This thesis is an ethnographic study over an 8 year period of the leadership and management strategies involved in school improvement. The study takes place in a residential special school for pupils with BESD. The research specifically explored whether it is possible to distinguish between leadership and management activities, explores the role of the head teacher in relation to leadership and management and looks at change management against the context of school improvement. The methodology involves the interrogation of key documents covering the period from central government, local government agencies and documents produced by the School. There is a focus on identifying specific leadership approaches, matching actions to the National Standards for Head Teachers, matching change management actions to models defined by the Audit Commission. Use is made of document analysis methodologies in particular verb use to explore these matches. Findings suggest that the concept of leadership has been exploited commercially, and that leadership is defined by what an individual perceives it to be. That there is lack of clarity within central government about leadership in terms of its role and in education it has been used politically as opposed to practically. That models of leadership and management could not be clearly identified from the documents analysed. That it was not possible to identify many leadership actions through verb analysis. That verb analysis predominately identified administrative and management based actions. The findings suggest that head teachers should be able to model leadership strategies which are responsive to changing circumstances. That for change to be effective, the process needs to be considered, manageable, incremental, meaningful and owned. That Ofsted needs to measure the effectiveness of school leadership and management from an outcome based perspective which is derived from the National Standards for Head Teachers. The thesis provides a rational from which head teachers faced with leading a failing school can measure their thinking.

This is a study of discourses and practices of literacies in education in Brazil. More specifically, it investigates the home literacy practices of twelve adolescents from lower and upper-social classes in three different schools in São Paulo, Brazil. The study aims to address the general question of how these adolescents engage in literacy practices in the new digital era. Developing this question the study addresses questions of how teachers conceptualise these adolescents’ outside school literacy practices and whether these inform classroom work. The study draws on a sociocultural approach to literacy as social practice, which has informed research in literacy studies in the last decades. In addition, because literacy practices are directly linked with the teaching of standard Portuguese as a first language in Brazil, sociolinguistic approaches and theories are also drawn upon. Data analysis of the discourses of language and literacy in Brazil suggests a context of education which hinders more than promotes lower-social class adolescents’ acquisition of the dominant literacies valued in the school and the work domains. By engaging in a discussion of these adolescents’ home literacy practices, languages and home backgrounds this study hopes to dispute and counterbalance the discourse of discrimination and deficit which is still a reality in Brazil.

This research examines theory in relation to educational practice analysing how one specific group of practitioners consider the construct ‘theory’ in relation to their practice. The participants were drawn from those completing Initial Teacher Training in the post-compulsory education and training sector. The participants were all members of the same cohort; had been asked to consider a range of theories as part of their studies, and had been asked to reflect on ‘theory’ in relation to their practice in one of their examined assignments. I was drawn to study this area when, as the participants’ teacher, I found myself questioning the unexamined regard that the curriculum held ‘theory’ in. The data was collected through individual interviews, focus group discussions and the examination of written assignments. All the data was gathered at the end of the participants’ studies in order to gain a ‘snapshot’ of their perspectives at that particular moment. The data suggests that participants were inclined to consider that theory starts from practice and can be adapted by practitioners and it was found that the participants built their own personal pedagogical perspective through consideration of their subject, context and experience.

In a profession characterized, in recent years by change, schools and the people they employ have to learn effectively in what Schein (1992) describes as “a perpetual learning system” (p.372). This research considers how head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants learn in three separate primary schools. The research considers the impact of the schools’ climate on the success of organisational learning and is interested in ascertaining the impact of power on the learning experience. The research is informed by a thorough review of the educational and organizational literature and has drawn on the works of Argyris and Schon (1974; 1978; 1996); Lipshitz et al, (2002); MacGilchrist et al, (2004) and West-Burnham and Ireson (2005). Following an analysis of the findings, a number of preliminary recommendations are made. These recommendations show that organisational learning is multi-faceted and complex, requiring a combination of explicit leadership and individual ownership. It highlights the significance of informal learning with and from colleagues and points to an inequality of access both within and between groups of practitioners. A perpetual learning system emerges in the conclusion and is offered for consideration. This study captures insights which should inform the future research agenda.

Nearing the end of my career as a secondary school Modern Languages (French/Spanish) teacher, I wanted to reflect on some of the problems I had encountered. The most obvious, I felt, was that male secondary school students persistently seemed to perform less well in this subject area than female students. This led me to investigate the social construction of gender, learner identity and the ideologies surrounding MFL. I did this by investigating the role of language and discourse in the construction of culture, identities and ideologies. The research paradigm is interpretivist and the design is case study, investigating the cultural meanings students construct in the context of MFL. The methodology combines classroom observations and interviews across student population samples in Key Stages 3 & 4. Findings show that MFL learning is a cultural activity, ideologically constructed in discourse. Secondly, findings show that a positive learner identity towards MFL contributes to a greater cultural involvement within the language, rather than solely to its external economic goals, and to an emerging MFL cultural identity. This learner cultural identity is more typically, although not exclusively associated with girls as an absolute since gender is seen as a social construction rather than a priori. Further findings also show that some socially constructed male identities tending towards ‘laddishness’ can disadvantage boys in MFL and the implications for this are for a wider discourse exploring notions of cultural diversity not only in MFL but also in personal identities.

This research applies a non-typical action research approach to design, implementation and monitoring of an outdoor learning intervention situated within a UK special school for learners with social emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD). The rationale for the research is based upon practitioner assumptions that an earlier skills orientated outdoor learning curriculum was inappropriate and that change was required to incorporate opportunities for the learners to develop their social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. The thesis describes the historical role of outdoor learning in relation to SEBD intervention and applies structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) to gain an understanding of previous outdoor learning interventions. The theory has also been used to create a narrative from which to describe the augmentation of SEL skills within the participant group. It was found that SEL augmentation in individuals contributed toward the production of improved social structures within the participant group. Participant attendance on the outdoor learning intervention is also reviewed in the context of alternative curriculum discourse. It was found that participants had improved attendance, punctuality and motivation on intervention days.

This thesis investigates communication (verbal and nonverbal) in a bilingual (Farsi-English) complementary school mathematics’ classroom. The study examines gestures were used as a resource for teaching mathematics in a bilingual setting, enabling intercolutors to construct meaning and mediate understanding. That is, the ways in which language and gesture can be seen as resources in supporting and conveying mathematical ideas is described. I investigated a number of verbal and nonverbal resources and show how these are culturally and socially shaped. I also explored how modes of communication are employed in creating mathematical meaning in a bilingual classroom context. A multimodality framework was adopted to analyse data which included audio and video recordings, observations and interviews with teachers and pupils. I found that gestures were employed to convey aspects of the mathematical register and how these were used to amplify what interlocutors were expressing verbally. Furthermore, I identified that different languages activated a different conceptual understanding of the same mathematical concept which was reflected through the students’ and teachers’ gestures.

A study of the literature relating to Initial Teacher Education (ITE) suggested that, while mentors had been studied as instruments of their partnership Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), there was little work which investigated the mentor as acting subject in ITE. Through an analysis of spoken and written data, this empirical study offers insights into how two teachers in a secondary school in England appeared to develop subjectivities to assist them in their work in ITE, in the context of the HEI partnership and government policy for ITE. A post-Vygotskyan Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) were used to explore the rules and conceptual and language tools that those teachers seemed to be drawing on when they worked as mentors. The study concludes that, even though the school or partnership appeared to offer few spaces for the development of robust identities, where a mentor had a pre-existing strong pedagogic orientation to mentoring, s/he was better able to construct a subject identity to help her work with students. Where a mentor lacked such a pedagogic orientation and drew on more managerial approaches, s/he experienced more tension in mentoring work and struggled to find an identity which might resolve those tensions.

Three sequential studies investigate the professional practice of the rehabilitation worker in delivering Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training to older visually impaired people. The first study explored through in-depth, face-to-face interviews (n=17) professionals’ views of the relevance of O&M training to visually impaired people. Analysis of the findings suggested that the prevocational training of the rehabilitation worker equipped them with techniques that in the majority of cases required substantial adaptation to meet the needs of their predominant client group (older people). Emerging evidence of a gap between rehabilitation worker training and their practice prompted a second study to establish expert views of what constituted good practice in O&M with older people. Utilising a Delphi method, an expert panel (n=5) produced detailed descriptions of the elements of good practice (family; mobility aids; public transport; assessment; orientation; sighted guide; the individual; road crossing; the public; the senses) that they considered to be essential for effective O&M intervention with older people. This framework provided the structure for the third study which explored – through telephone interviews (n=29) with practising rehabilitation workers – how their experience of practice aligns with the expert view of ‘good practice’. A grounded analysis of the data uncovered how the rehabilitation worker adopts a common sense, pragmatic approach to the application of their practice. Whilst this enables them to draw directly from the expertise of their client, there is a lack of the underpinning knowledge they require to be confident that this practice is effective. Appreciating that the practising rehabilitation worker develops skills and abilities in order to deliver O&M that meets the needs of older visually impaired people, recommendations are made for the development of their pre- and post-vocational training.

This thesis explores how to utilise social robotic tutors to tackle the problem of providing children with enough personalised scaffolding to develop Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) skills. SRL is an important 21st century skill and correlates with measures of academic performance. The dynamics of social interactions when human tutors are scaffolding SRL are modelled, a computational model for how these strategies can be personalised to the learner is developed, and a framework for long-term SRL guidance from an autonomous social robotic tutor is created. To support the scaffolding of SRL skills the robot uses an Open Learner Model (OLM) visualisation to highlight the developing skills or gaps in learners' knowledge. An OLM shows the learner's competency or skill level on a screen to help the learner reflect on their performance. The robot also supports the development of meta-cognitive planning or forethought by summarising the OLM content and giving feedback on learners' SRL skills. Both short and longer-term studies are presented, which show the benefits of fully autonomous adaptive robotic tutors for scaffolding SRL skills. These benefits include the learners reflecting more on their developing competencies and skills, greater adoption SRL processes, and increased learning gain.