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This small-scale study is positioned within a social constructionist interpretive paradigm using a mixed methodology employing principles of adapted grounded theory, simple scale-based questionnaires and action research. Fourteen disabled young people from one specialist and three secondary mainstream settings were interviewed using semi-structured interviews to gain their views on friendship and belonging in schools. Three groups of parents, TAs, SENCos and allied education professionals engaged in action research to examine these views, their own views and values and those of disabled young people in their families and schools in order to better understand the sensitivities and subtleties of successful social inclusion and to consider change to whole school practice. The limitations that non-disabled adults unwittingly ‘construct’ that act as barriers to friendship and social inclusion were explicitly recognised in this interpretive research as a contribution to informing practice and theory in this domain. Paper One focuses on the views of young people and the meaning and importance they placed on friendship and social relationships in their lives. Findings included that young people in specialist and mainstream setting highly valued friendships but that sustaining friendships in the wider community was often problematic for those participants who attended schools outside their local community. This mainly affected the specialist setting students but was also recognised as an issue by some of the mainstream parents who lived outside the catchment area. Findings also revealed that young people gained their sense of belonging from the positive relationships they formed with TAs and teachers as well as friends. In order for friendship and positive social inclusion to develop, however, participants required schools to provide a supportive environment of accessible rooms, doors and lifts and adults who trusted them to have the competency and agency to manage their social times and spaces with choice and autonomy. The issue of ‘surplus visibility’ was highlighted by disabled young people who spoke of an experience of school where lack of choice concerning where and with whom to spend break times limited their friendship opportunities and sense of well-being and inclusion. This was compounded by an expectation of compliance by adults and automatic assumption of their belonging to a disabled group despite differences of sex, gender or common interests. The participants valued genuine connection through humour, interests and social support and were active in seeking private time for talking with friends. Schools that provided a range of highly social or quieter, more private, locations for students were highly valued. Paper Two describes using these views as stimulus for action research to bring about change towards improved social inclusion. Groups of parents, senior management, SENCos, TAs and other education professionals met formally three times over a four month period. These groups examined vignettes selected from data from paper one, engaged in debate and discussions, interviewed disabled young people themselves, formulated key concept maps leading to revised theoretical frameworks, reflected and evaluated the process of the action research and considered practice change or further research. This stage was a continued process of seeking to hear authentic voices, in depth discussion and reflection on what we were learning from disabled young people combined with our own knowledge, values, and beliefs. This led to the development of conceptual models and practical change intentions to promote social inclusion. Intentions to change included •Developing alternative social rooms with minimal TA presence •Including disabled young people in TA selection processes •Involving parents in reviewing the school inclusion policy •Establishing a regular parents’ support group •A commitment to keep listening to young people’s voices and preferences on key matters rather than ‘assuming that we already know!’ •Lengthening the lunch break in the specialist setting to ensure time for socialising and friendship building These commitments to change demonstrated that schools were able to engage successfully in the action research process, valued parents’contributions further and were willing to change practice towards greater social inclusion of disabled young people and parents.

Many teachers of young adolescents face compelling pressures to dramatically change their practice. The rapid adoption of 1:1 computing, whereby each student has nearly constant access to an Internet-connected laptop, netbook or tablet, poses unique challenges to established practices in curriculum, instruction and classroom management. A growing number of teachers also confront a movement to provide students more personalized and flexible pathways to high school graduation, including experiential, blended and online learning, and allow students to apply knowledge and skills to tasks of personal interest. How teachers cope in this dynamic period may hinge on their ongoing professional development. In recent decades, a general consensus has emerged that promotes teaching as a learning profession in which teachers work together in learning communities and seek expertise not just from outside experts, but also from colleagues attuned to local circumstances. At the same time, the student voice movement encouraged schools to empower students as key collaborators in school improvement. In spite of common themes in the narratives on teacher learning and student voice—collaboration, empowerment and effective change—they seldom intersect in traditional professional development settings or in teachers' collegial learning. This dissertation proposes student consultation as a link between students and teachers in collaborative school improvement and suggests next steps toward more sustainable efforts to involve students in the preparation and ongoing learning of teachers. Three studies are presented. The first study described a weeklong summer professional development institute in which students have played a central role for more than two decades. It outlined the conditions conducive to the collaborative culture among teachers and consulting students and summarizes participants' perspectives on student consultation. The second study applied a qualitative case study design involving observations, interviews, focus groups and surveys with 72 teachers and 20 students to delve more deeply into consultations at the summer institute. Most teachers and students perceived the consultations as enjoyable and beneficial, willingly embraced shifts in authority during consultations, and noted the benefits of strategies employed to support the culture and practices of student consultations. The third study explored how teachers engaged with students as consultants in classroom action research projects initiated at the summer institute and in professional development contexts. The multi-site, collective case study examined six projects involving twelve teachers and 241 students. Interviews and focus groups with nine teachers and 22 students were coded by stages of the action research cycle and characteristics of student involvement in order to examine at which stages in the action research and in what capacities teachers involved their students. The study confirmed teachers' and students' general appreciation of consultation and suggests that parsing the subtleties of when and how students are consulted can contribute to deeper understand of student involvement and better facilitation of action research in teacher professional development. Together, this collection of studies has implications for the design and evaluation of student consultation in teacher professional development.

Education in Cape Verde has come a long way since its humble colonial beginnings with the opening of the first school in 1525. However, despite notable progress and the existence of some schools which are perceived to be superior, the quality of the education provided in the public school system is poor overall. Unfortunately the dearth of research on education in Cape Verde - and indeed the rest of the developing world - available to guide qualitative improvement forces school officials and change agents to use models from developed countries to guide change efforts. The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of that practice based on experiences accumulated during part of a seven year technical aid intervention.

Švietimo kaitos vadyba mūsų šalyje niekada nebuvo tokia ryški, kaip dabar, XXI-ame amžiuje, kai pasaulis priartėjo prie mūsų, o mes prie jo, įžengėme į globalizacijos, žinių ir informacinių technologijų visuomenę. Dabartinė nepriklausomos Lietuvos švietimo kaitos vadyba, turinti dviejų dešimtmečių istoriją, yra dinamiška, artima Vakarų Europos ir kitų išsivysčiusių pasaulio šalių švietimo sistemoms. Prie to daug prisidėjo mokslininkų vykdyti tyrimai gerosios patirties skleidimas. Pasirinkta magistrinio darbo tema, aktuali ir pasižymi naujumu: girdisi įvairių vertinimų tiek iš besimokančiojo jaunimo, tiek iš jų tėvų ir kitų socialinių gyventojų sluoksnių. Tyrimo objektas – mokinių tėvų, prekybos centrų ir bankų darbuotojų, aukštesniųjų kursų studentų požiūris į švietimo kaitos vadybą ir jos tobulinimą. Tyrimo problema – kaip visuomenė vertina dabartinę švietimo kaitos vadybą ir ją lemiančius veiksnius. Tyrimo tikslas – atskleisti visuomenės požiūrį į švietimo vadybos kaitą ir jos tobulinimą. Tyrimo imtis – 229 respondentai, iš jų: 62 mokinių tėvai, 45 prekybos darbuotojai, 44 Swedbank darbuotojai, 78 III–IV kursų studentai. Tyrimo bazė. Tyrimas atliktas Vilniaus miesto dviejose vidurinėse mokyklose, Vilniaus pedagoginiame universitete, Swedbanke ir Kosmados parduotuvėse. Atliekant tyrimą naudoti šie tyrimo metodai: mokslinės literatūros ir teisinių dokumentų analizė, anketinė apklausa, kontent analizė, matematinių – statistinių duomenų analizė. Tyrimo rezultatai: išsiaiškinta... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The topic of the change management of education in our country becomes important as never before. The current system of the change management of education in Lithuania is very dynamic and has much common with Western Europe or the educational systems of other developed countries. Lithuanian scientists have made a big contribution to achieve the current level of the development of the education system. The issues covered in the thesis have some features of novelty and are topical. They are widely discussed by students, their parents and other interested parties from different social groups. The object of the research is the attitude of students‘ parents, emploees` of supermarkets and banks, students of the higher grade towards the change management of education and its development. The issue of the research is society‘s attitude towards the change management of education and the factors which have impact on it. The main aim of the research is to reveal society‘s attitude towards the change management of education and its development. The survey of 229 respondents was caried out during the course of the research: 62 of the parents of students, 45 supermarket emploees, 78 – III-IV year students. The basis of the research. The research was performed at two secondary schools in Vilnius, Vilnius pedagogical university, bank “Swedbank“ and supermarket “Kosmada“. During the course of the research the following research methods were applied: the analysis of scientific... [to full text]

Education in Cape Verde has come a long way since its humble colonial beginnings with the opening of the first school in 1525. However, despite notable progress and the existence of some schools which are perceived to be superior, the quality of the education provided in the public school system is poor overall. Unfortunately the dearth of research on education in Cape Verde - and indeed the rest of the developing world - available to guide qualitative improvement forces school officials and change agents to use models from developed countries to guide change efforts. The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of that practice based on experiences accumulated during part of a seven year technical aid intervention.

The major objective has been to create tools for analyzing the reasoning regarding the school the different actors involved - pupils, teachers, school and politicians show. A subordinate aim was to explore relevance in this connection of eight studies carried out by the author 1979 – 1999 concerning three basic areas: the pedagogical processes at the school level, at the teacher education level and at the level of school change. I conclude that a recurring question is that of the relevance and the sense of meaningfulness experienced by those involved in different educational processes. In one of the eight empirical studies, termed the compulsory-school teacher study (1997), an approach to analyzing what teacher trainees find relevant in their work in schools is presented, involving two basic concepts, those of the event space and the relational space. In considering these concepts in terms of Alfred Schutz' theory of the lifeworld, I rename the relational space the space of contemporaries. A new study is also reported in this thesis – Teachers and schoolpoliticians in the pedagogical process of school change, the LoP-study. In considering the earlier eight studies in conjunction with the LoP-study, I find the studies to have dealt with personal processes and societal processes as well as pedagogical processes in how the parties involved reason in talking about the school. Three different aspects of the processes are distinguished: meta-aspects, connected with the aims a given process has; core aspects, connected with what one concretely does; and approach aspects, pertaining to how the persons involved relate to each other and to the process. In analyzing the LoP- interviews carried out with use of the tools developed – enabling different processes and aspects of these to be analyzed – I find marked individual differences in the patterns of different aspects of the processes involved. The width of the event space and of the space of contemporaries on the part both of the teachers and of the politicians were found to vary considerably. A conclusion drawn is that further development of the tools created would be worthwhile. It also seems possible to apply these tools to other areas, such as those of the scientific community with its research processes and of the political community with its steering processes.

In this thesis 14 gender pedagogues’ stories about power and control are described and analysed. Here the term gender pedagogue refers to educators who have participated in further training in gender and gender equality studies. The training programme was the result of an initiative taken by the former Social Democratic government. The intention of the government was that those who participated in the training programme would then work as resource persons in the work for gender equality in preschools and schools (Frånberg, 2010; Regeringen, 2001a, 2001b; Wahlgren, 2009). The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the gender pedagogues’ access to power and control in work for change. The theoretical framework chosen for the study consists of Basil Bernsteins concepts classification and framing (Bernstein, 1977, 2000) and Hildur Ve’s (1999a, 1999b) use of the concepts technical limited rationality and care work rationality. The empirical evidence is based on observations in a seminar series on gender issues and semi-structured interviews. The results of the interviews are presented as stories which have been created in the interplay between the gender pedagogues and the interviewer. One conclusion that can be drawn from the stories is that power relations and gender patterns on many different levels influenced the possibilities of the gender pedagogues for power and control. Power and control in the relation between technical limited rationality and care work rationality is expressed in different ways. It is seen in the possibilities and descriptions of resistance and difficulties. Resistance and difficulties depended, according to the gender pedagogues, on the differences between their own view of knowledge and that of others. If gender and gender equality was not considered to be an important area of knowledge, possibilities for power and control decreased.

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