional commitment, autonomy, and confidence were constantly challenged and negotiated within the changing educational setting. Contextual and professional factors were found to affect to a great extent teachers’ identity. The unfolding of the research findings derived from the three levels of this research and the use of Foucauldian governmentality as a theoretical lens led to the exposition of the power relations embedded in teachers’ professional lives and contributed to the further analysis of teachers’ identity within educational policy. The case is made that the complexity of professional identity needs to be taken into account by reform designers because teachers are the ones who embrace, reinterpret and develop such efforts. The way and degree to which teachers understand, adjust, perceive and enact on reforms are affected by the extent to which these innovations interact with and challenge existing identities. This research project examines how policy interplays with practice as well as how teachers in a highly centralised system experience and respond to changes in their professional lives, what constitutes, shapes, supports and undermines their practice, thus, making a contribution to the evidence and theory base for the educational policy field. The study enriches the international literature on professional identity and fills in the gaps with respect to teachers’ professional identity at a time of system wide change at a national level in Cyprus. Finally, there is a methodological contribution as it concentrates on primary teachers and utilises methods which are not widely used as the majority of undertaken research is based mainly on surveys and interviews and focuses on secondary teachers.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION in the Department of Educational Planning and Administration at the University of Zululand, 2000. / This research examined the role of principals in promoting teacher professionalism. The study made use of questionnaires to determine what principals do / do not do to promote and maintain teacher professionalism. On the basis of views from respondents, the study concluded that teachers in the areas studied, perceive some principals as promoting professional behaviour. The research project established that there are teachers who are unprofessional in some of the schools that were investigated. The research recommended strategies to enhance professionalism in schools.

The purpose of this study was to construct portrayals of teachers7 work conceptions in various career stages from the stories they told and the metaphors they used to describe the ways in which teachers learned about their work. Specifically, the study included preservice teachers, first-year teachers, third-year teachers, and teachers with more than four years of teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school levels. Thirty-five elementary and secondary school teachers from the North-Central area of Texas participated in this study (nineteen inservice and sixteen preservice teachers). Qualitative techniques were employed to collect data. The preservice teachers filled out a questionnaire and wrote short stories about their preconceptions of their first year of teaching. Inservice teachers were interviewed using a short questionnaire and a long interview schedule. Nine inservice teachers participated in a storytelling workshop/focus group session. Group stories based on predetermined scenarios were constructed, tape-recorded and transcribed. The focus group session was videotaped and transcribed. Fifteen categories emerged from the analysis of the data: cyclical, ritualized, hierarchical, reciprocal, developmental, experiential, reflective, cumulative, body of knowledge, folkloric, individualized/personalized, order/control/manage, disciplinarian, facilitative, and replicative. These categories represent a summary of the constructs, images, contextual maps and metaphors held by these teachers to describe their enculturation process. The descriptive categories developed in this study offer teacher educators, supervisors and teachers a basis for understanding the culture of teachers. The storytelling technigues used in this study provide a means by which teachers and teacher-related personnel can generate further information about the enculturation process that can be applied to recruitment, orientation/ induction programming, reflective teacher preparation and change strategies.

School-based social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions have the potential to promote healthy development among children, including social and emotion regulation and academic achievement. Higher levels of implementation quality are associated with greater student outcomes compelling research to identify factors that contribute to successful implementation. Social validity refers to the social significance of an intervention and is thought to improve the uptake of interventions. The ecological model of teacher implementation proposes that individual and contextual factors influence social validity. The present study used a mixed-method design to examine how teacher and school factors were associated with the social validity of SEL interventions. Participants included 112 PK-5 teachers who completed an online survey about their perceptions of social validity of SEL interventions, their demographics, SEL beliefs, self-efficacy, stress level, multicultural competence (MCC), school climate, school location, and proportions of students and teachers of color. Participants responded to four open-ended questions regarding their perceptions of SEL interventions. Structural equation modeling was used to test model fit and estimate relationships between variables. Teacher SEL Competence (indicated by SEL beliefs, self-efficacy, and MCC), School Diversity (indicated by location, proportions of students and teachers of color), stress level, race/ethnicity, and school climate were examined in their association with the social validity (i.e., acceptability, willingness, perceived effectiveness, and disruption) of SEL interventions. Thematic analysis was used to extract common themes from qualitative data and expand the understanding of teachers’ perceptions about SEL interventions. Quantitative and qualitative results showed that teacher and school factors were significantly associated with social validity. Overall, teachers reported positive perceptions about SEL interventions; particularly, teachers with higher SEL competence perceived SEL interventions to be more acceptable and effective and were more willing to engage in them. Teachers with higher stress levels also perceived SEL interventions as more acceptable, suggesting they may think SEL interventions can improve both student behavior and teacher well-being. On the other hand, teachers with more years of teaching experience perceived SEL interventions as more disruptive to classroom routines. This may point to barriers in school settings such as lack of time for non-academic activities. Notably, teachers of color also perceived SEL interventions to be more disruptive, and teachers working in more diverse schools rated SEL interventions to be less acceptable. Teachers noted that SEL interventions should be customized to students’ context and reality. Teachers of color and those working in diverse schools may be more aware of the lack of cultural responsiveness of SEL interventions, and therefore find them less socially valid. Providing trainings and supports that develop teacher SEL competence can significantly increase social validity and, consequently, engagement in interventions. It is also important to promote teachers’ MCC and infuse multicultural considerations into school practices. Research on intervention development, evaluation, and dissemination should account for cultural diversity as well as investigate adaptations to improve implementation quality, sustainability, and student outcomes. Advancing SEL interventions in these areas has the potential to promote a healthier development among students particularly those from diverse communities.

This study examines how primary school teachers view peer assessment. Six teachers were interviewed by semi-structured interviews about how they work with peer assessment with pupils in primary school, how they introduce it and what pros and cons they find with this method of giving feedback. The interviews were summarized with the analytical method called meaning concentration. We used Vygotsky's theory about the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which represents the space between what a learner is capable of doing with a little help called scaffolding from another child. The result was compared to this theory from a sociocultural perspective in the analytical part. The result showed that three teachers used peer assessment as a routine in their class in different subjects, two teachers had used peer assessment earlier but didn’t practice it by the time we had the interviews. One teacher had not used peer assessment with pupils but insisted on potentially using it in the future. The benefit that the teachers saw with peer assessment was that the teachers could focus on the students that needed their help while the other students were used as learning resources to each other. Another benefit was that the pupils developed in their own learning by giving feedback to others, which also prepared them for the peer assessment they would meet in high school. The disadvantage was that it was time-consuming since it required a lot of training before letting the pupils work on their own. One more potential risk with peer assessment was that the quality of the feedback could vary a lot depending on the pupil’s skills of giving feedback. Receiving low quality constructive criticism could make some students feel discouraged to present their work again in this way. The teachers also gave some advice for how to introduce peer assessment in primary school. The conclusions of this study are that peer assessment in primary school requires a lot of time for training as well as the teacher being a role model for the class in order to avoid unwanted conflicts and discouraged students. It is also a good way to prepare the pupils for their future studies and help them develop their own skills in learning.

Based on these research findings, policy implications for education bureau, school leaders and teachers, and suggestions for further research were addressed. / Textbooks have played an important role in teachers' work. Most of the teachers in mainland China used textbooks adopted by the local district authority, but there has been a huge research gap in empirical study on textbook use in mainland China. This study was guided by three major research questions: How do teachers use textbooks? How do teachers use textbooks in planning and making decisions about classroom teaching? How do different factors influence the use of textbooks? Adopting a qualitative approach of inquiry, this study involved seventeen teachers from three primary schools. Data was generated from participant observation, in-depth interview, and document analysis. / The discussion chapter uses theories of teachers' habitus. Teachers followed a certain set of routines when using textbook, gradually these routines had become a kind of habitus. Habitus became part of school context where primary education was characterized by exam-oriented tradition, trivialization of work, low status of teachers and conservatism. / The research findings suggested that teachers could be grouped into three different categories: dependent-type, adaptive-type and flexible-type. Teachers of different subjects exhibit different levels of dependence on textbooks, with the highest level of dependence among Chinese language teachers who follow closely an instruction routine of recitation. Mathematics teachers came next and then moral education teachers whose flexible teaching style was attributed to the fact that moral education was not an examination subject on a district wide level. Teachers of different age cohorts exhibit different levels of dependence on textbooks. Novice teachers depended on textbooks, while experienced teachers did not fall into a single category of dependence or adaptation. Those Chinese and Mathematics teachers who demonstrated the highest level of flexibility in using textbooks belonged to the intermediate stage between novice teacher and experienced teacher. / Why did teachers use textbooks in this manner? First, examination was a major factor which shaped the pattern of using textbooks. It was a deeply rooted factor because it was internalized as part of teachers' beliefs. Teachers of dependent-type and adaptive-type thought highly of examination, while teachers of flexible-type regarded examination merely as baseline of instruction. The latter had built their teaching styles on what they learned from educational research. School principals played the role of a "gate-keeper" during the process of teacher development and educational research. Another major factor that affected all teachers was the pre-existing condition and emergent behavior of their students. Comparatively speaking, teachers of flexible-type were more responsive to students' needs, and were more concerned about emergent behavior of their students. / 王世偉. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 1912. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 278-297). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Wang Shiwei.