Educational reform has been perceived as a process whereby the Thai Government expects to increase the national competitiveness and stimulate literacy across the country. Its crucial concept was to implement the student-centred learning approach (SCL). This study presents an analysis of classroom observation focusing on lower secondary (Mattayom 1-3) science classrooms in 14 schools located in a rural area in Thailand and discusses the implementation of the current science curriculum. Additionally, a thematic analysis of interviews with lower secondary school science teachers and focus group interviews of students are presented. Based on the thematic analysis, perceptions of 22 science teachers on the current science curriculum implementation and prospective factors which tend to deteriorate the effectiveness of curriculum implementation are addressed. Like the teachers' interviews, students' perceptions regarding science and benefit of studying science are obtained from 30 groups of students, using the thematic analysis and are presented in this study. Based on the observations of 22 science classrooms, teachers' practices in implementing the current science curriculum in the rural context can be categorised, based on their inclination towards particular learning approaches, into three groups; namely combination of the student-centred learning (SCL) approach and the teacher-centred learning (TCL) approach with a tendency towards SCL, combination of SCL and TCL with a tendency towards TCL ,and the teacher-centred learning (TCL).The teachers' perceptions could be described into two perspectives; namely on the reform and on implementation, and each perspective can be classified into several themes, and the major issues emerged are discussed. The students' perceptions can be categorised into eight themes such as attitudes regarding learning/studying science, future plans, etc. The study is expected to contribute to the understanding of current science teaching and improving its practices for the science teachers in Thailand. Eventually, these experiences could be an example for other transitional countries in the wider context.

This study focused on two themes which have recurred in education since the 1980's: equity of educational outcomes for all students and reform in mathematics education. The problem addressed in this study concerned the apparent inability of large- scale reforms to meet equity goals. The purpose of the study was to increase understanding of this problem from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The study was influenced by feminist perspectives in the choice of theoretical framework and methodology. Focusing specifically on gender equity, the study was set in the context of a large-scale reform in the USA, Ohio's Statewide Systemic Initiative, Project Discovery.There were three major objectives in this study. First was to synthesise the literature concerning gender equity in mathematics education to produce a definition of the ideal Connected Equitable Mathematics Classroom (CEMC). There were two parts to the literature review: one concerning explanations for observed gender differences in mathematics education, and another concerning initiatives implemented to try to bring about gender equity in mathematics education.The second objective was to use the definition of the ideal CEMC, derived from the literature, to determine the extent to which reform had occurred in mathematics classrooms in Ohio. This was accomplished through the analysis of quantitative data collected from a random sample of teachers and principals across the state, and qualitative data collected from seven case study sites. The third objective was to determine the barriers to and facilitators of the realisation of equity goals in middle-school mathematics classrooms involved in Project Discovery. This was accomplished through a cross-site analysis of data collected at the seven case- study sites, with the analysis framed around the characteristics of the CEMC.The outcomes of the study are ++ / set out in terms of these three objectives, culminating in a discussion of the implications and challenges which the findings of this study pose for researchers, reformers, equity advocates and practitioners.

In order to enhance students' understanding of the interrelationships between business administration, business mathematics and accounting, the recently developed curriculum of Austrian commercial schools comprises one global subject in which the contents of these three subjects have been combined. A second subject called "business practice" has been introduced to provide sufficient time to apply the acquired business knowledge to practice-oriented tasks. The results of a formative evaluation study show that several teachers have considerable difficulties to put the main ideas of these two subjects into practice and that many students find it hard to understand the identity of these two subjects. (authors' abstract)

The past three decades have seen a substantial growth of interest in children's play in scholarly and popular writing, the mass media and government policymaking. Implicit and explicit in this growing interest is the idea that children's play, or more specifically, a decline or lack of children's outdoor play, represents a serious problem in the UK and other western societies and that it therefore requires the intervention of a range of professional and political powers. The rapid and widespread affirmation that claims about children's play have received deserves critical examination. This study examines the construction of children's play as a social problem in four major UK newspapers. Focusing on the period from 1985 to 2016, it draws on theoretical and conceptual tools from the constructionist study of social problems and methodological tools from Qualitative Media Analysis to examine the roles played by various claimsmakers in the construction of the problem and the rhetoric used in support of their cause. It hence offers important insights into the prominent position children's play holds on the public agenda and identifies some of the underlying cultural currents from which claims about children's play draw.

A discourse on multicultural education evolved from the late 1950s in response to immigration from ‘the New Commonwealth’. By the 1980s that discourse had become dominated by multicultural and antiracist perspectives. Both can be seen to embody partial truths about Britain’s racial minorities, but neither are sufficiently adequate to the complex situation relating to belonging and cultural identity. An account of lived experience provides a unique dimension to such discourse. This study uses narrative as a methodological approach to describe the effects English in multicultural education, has had on me as a child of immigrant parents and how it has shaped my identity and work as an English teacher involved with language and literature. After validating the use of narrative in research, the study draws on my experience as a pupil and, subsequently, poet and teacher. I illustrate my history through a prose chronology as a way of illustrating the role of English in both colonial and multicultural education. The dissertation also speculates on some pivotal points in the recent history of multicultural education and calls for the discourse on assimilation and integration to be re-negotiated. It acts as a revisionist argument about social mobility, ‘big society’ and cultural inclusiveness.

Enquiry-based blended learning (EBBL) research in social work education forms the basis of this submission. The core EBBL theme is defined, developed and analysed through four avenues of research, namely, scenario-planning, teaching and learning using EBBL, researching students’ experiences of EBBL and embedding EBBL practices in interdisciplinary higher education. One software publication is submitted illustrating how the author’s ability to work at the intersection of social work practice experience, learning design innovation and digital technology development has enabled him to present a unique perspective in this area of research. Two written and two software publications set the context for the scenario-planning themes that have influenced the EBBL research. Four themed written publications explore the development of teaching and learning approaches using EBBL, and lessons from students’ experiences of engaging with these EBBL designs. Two written publications explore the barriers and enablers to embedding EBBL practices in interdisciplinary higher education. Using enquiry, a mixture of face-to-face and online teaching methods, life-like learning scenarios and opportunities to engage in independent and group-based learning, the research illustrates that EBBL approaches can help educators to enable learners to meet and, where possible, exceed the requirements of pre-qualifying social work education.

This doctoral study examined the pedagogy of history and heritage in four Greek supplementary schools in England and how this influences the development of students' identities in a period of continuous social change. The study followed a case study design and a mixed-method methodology. The methods employed were documentary research, questionnaires, interviews and ethnographic observations. It was conducted in three distinct phases. The pre-phase of the research examined the history of Greek migration in the UK. The second, quantitative phase and the third, qualitative phase, explored participants' attitudes, perceptions and practices on history pedagogy and identity development. A notable finding of this doctoral research is that the structure of the Greek community and Greek supplementary schools in England are undergoing a dynamic change due to the influx of Greek and Greek-Cypriot migrants in the UK recently. While this change is undergoing, the findings of this research revealed that a part of pedagogical practices appear to reflect this need for a change, while some others continue to reproduce the wish of preserving primordial notions of culture and ethnicity. This doctoral study stresses the need for a reconsideration of policies and practices to suit the current fluid context of late modernity.

Over the last two decades there have been dramatic increases in the movement of people around the globe. The UK, like other wealthy countries in the global north, has become the recipient of increasing numbers of refugees, many of whom are highly qualified and have professional backgrounds (Kirk 2004; Houghton and Morrice 2008). This thesis captures the experiences of refugees with professional and higher level qualifications as they seek to rebuild their lives in the UK. Rather than look at migration through more traditional lenses of assimilation and acculturation it instead links the experience of refugees with theories and processes of learning and identity formation. This offers a more nuanced and fine grain understanding and analysis of refugee experience. The study is guided by two broad questions: firstly, how might individual biography shape and inform the strategies adopted by refugees in the UK, and secondly, what insight does learning (both informal and formal) offer to our understanding of the processes involved in transition to the UK. To address this I have adopted a longitudinal approach which follows five refugees over a four year period as they move through the asylum system, negotiate a new social space and enter higher education. The narratives presented illuminate the hybridity of experience and indicate how each refugee has his or her own personal story which is linked to their unique biographical, cultural and social background. However, each narrative is lived within the broader social template of what it means to be a refugee in the UK in the first decade of the twenty first century, and how this template is negotiated, managed and sometimes subverted in different ways. These experiences cross cut and intersect with differences of ethnicity, of gender, of country of origin, faith and age. I draw on Bourdieu's framework of capital, field and habitus as tools to apprehend and explore the processes underlying the narratives (1977; 1998; 1999). Becoming a refugee in the UK firmly placed participants into symbolic structures of inequality and disadvantage. They are structured and positioned through mechanisms of capital transformation and trading which mean that they rarely have opportunities to convert and trade up the capitals they possessed into symbolic capital, and educational and employment reward. The narratives presented depict the struggles of refugees to accrue and convert capital in order to claim a positive identity. It is also about the struggle to be recognised as having moral worth, to be respected and seen to be respectable (Skeggs 1997; Sayer 2005). A broad range of learning processes are involved in managing transition. To capture the profundity and complexity of subjective construction and identity formation I suggest conceptualising learning as processes of ‘becoming' and ‘unbecoming'(Biesta 2006; Hodkinson et al. 2007). From the disintegration and deconstruction of self which accompanies migration this research illuminates how participants learn to ‘become', which in its broadest sense is learning how to rethink themselves in order to live with integrity and dignity in a new social space.

“Street children” appear, within current forms of state provision, an irreversible aspect of the world's 'out of school youth 1. NGOs demonstrate appropriate strategies, but do not have the resources for widespread action. State Educational Systems are inert, but have the possibility of a more general response. The inclusion of these children within state education is therefore investigated in the light of NGO experience. European history depicts a situation equatable with that of the present-day. This provides a basis to compare the relevance of Europe's arrival at a minimised incidence of street existence, with the present third world situation. Current ethnography provides an understanding of the circumstances of street-life, and children's drawings are used as a research/educative technique. Definition is usually a prerequisite of discussions of disadvantaged groups, but it is argued that 'street children' are more usefully considered within a hierarchy of street use which includes all children. Urban entropy is utilised as a conceptual framework applicable to past and present contexts, which proposes social coherence as an educational objective. A non-excluding school is propounded, which has the possibility of accommodating children irrespective of their degree of street use. Field-work was carried out in South Africa, Turkey, and India.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the implementation process of the present and newly introduced instructional techniques in new elementary school mathematics curriculum in sixth grade through the reports of teachers, which has been piloted in some specific schools. Moreover, it was aimed to find out the effects of several parameters on implementation, like city where school teachers are working is located, teachers&amp / #8217 / gender, teaching experience and number of students in the classroom. In addition, difficulties faced by teachers during the implementation process and teachers&amp / #8217 / general opinions about the new curriculum are examined. The sample consisted of 80 teachers working at elementary schools located in Ankara, Istanbul, Bolu and Kocaeli (Izmit). The Teacher Questionnaire was administered to participants in the 2005-2006 academic year. In order to investigate the differences in Teacher Questionnaire&amp / #8217 / s sub-scales&amp / #8217 / scores (Learning-Teaching Process, Material Usage, Evaluation Techniques) of the participants with respect to city, gender, teaching experience, academic level and number of students in classes, separate Multivariate Analysis of Variance were run. The results of this study indicated that teachers&amp / #8217 / implementation of the new methods and techniques highlighted in the curriculum can be interpreted as at high level. MANOVA tests indicated that teachers&amp / #8217 / implementation of the new methods and techniques were not affected by number of students in the classrooms, gender and teaching experience. According to the results of the study, teachers&amp / #8217 / usage of recommended educational equipments was found as at average level and MANOVA tests indicated that teachers&amp / #8217 / usage of recommended educational equipments was affected by teaching experience but not by gender and number of students in the classroom. The results of this study also showed that teachers&amp / #8217 / implementation of new evaluation techniques was at average level and MANOVA tests indicated that teachers&amp / #8217 / implementation of new evaluation techniques were not affected by gender, teaching experience and number of students in the classrooms.