Considerable research, policy, and programmatic efforts have been dedicated to addressing the participation of particular populations in STEM for decades. Each of these efforts claims equity- related goals; yet, they heavily frame the problem, through pervasive STEM pipeline model discourse, in terms of national needs, workforce supply, and competitiveness. This particular framing of the problem may, indeed, be counter to equity goals, especially when paired with policy that largely relies on statistical significance and broad aggregation of data over exploring the identities and experiences of the populations targeted for equitable outcomes in that policy. In this study, I used the mixed-methods approach of critical discourse and critical quantitative analyses to understand how the pipeline model ideology has become embedded within academic discourse, research, and data surrounding STEM education and work and to provide alternatives for quantitative analysis. Using critical theory as a lens, I first conducted a critical discourse analysis of contemporary STEM workforce studies with a particular eye to pipeline ideology. Next, I used that analysis to inform logistic regression analyses of the 2006 SESTAT data. This quantitative analysis compared and contrasted different ways of thinking about identity and retention. Overall, the findings of this study show that many subjective choices are made in the construction of the large-scale datasets used to inform much national science and engineering policy and that these choices greatly influence likelihood of retention outcomes.

This multi-layered case study examines the evolution and operations of one long-lived organized research unit (ORU), the Office of Arid Lands Studies (OALS), at the University of Arizona (UA). The first part includes a history of arid lands research at the UA and the beginning of OALS, a review of the Office's extramural and internal funding since 1964, and a comparison of that data and other performance indicators with other ORUs and, to some extent, with departments. The results are examined in relation to U.S. science policy and the theory of academic capitalism. The second part explores the causes of OALS' 1981 administrative move from the Vice President for Research Office to the College of Agriculture in the context of the University's multiple cultures and institutional and resource dependence theories of organizational change. The final part considers the influence of student workers on faculty supervisors who work as technicians in an OALS lab, and the role of funding agencies in the lab's operations. Theories of power and technology in the workplace provide a frame for the discussion. Findings suggest the placement of this ORU in a college has been beneficial in clarifying research turf, minimizing conflicts, supporting instruction, and in terms of funding. OALS' extramural support has averaged more than four dollars to every one dollar received internally, and OALS faculty compare favorably with other faculty in numbers of publications, and to a certain extent with teaching and advising. While the OALS remote sensing lab does utilize students as sources of cheap labor, the students do have considerable influence over how the lab operates. The only areas of conflict occurred over linking thesis topics to research projects and in meeting funding agency deadlines.

This thesis examines the suggestion that the Western economies are witnessing the globalisation of markets, production, finance and knowledge which has placed severe limits on the economic role of national governments, and that effective public policy is now restricted to the promotion of education and training which is the chief determinant of national competitiveness in the new global, knowledge-intensive economy. In practice, governments have become heavy supporters of knowledgeintensive industries through policies aimed mainly at upgrading human capital. This view of the role of economic policy amounts to a new academic and policy orthodoxy and is subject to critical examination in this thesis. This thesis contends that some convergence of economic systems has occurred with national economic development enmeshed in a global economy in which some positions are more rewarding than others. At the same time, the nation-state remains central to shaping industrial activity. Nowhere is this argument more true than in `high technology or `knowledgeintensive' sectors where increasing returns apply and where government policies continue to play a critical role in determining industrial development. These arguments are examined through a case study of skills and training issues in European biotechnology - purportedly a sector exposed to processes of globalisation. The study reveals the explanatory limits of the new orthodoxy. It reveals a picture of biotechnology in which economic development is far more complex than originally assumed at the beginning of the skill shortage study. The economic validity of the argument that investments in skills and training are a panacea to improving productivity in a knowledge-intensive industries and are thus the key to the economicprosperity of nations is criticised. It is shown how popular assumptions in relation to the scientific labour market are misplaced and inappropriate. The development of the sector is shown to have been heavily influenced by the operation of national structures and the ways in which these have structured the level and nature of demand for the industry's products and the availability of investment finance for new technologies. Significant changes in the dimensions of national biotechnology industries are acknowledged to have occurred through the globalisation of capital and markets, but the role of the national environment and of the strategic choices of governments in developing the sector are seen to have been highly influential in shaping the dynamics of the industry. Although the failure of the European biotechnology industry to develop at the pace originally envisaged has been attributed to skill shortages, it is argued that the pace of economic development in this sector has been influenced also by the power of national and transnational social groups, differential access to knowledge and finance - in short by the combination of the institutional characteristics of national societies and the emerging power of transnational movements

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An ethical frame grounded in science fiction literature shaped the discourse on cloning following the announcement of Dolly-the-sheep's birth through nuclear transfer. Using methodologies drawn from the social shaping of technology (SST) and rhetoric of science, my analysis demonstrates how individuals and institutions, including the media, ethicists, policymakers, and legislators, appropriated and re-appropriated this ethical frame. In doing so, they employed science-fiction stories as rhetorical tropes, thereby providing the public with a frame for understanding the social issues involved with cloning. However, these institutions used science fiction as a way to simplify and present ethical arguments that silenced dissent rather than encouraged dialog. While ethics discourse can validly make use of literature in debates about technology, such a simplistic view of the literature misrepresents the themes the authors explored in their works and limits discussion. I conclude by offering a deeper analysis and reading of some of these stories, relying on the texts themselves rather than the myths that have evolved around these texts as my primary source material. Such a reading provides a valuable counter-narrative to the on-going debate, one that more adequately explains the effects of technology in a society. In short, this dissertation demonstrates that the reductionist interpretation of works from the science fiction genre had real effects on policy formulation. People utilized their literary-derived perceptions of cloning in political discussions about technology. Thus, policy discussions of the perceived effects of the technology developed much of their meaning and significance from fictional depictions of the technology. / Ph. D.

Background: Science poses a unique challenge to the elementary curriculum landscape, because traditionally elementary teachers report low levels of self-efficacy in this subject. Instructional leadership in elementary science therefore, becomes important for a successful integration of a new science education agenda. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K-12 science content standards available for adoption by states and school districts in the U.S. Principals are important actors during policy implementation since they are charged with assuming the role of an instructional leader for their teachers in all subject areas. Purpose: This study gathered self-reported survey data from public elementary principals that pertain to their background and experiences in science, and then relate these data to their levels of self-efficacy and instructional leadership capacity for science. The study answers the following three research questions: (1) What type of science backgrounds do elementary principals have? (2) What indicators predict if elementary principals will engage in instructional leadership behaviors in science? (3) Does self-efficacy mediate the relationship between science background and capacity for instructional leadership in science? Data Collection and Analysis: A questionnaire was created by combining two existing subscales to measure instructional leadership practices and self-efficacy in science, and also a series of objective questions to address principals’ background experiences and demographic information. Public school elementary principals serving in 13 states that formally adopted the NGSS through legislative action provided the data analyzed in this study (N = 667). The survey data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics to answer the first research question, inferential statistics through an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) hierarchal regression analysis to answer the second, and a mediation analysis to answer the third research question. Findings: The sample data show that 21% of the elementary principals have a formal science degree and 26% have a degree in a STEM field. Most principals have not had recent experience teaching science (75.86%), nor were they every strictly a science teacher (86.66%). The hierarchical regression analysis suggests that there is evidence that both demographic and experiential variables predict instructional leadership practices in science. The analysis also suggests that self-efficacy is a mediating variable for principals’ science teaching experiences related to instructional leadership behaviors. Conclusions: The data from this research reveal potential (a) leadership development opportunities, (b) training and recruitment needs of school districts, (c) areas in need of attention in principal preparation programs, and (d) directions for policy implementation to leverage principal capacity. The findings provide evidence to assist in identifying ways elementary principals could be better prepared to be instructional leaders for their teachers, especially in those settings where the implementation of the NGSS is underway.

This study focuses on the significant investment in oceanography that typified Cold War Britain. Thanks to the analysis of untapped archival records, it documents the remarkable growth of marine research in the UK, and its underlying ambitions, from the end of Second World War naval exercises to the deployment of nuclear submarines in the Atomic Age. In particular, it looks at the significance of sea studies in the context of British naval operations, the surveillance of enemy vessels at sea, and the gathering of intelligence on the capabilities of enemy forces. In so doing, it depicts the trajectory of what was at the time dubbed "military oceanography" from its ascendancy in the post-war years to the creation of an national organization (the National Institute of Oceanography, NIO), devoted to pursue novel research, to its re-configuration during the 1970s marking an important transition from military to civilian (environmentally-driven) studies. The thesis discusses the complexities of the Cold War British State. It reveals the connections between leading scientists, government administrators, and military officers, and their interplay in the establishment and development of oceanographic studies. The thesis contends that at the core of the political-scientific interface there are policy networks and that we can gain a better understanding of this interaction by looking at some of the key figures, or "nodes" in these networks. It thus uses the career of the NIO director, the marine scientist George Deacon, as a source to gain entrance into the historical path of British oceanography, and argues that by looking at Deacon as a mediator (or "go-between") one can gain a better understanding of the dynamics and historical evolution of the policy networks he participated in.

Background: Science poses a unique challenge to the elementary curriculum landscape, because traditionally elementary teachers report low levels of self-efficacy in this subject. Instructional leadership in elementary science therefore, becomes important for a successful integration of a new science education agenda. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K-12 science content standards available for adoption by states and school districts in the U.S. Principals are important actors during policy implementation since they are charged with assuming the role of an instructional leader for their teachers in all subject areas. Purpose: This study gathered self-reported survey data from public elementary principals that pertain to their background and experiences in science, and then relate these data to their levels of self-efficacy and instructional leadership capacity for science. The study answers the following three research questions: (1) What type of science backgrounds do elementary principals have? (2) What indicators predict if elementary principals will engage in instructional leadership behaviors in science? (3) Does self-efficacy mediate the relationship between science background and capacity for instructional leadership in science? Data Collection and Analysis: A questionnaire was created by combining two existing subscales to measure instructional leadership practices and self-efficacy in science, and also a series of objective questions to address principals’ background experiences and demographic information. Public school elementary principals serving in 13 states that formally adopted the NGSS through legislative action provided the data analyzed in this study (N = 667). The survey data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics to answer the first research question, inferential statistics through an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) hierarchal regression analysis to answer the second, and a mediation analysis to answer the third research question. Findings: The sample data show that 21% of the elementary principals have a formal science degree and 26% have a degree in a STEM field. Most principals have not had recent experience teaching science (75.86%), nor were they every strictly a science teacher (86.66%). The hierarchical regression analysis suggests that there is evidence that both demographic and experiential variables predict instructional leadership practices in science. The analysis also suggests that self-efficacy is a mediating variable for principals’ science teaching experiences related to instructional leadership behaviors. Conclusions: The data from this research reveal potential (a) leadership development opportunities, (b) training and recruitment needs of school districts, (c) areas in need of attention in principal preparation programs, and (d) directions for policy implementation to leverage principal capacity. The findings provide evidence to assist in identifying ways elementary principals could be better prepared to be instructional leaders for their teachers, especially in those settings where the implementation of the NGSS is underway.

This thesis locates itself in wider developments in gender theory and examinations of the state’s production of gender inequality. It responds to two research problems in existing literature. Firstly, scholars have developed increasingly complex theorisations of the social construction of gender and the state’s role in it. This body of research has shown how gender blindness and gender bias in state policies produce inequality and how gender structures priorities, hierarchies and roles within state organisations. Fully operationalising these insights has, however, thus far proved difficult. Secondly, whilst existing research provides a nuanced picture of these multiple dynamics involved in the state’s reproduction of gender inequality, we cannot yet fully account for the processes through which these dynamics are maintained. As a result, our explanations of how change could be achieved are also under-developed. This thesis uses gender mainstreaming (GM) implementation as a model to explore these research problems, examining the processes underlying the ‘disappointing’ policy outcomes which existing analyses of GM implementation have documented (Bretherton 2001, Daly 2005, Mazey 2000). Whilst these existing studies provide an essential starting point, this thesis argues that many have applied an implicitly rigid or rationalistic approach to policy analysis, highlighting the disparity between the intended and actual outcomes of GM. This kind of approach fails to operationalise our understanding of the construction of gender as a process and a constantly renegotiated phenomenon. It also fails to exploit the research opportunities which GM implementation provides. To enable such an analysis, this thesis draws together literatures from policy studies, particularly interpretative policy analysis (Colebatch 2009, Pressman and Wildavsky 1984, Yanow 1993) and science and technology studies/the sociology of knowledge (STS/SK) (Latour and Callon 1981, Law 1986) to apply an understanding of policy implementation as a process of negotiation, where we analyse how policy is interpreted, understood and enacted, on the ground. This perspective emphasises how local responses to strategic policy demands emerge through collective processes of interpretation, which are heavily affected by pre-existing policy assumptions, activities and practices (Wagenaar 2004, Wagenaar et al 2003). These concepts are used to operationalise the concept of gender knowledge (Andresen and Doelling 2002, Caglar 2010, Cavaghan 2010, 2012, Doelling 2005) to investigate how shared (non)perceptions of gender inequality are institutionalised and perpetuated, whilst competing notions are marginalised. Thus developed, the gender knowledge concept enables us to grasp and analyse (non)perceptions of the gender inequality issue; the evidence or ways of thinking which underpin them; and the processes, materials and persons involved in institutionalising them to the exclusion of competing perceptions. This approach therefore operationalises the notion that gender and gendering is a process and connects the ‘genderedness of organisations’ (Benschop and Verloo 2006, Rees 2002) to gendered policy outputs. Examining ‘what is happening’ when GM is implemented in this manner provides an opportunity to identify mechanisms of resistance, i.e. the processes through which the production of gender inequality is maintained. By corollary, examining ‘successful’ incidences of GM implementation provides empirical examples of how change has occurred. The project thus aims to produce theoretical insights which can be extrapolated to a wider understanding of the perpetuation of the state production of gender inequality.