Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothetical view that the use of familiar social institutions in the formulation of mathematical problems by mathematics pre-service teachers will enable them to find solutions to problems by taking meaning, context and realities of a problem into consideration. The approach to investigate this hypothetical view was to describe the mathematical behaviour of pre-service teachers in an application and modelling context. This study, therefore, described the strategies used to arrive at solutions for problems from real life situations that are familiar to the participants. / South Africa

Bibliography: pages 74-83. / In sum, the theoretical framework proposed here for adult numeracy, and developed from a discourse of mathematics education, has as its task the elaboration of the social implications of principles in adult education and the pedagogic outcomes of three sets of numeracy materials.

This dissertation is a contribution to understanding the relationship between schooling and gender inequality. The study explores how gender as a social relation is organized and embedded in the daily experiences of classroom life and in the discourses of people who dwell there. The study deals with how classroom encounters contribute to the reproduction or transformation of gender categories and how students' and teachers' discursive practices build and support patriarchal structures. The study is grounded in critical education theory, feminist theory, and ethnographic research. The specific site for the study is the knowledge area described as the Practical Arts, namely home economics and technical studies. The research is limited to a single Grade 8, coeducational, home economics and technical studies program in an inner-city, multi-ethnic, secondary school in western Canada. Evidence is based on participant observation of classrooms, for one school year, with one group of students as they proceed through a combined home economics and technical studies program. Evidence is also obtained through interviews with students and teachers. The study illustrates how classroom practices support the patriarchal structures of division of labour, violence against women, and sexuality. The study shows how the students' and teachers' discursive practices produce girls and women, and less powerful boys, in subordinate positions and as objects of regulation. As well, students' previous experiences in domestic and technical work, and classroom discourse, produce and support the division of labour. The study shows how the conditions of teachers' work, their authoritarian, product oriented approach, and their powerful, institutional discourses grounded in biological and psychological development and equality of educational opportunity, prevent them from challenging patriarchal structures. Although the study shows how students and teachers are actively engaged in the production rather than the transformation of traditional gender relations, it also shows how patriarchy is incomplete: there were divisions within gender categories and there were many contradictions. The study shows how power relations are not static - they are constantly in process of negotiation, thereby opening possibilities for social change.

This dissertation is a contribution to understanding the relationship between schooling and gender inequality. The study explores how gender as a social relation is organized and embedded in the daily experiences of classroom life and in the discourses of people who dwell there. The study deals with how classroom encounters contribute to the reproduction or transformation of gender categories and how students' and teachers' discursive practices build and support patriarchal structures. The study is grounded in critical education theory, feminist theory, and ethnographic research. The specific site for the study is the knowledge area described as the Practical Arts, namely home economics and technical studies. The research is limited to a single Grade 8, coeducational, home economics and technical studies program in an inner-city, multi-ethnic, secondary school in western Canada. Evidence is based on participant observation of classrooms, for one school year, with one group of students as they proceed through a combined home economics and technical studies program. Evidence is also obtained through interviews with students and teachers. The study illustrates how classroom practices support the patriarchal structures of division of labour, violence against women, and sexuality. The study shows how the students' and teachers' discursive practices produce girls and women, and less powerful boys, in subordinate positions and as objects of regulation. As well, students' previous experiences in domestic and technical work, and classroom discourse, produce and support the division of labour. The study shows how the conditions of teachers' work, their authoritarian, product oriented approach, and their powerful, institutional discourses grounded in biological and psychological development and equality of educational opportunity, prevent them from challenging patriarchal structures. Although the study shows how students and teachers are actively engaged in the production rather than the transformation of traditional gender relations, it also shows how patriarchy is incomplete: there were divisions within gender categories and there were many contradictions. The study shows how power relations are not static - they are constantly in process of negotiation, thereby opening possibilities for social change. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Bibliography: pages 83-106. / In 1984 Bybee used 262 science educators from 41 countries to develop an instrument for measuring their ranked priorities of science and technology related global problems. In 1995 the original Bybee scale was updated and clarified, and a new 15-item-version, the Le Grange Global Priorities Instrument (LGPI), was piloted, refined and validated. The new Le Grange Global Priorities Instrument (LGPI) was administered to 421 North Sotho, 433 urban Xhosa and 348 suburban Coloured high school pupils in the Northern Province and Western Cape Province respectively. The study is an enlargement of the work of Bybee and Mau (1986); Bybee and Najafi (1986); Ndodana, Rochford and Fraser (1994); and Le Grange, Rochford and Sass (1995) and it is to date the first one of its kind to be extended to school pupils. Data was collected during a seven month period from January to July 1995 as part of the normal class schedule, with the help of science teachers and school principals. The data gathered were analysed with the Statgraphics package available in the standard computer. More than 96 percent of the data gathered were used for this analysis.

Bibliography: pages 73-82. / Using 262 acknowledged science educators from 41 countries, Bybee developed a scale for measuring the ranked priorities of scientists, and others, with respect to twelve major global problems related to science and technology in 1984. In 1993 this scale was re-administered to samples of 76 Cape Town science educators, 55 Transkei science educators and 129 chemical engineering undergraduates at the University of Cape Town. High correlations ranging from r = 0.68 to r = 0.90 were obtained among the four samples' mean ranked priorities on the scale as a whole, over the ten year period. Among the top six global problems in 1984, five still received consistently high overall prioritisation in 1993, namely: population growth; world hunger and food resources; human health and disease; air quality and atmosphere; and water resources. The mean ranking of war technology as a priority declined by seven places over the ten year period. Educators surveyed in follow-up studies in 1993 made numerous recommendations for teaching these global problems. These included the use of the science-technology-society (STS) approach in science education; the introduction of a core school curriculum on environmental education; the encouragement of student participation in projects which help to reduce or eliminate such global problems; and the re-allocation of money spent on nuclear arms towards the satisfaction of human basic needs such as food, housing, health and water services. In a follow-up survey of twenty lecturers in engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1993 and 1994 important goals and issues singled out by individuals included the provision of mass housing and infrastructure; sanitation; urbanisation; job creation; the abuse of high technology in communications; technological illiteracy among decision makers; abuse and reduction of oceanic resources; photochemical smog; the prediction and possible control of droughts and floods; demands on the human race of the information explosion; electromagnetic wave hazards and pollution; resource depletion education and the dissemination of knowledge; the emergence and separation of C.P. Snow's "Two cultures"; and the myth of the peace dividend. Several of these issues were then subsequently included in 1995 in an updated, modified and extended form of the Bybee Scale. Currently a reliable and validated 15-item Scale -emerging from the findings of this dissertation - is being employed by other research workers in various parts of the new South Africa. During 1995 its chief use has been offering relevant input into, and providing empirical justification for, fundamental aspects of the policy of the current Reconstruction and Development Programme, as set out in the 1995 White Paper of the Government of National Unity.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Design educators are expected to demonstrate a high level of confidence in the industry for which they are preparing students. When I reflected upon my own design industry and higher education experience while engaging with critical citizenship and globalization discourse, my confidence in and perceived authority of the design industry became challenged. I came to the realization that it could be useful to view the demands from the neoliberal design industry on design education through the lenses of critical citizenship and globalization. The insights gained from such an investigation could assist design educators involved in developing new design programmes to conscientize the expectations set by the design industry. It is argued that the conscientizing of expectations set by the design industry could be achieved by focusing on conscientizing design graduates that may in turn influence the design industry at large. The main aim of the study is to create a conceptual framework that supports theoretical concepts that could conscientize industry expectations of design education. The main research question thus questioned how critical citizenship and globalization discourse could be used to conscientize industry expectations of design education at Universities of Technology (UoTs). The objectives of the study are twofold: to identify, firstly, current industry expectations of design graduates from a University of Technology in South Africa and, secondly, to identify theoretical concepts in critical citizenship and globalization discourse that could be used to conscientize industry expectations of design education at UoTs in South Africa. Theoretical concepts in critical citizenship and globalization discourse were identified through a literature review; the identified concepts were used to develop a conceptual framework. The empirical section of the research design consisted of a case study that included industry interviews, alumni surveys and my own experience as the main sources of data. The theoretical concepts identified in the literature review of critical citizenship and globalization discourse were used to structure an inductive content analysis of empirical data collected to identify possible theoretical concepts that can be used to conscientize industry expectations of design education. The picture that emerges from this study creates a worrying image of a profession in crisis. I identified the urgent need to instil compassion into design education so that our alumni can intuitively act against situations where their dignity is under threat. This can be done by means of inclusion of critical citizenship and globalization discourse in curriculums of design programmes at UoTs. The theoretical concepts in critical citizenship and globalization discourse that can possibly be used to conscientize industry expectations of design education at UoTs are identified as: transformation, diversity, racism, social disparity, visual culture, civic identity, civic engagement, ethical relationships, shared participation, problemsolving, critical thinking, and imagination skills. I also conclude that the debate regarding the conscientizing of the design industry is of such importance that it should not be limited to only critical citizenship and globalization discourse ‒ the debate must go further and deeper. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Daar word van ontwerp-dosente verwag om 'n hoë vlak van vertroue te toon in die industrie waarvoor hul hul studente oplei. Terwyl ek sou meedoen aan die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering, het ek besin oor my eie ervaringe rakende die ontwerp-industrie en hoër opvoeding en sou uiteindelik my vertroue in en vermeende inspraak sover dit die ontwerp-industrie aangaan, bevraagteken. Daar is tot die besef gekom dat dit voordelig kan wees om die eise wat die neoliberale ontwerp-industrie aan ontwerp-onderrig stel, te beskou vanuit die hoek van kritiese burgerskap en globalisering. Die insigte verwerf deur middel van so 'n ondersoek kan ontwerp-opvoedkundiges betrokke by die ontwikkeling van nuwe ontwerp-programme van diens wees in hul poging om die verwagtinge gestel deur die ontwerp-industrie sensitief te verskerp. Daar word aan die hand gedoen dat so 'n sensibilisering betreffende die verwagtinge gestel deur die ontwerp-industrie haalbaar is deur te fokus daarop om ontwerp-graduandi insgelyks te sensibiliseer en wat op sy beurt die ontwerp-industrie breedvoerig sal raak. Die hoofoogmerk van die studie is om 'n konsepsuele raamwerk daar te stel welke teoretiese konsepte ondersteun wat 'n sensitiewe bewussyn kan kweek sover dit industrie-verwagtinge rakende ontwerp-onderrig aangaan. As sodanig het die hoofnavorsingsprobleem dus gevra na hoe die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering aangewend kan word om industrie-verwagtinge insake ontwerponderrig by Universiteite vir Tegnologie (UvT's) te sensibiliseer. Die oogmerk van hierdie studie is tweevoudig: om, eerstens, huidige industrie-verwagtinge rakende ontwerp-graduandi van 'n UvT in Suid-Afrika te identifiseer en, tweedens, om teoretiese konsepte rakende die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering te identifiseer wat aangewend kan word om industrie-verwagtinge rakende ontwerp-onderrig by UvT's in Suid-Afrika sensitief te verskerp. Teoretiese konsepte in die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering is geïdentifiseer deur middel van 'n literatuuroorsig; die geïdentifiseerde konsepte is naamlik aangewend om 'n konsepsuele raamwerk te ontwikkel. Die empiriese afdeling van die navorsingsontwerp het bestaan uit 'n gevallestudie wat onderhoude in die industrie, opnames onder alumni asook my eie ervaringe rakende die ontwerp-industrie as hoofbronne van data ingesluit het. Die teoretiese konsepte geïdentifiseer as deel van die literatuuroorsig rakende die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering is aangewend om struktuur te verleen aan 'n induktiewe inhoudsanalise van empiriese data versamel om moontlike teoretiese konsepte te identifiseer wat aangewend kan word om industrie-verwagtinge rakende ontwerponderrig te sensibiliseer. Die beeld wat deur hierdie navorsing geskets is, skep 'n onrusbarende beeld van 'n professie wat 'n krisis deurmaak. Ek het die dringende behoefte geïdentifiseer om toegeneentheid en deernis by te bring in ontwerp-onderrig sodat ons alumni intuïtief kan optree in gevalle waar hul menswaardigheid in die gedrang sou kom. Dit kan bereik word deur die insluiting van kritiese burgerskaps- en globaliseringsdiskoerse in die kurrikulums van ontwerp-programme by UvT's. Die teoretiese konsepte in die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering wat moontlik aangewend kan word om industrie-verwagtinge rakende ontwerponderrig by UvT's te sensibiliseer, is geïdentifiseer as: transformasie, diversiteit, rasisme, sosiale ongelykheid, visuele kultuur, burgerlike identiteit, burgerlike verpligtinge, etiese verbintenisse, deelgenootskap, probleemoplossing, kritiese denke asook vaardighede met betrekking tot die inspan van die verbeelding. Daar is voorts tot die slotsom geraak dat die debat rondom die kweek van 'n sensitiewe bewussyn in die ontwerp-industrie van sodanige belang is dat dit nie beperk behoort te word tot alleen die diskoers rondom kritiese burgerskap en globalisering nie ‒ die debat móét eenvoudig verder en meer indringend gevoer word.

published_or_final_version / Modern Languages and Cultures / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

<p>The aim of this study was to investigate the hypothetical view that the use of familiar social institutions in the formulation of mathematical problems by mathematics pre-service teachers will enable them to find solutions to problems by taking meaning, context and realities of a problem into consideration. The approach to investigate this hypothetical view was to describe the mathematical behaviour of pre-service teachers in an application and modelling context. This study, therefore, described the strategies used to arrive at solutions for problems from real life situations that are familiar to the participants.</p>

在國際評鑑計劃中，東亞地區學生的數理能力往往較西方國家為佳。現有學術文獻已就這個現象作深入探討，並提出東亞學生的文化特徵和模型。然而，鮮有研究以縱向的歷史角度，討論東亞教育制度下對於「學習者」的文化概念如何因應全球化的影響而演變。本文嘗試以香港的數學教育為研究個案，探討本地數學課程在教學重心及組織上的轉變。研究發現，該學科在教學上的轉變緣於現代個人主義的制度化過程 ── 社會整體愈益視學習者作為充權和自省的行動者。本研究致用縱向文本分析的研究方法，綜析四十二本於戰後出版的香港高小數學教科書的教學內容。研究結果顯示，歷年來課本及課程的教學愈加著重參與式教學、興趣啟發以及與扣連學生生活等概念。另外，政府官員、老師、本地壓力團體及學術專家等亦援用「以學生為本」的話語，推動課程改革。綜合而言，本研究認為世界政體理論相比歷史主義式的理論視野更有力地解釋數學課程內容的轉變。 / East Asian learners usually outperform their Western counterparts in international mathematics assessment programs. Although the cultural traits of East Asian learners are well documented and analyzed, the cultural dynamics of the changing conception of “learner“ in East Asia, especially under the influence of globalization, is under-explored. Taking Hong Kong as a case study, this paper explores the changes within the emphasis of instruction and organization of local mathematics curriculum across time. I contend that the shift of instruction within the school subject is due to the institutionalization of modern individualism, the process in which the conception of “learner as an empowered and self-reflexive actor becomes culturally legitimate in the society. I employ a longitudinal content analysis to track the changes of the instructional emphasis within 42 senior primary mathematics textbooks published in Hong Kong since World War II. It is revealed that despite the unique cultural and historical trajectory of educational development in Hong Kong, the curriculum embraces the ideas of participatory pedagogical approach, interest stimulation, and social relevance to students. Furthermore, it is found that governmental officials, teachers, local pressure groups and academic professionals draw scripts and models from the discourse of student centrism to drive curricular reforms. Results suggest that world polity theory is more applicable than the historicist perspective in accounting for the changes of the curriculum content. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Yip, Chun Ting Patrick. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.iii / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.iv / Acknowledgement --- p.v / Table of contents --- p.vi / List of tables, figures and charts --- p.viii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature review --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Endogenous explanation I: cultural essentialism --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Endogenous explanation II: historicist perspective --- p.8 / Chapter 2.3 --- Exogenous explanation: world polity theory --- p.9 / Chapter 3 --- Framework and hypotheses --- p.12 / Chapter 4 --- Method --- p.14 / Chapter 4.1 --- Longitudinal content analysis of textbook --- p.14 / Chapter 4.2 --- Textbook data --- p.15 / Chapter 4.3 --- Measures for trend analysis --- p.16 / Chapter 4.4 --- Textual analysis --- p.18 / Chapter 4.5 --- Secondary analysis of the process of curriculum development --- p.18 / Chapter 5 --- Result --- p.21 / Chapter 5.1 --- Trend analysis --- p.21 / Chapter 5.2 --- Textual analysis --- p.28 / Chapter 5.3 --- Explaining the rise of student centrism in Hong Kong --- p.38 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.52 / Chapter Appendix A. --- Textbooks sampled --- p.56 / Bibliography --- p.60