The overall aim of this research is to contribute to cross-cultural knowledge and skills on the development and practice of social work in schools, by identifying and comparing the actual and ideal roles of school social workers in Saudi Arabia, ascertaining the major problems facing the social workers and learning their views regarding improvement of the counselling service in secondary schools in Saudi Arabia.The target populations of this study were third year public secondary school students, social workers in public secondary schools and officials. In order to gather data from the three groups, questionnaires and interview schedules, were used. The validity and reliability of the instruments were tested and piloted.Social workers, officials and students ranked twenty-six possible roles of the school social worker on a Likert scale for both actual and ideal practice. The results of the two-tailed paired T-tests conducted to analyse the actual versus ideal functions of the social workers in Saudi Arabian secondary schools, as perceived by social workers themselves, and by students, indicated that there were significant differences at the .005 level for all except two items, though the non-significant items differed between the two groups. The result of the two-tailed paired 1-tests conducted to analyse the actual and ideal functions, as perceived by the officials showed statistically significant difference for all but four items. Thus, the data revealed many significant differences in perceptions of the actual and ideal functions of the social workers in secondary schools in Saudi Arabia. In general, social workers, students and officials thought that, ideally, social workers should do more work in relation to almost every function of the social worker's role.The interviews with social workers revealed some factors, which they thought constrain their role as social workers in the secondary schools. The main factors were burden of other tasks unrelated to their job, such as clerical work, interference in their work from head teachers and sometimes from teachers, and lack of trust. Therefore, problems faced them in performance of their role with teachers, school administrators, education supervisors, parents, and students. Furthermore, social workers complained that students do not seek help from them, even if they are in need of it.

In this work I wish to address some philosophical difficulties regarding the extension of rights to children. In particular I wish to draw attention to the difference between the freedom rights which are traditionally assigned to rational, autonomous persons and the welfare rights children need if they are to become rational, autonomous persons. These reservations include reservations about the centrality of rationality and autonomy to possession of rights. My thesis is that insofar as various versions of rights apply to children they apply with specific qualifications which derive from the differences between children and adults.

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My purpose in this research is to examine the way in which the two sexes are presented in school textbooks. The incentive for pursuing my research was my own experience of using school textbooks and the observation of everyday reality. Until the present time research in Greece regarding the image of the two sexes has been limited to the primary school reading-scheme books. With this study I intend to give a detailed picture of the beliefs about sex roles as these are presented through the whole range of school textbooks. My ambition is that my work - in combination with other similar studies - will help instructors to comprehend and point out the traditional standard beliefs about the two sexes depicted in the textbooks which are used on a daily basis in schools in Greece. This research could sensitise instructors and simultaneously help them to be aware of and recognise the stereotype beliefs in the books they use. In this way they will be able, with the appropriate interventions and discussions, to consider their validity in relation to the children they teach. The present study is presented in 14 chapters. It is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the wide theoretical-work related to socialisation and the sex roles (Chapters 1-2). The third chapter discusses the agents of sex role socialisation (the family, peer groups, media, school). The fourth chapter studies the woman's professional role. Chapter 5 includes a brief description of the Greek educational system and an examination of a girl's place within it. The sixth deals with books as a factor in the configuration of the sex role. Chapter 7 includes a review of the related studies. The second part of the thesis includes the main body of the study, the methodology (chapter 8), the analysis of the results (chapters 9-13) and finally the conclusions and suggestions (chapter 14). Chapters 9-13 have their own separate bibliographies to facilitate reference for readers interested in one particular curriculum area.

This research addresses the construction of gender identities within the context of Initial Teacher Training in Physical Education within England. The life story narratives of ten female student teachers of physical education arc documented and analysed, drawing upon a feminist theoretical framework informed by tenets of poststructuralist thinking. These approaches assisted in accommodating and explaining the contradictory social positions that the women engaged in, within a variety of discourses, as they constructed multiple, diverse and often contradictory gender identities. The participants consist of ten determined and highly successful women (strong minds) who have much to say about their agency (strong words) yet simultaneously find themselves complicit to a number of traditional gender discourses, particularly in terms of the body - an awareness of which increases during the process of training to become a Physical Education Teacher (trained bodies). Such complexity precludes any finite conclusions being drawn. Rather the thesis engages in, and extends, the discussions surrounding the thcorising of gender, resistance, and agency within teacher training in Physical Education. The stories capture some fundamental shifts in the place of feminisms in post-modemity or high modernity, with a simultaneous use of both, to borrow Giddens (1991) terms, 'emancipatory' and 'life politics' styles of feminism; with gender inequality defined as a collective problem, but with an individual solution. Moreover, a number of gendered inequalities at both the structural and micro-political level are highlighted. In particular, a liberal discourse of equal opportunities appeared to mask the institutionalisation of 'otherness' these women experienced in teaching practice, and supported the cssentialisation of male and female identities. Whilst there aren't tales of radical changes in their teaching of Physical Education, the narratives alluded to their embodied vision, and in acts of naming, the agency they had for telling, constructing and shaping their lives is revealed. As such, the thesis concludes by suggesting that teacher education and educational research need to embrace more explicitly and centrally a framework which considers further, the role of gender in the formation of a variety of teachers identities. Moreover, in developing more critical reflexive forms of teacher education, a number of strategies of intervention which draw upon critical post-structuralist perspectives are outlined.