Dissertation (Ed.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Charles Gause; submitted to the Dept. of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 28, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-152).

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur lärare upplever styrdokumentens intentioner med elevinflytande. Studien har gjorts med en fenomenologisk livsvärldsansats där lärare beskriver hur de upplever elevinflytande utifrån sina egna erfarenheter och livsvärldar. Vidare har en hermeneutisk tolkningsteori använts för att ge en förståelse för hur lärare beskriver elevers inflytande i skolans verksamhet. Metoden för studien är kvalitativ. Det empiriska underlaget består av åtta intervjuer med låg- och mellanstadielärare på sex olika utbildningsenheter. Studien visar på olika förutsättningar för inflytande. Det finns elever som endast får göra de enkla, oväsentliga valen i klassrummet medan andra får vara med och planera, genomföra och utvärdera undervisningen. Lärarna upplever sig trängda mellan det centrala innehållet i kursplaner och styrdokumentens intentioner med elevinflytande. Enligt lärarna finns det ett behov av kollegial tolkning av styrdokumentens intentioner för att klargöra begreppet elevinflytande. En tydlig skolorganisation förstärker delaktighet liksom tydliga lärare som leder in elever i ett demokratiskt förhållningssätt. Lärarna visar på att elevinflytande engagerar även föräldrar, vilket medför att eleverna får en positiv inställning till skolan. En av studiens paradoxala slutsatser är att elevinflytande kan exkludera svaga elever som inte får möjlighet att göra sig hörda. En annan slutsats är att dagens skola har ett stort fokus på kunskapsbildningen, vilket gör att elevinflytandet inte får den dignitet som styrdokumenten beskriver. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers are experiencing the steering documents intentions with student participation. The study was conducted with a phenomenological life-world approach where teachers describe how they feel about student participation based on their own experiences and life worlds. Furthermore an hermeneutic interpretation theory has been used to provide an understanding of how teachers describe students' influence in the school activities. The methodology for this study is qualitative. The empirical material consist of eight interviews with primary teachers in six different schools. The study highlights the various opportunities for influence. There are students who only get to do the simple, insignificant choices in the classroom, while others may be involved in planning, implementing and evaluating teaching. Teachers feel they jostled between the core content of the curriculum and policy documents intentions with student participation. According to the teachers, there is a need for collegial interpretation of policy documents intentions to clarify the concept of student participation. A distinct school organization enhances participation as well as a distinct teacher that leads students in a democratic approach. Teachers show that student participation involved also parents, resulting in a positive attitude towards school among students. One of the study's paradoxical conclusion is that student participation may exclude weak students who do not get the opportunity to be heard. Another conclusion is that today's school has a major focus on knowledge formation, making that student influence may not be the force as the policy documents describe.

I conducted the research reported in this portfolio at the large western suburbs primary school of which I am the principal. My interest in the sense children make of their everyday school experiences results from having spent most of my life in schools, initially as a student, then as a primary school teacher and now as a school principal. My long term involvement in primary schools has led to my awareness that adults do not ask children about their perceptions of their schools. My observations have been confirmed by researchers who have shown that students' perspectives, especially those of primary school age children, have been under-researched. / In my research I focus on children's perspectives by inviting them to represent through artwork and photography the school places they like and those they want to talk about. I further explore children's understandings of the relationship between the physical places of their school and their positioning within that school by asking them to interpret their photographs. I then enable children to identify the places in their school they want to change and to action those changes. / Thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2007.

Michael Fullan (1991) commented that little was known about how students viewed educational change, as no one had thought to ask them. By 2004 there was a small but growing literature seeking the views of students on a range of issues associated with schooling. This thesis presents the findings and analysis of a study of students’ perceptions of educational change. Much educational change involves shifts in power and responsibilities between the different actors, such as governments, school administrators, teachers, parents, the community and students. Despite widespread interest in educational change it is usually the macro-level policy elite who exert the most influence, using their power, privilege and status in order to propagate particular versions of schooling; students continue to be the ‘objects’ of policy initiatives, submerged in what Freire referred to as a ‘culture of silence’. Students are frequently excluded as participants in both the process and decision making phases of change. This research was based on exploring the exclusion of students from the processes of change in schools, resulting from a top-down policy initiative by the State department of education in WA, the Local Area Education Planning (LAEP) Framework. How policy is defined and acted on is explored, and the roles students could have, but often do not, are highlighted. An eclectic hybrid conceptual framework drawing on both critical theory and a postmodern policy cycle approach was used to analyse the LAEP Framework policy processes and students’ perceptions of the changes that ensued. The research comprised in-depth case studies of three schools undergoing substantial educational restructuring as the result of the macro-level LAEP Framework policy in the State of WA. Key elements of the policy were school amalgamations, closures and the creation of Middle Schools. Data collection methods included focus group and semi-structured interviews with students from the three schools, as well as document analysis, staff interviews and field notes. The research found that students were very perceptive about educational change, that they were deeply impacted by educational change and that they wanted to participate in restructuring agendas. Several meta-level themes emerged from the students’ ‘voices’, including issues associated with disempowerment, and competing social justice and economic discourses. The findings foreground the often messy and contradictory tensions evident in policy processes. The thesis concluded by developing theory on ways in which students could be included meaningfully as participants in educational change

This thesis is set in the Western Australian education system and centres on the question of how primary schools can actively foster conditions conducive to creating and sustaining education in and for democracy and human rights. In Australia, as elsewhere, there is a widespread acceptance of the need for democratic education also referred to as civics and citizenship education. The perceived lack of public understanding of democratic principles and practices has, in the last decade, led various Australian governments to commit significant resources ($ 31.6 million) to civics and citizenship education programmes such as Discovering Democracy (DD). This thesis argues that political engagement and civic learning is most effective when schools commit themselves to deliberately embedding a set of democratic educational principles in everyday practices. In contrast to traditional approaches to citizenship education that tend to focus on the operational aspects of representative governments, institutions and history, this thesis argues that education for Democracy and Human Rights (DaHR) can be effectively achieved through the fostering of DaHR in education. In this task the thesis draws on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC is rooted in a range of basic values about the treatment of children in schools and elsewhere, and encompasses basic rights to which children are entitled. The study empirically investigates through up close observations, interviews and surveys the efficacy of pedagogy for civic and citizenship learning in four schools identified as places of strong democratic practice. This study was able to identify particular commonalities between the four case study schools that were conducive to creating and sustaining democratic principles and practices. These schools, although very different in their composition, were lead by principals who shared the view that children under their care were subjects in the making with increasing rights and responsibilities rather than objects to be manipulated, controlled and protected. The findings suggest that experiencing democracy and human rights in daily school life in a variety of situations and on a number of different levels can effectively contribute to the learning of the meaning and advantages of democratic values such as the rule of law, participatory decision-making and due process. It also concludes that there may be a relationship between parental socio-economic background and the possibilities available for students to engage in effective civic learning and citizenship practices. The relationship between socio-economic background and other structural factors including gender and ethnicity in relation to possibilities of civic learning needs to be investigated in a larger study.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Andy Anderson.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 1973. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-131).

Thesis (M.Ed. (Educational Management))--Mahidol University, 2007. / LICL has E-Thesis 0024 ; please contact computer services.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 17, 2009). "College of Education." Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-100).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-118).