This thesis focuses on groups of adolescent learners in two comprehensive schools. It explores the interplay between linguistic and strategic competence in classrooms where a foreign language is used i e. in French or Spanish lessons and in geography classes where the foreign language is also used as a medium for instruction. In Part 1, the research is positioned within a contextual, conceptual and theoretical framework, underpinned by Vygotskian socio-cognitive principles. Part 2 consists of an ethnographic-oriented.case study at two sites. The study uses methodological triangulation to co-construct the learning environments from different perspectives, based on document analysis, questionnaires, interviews, lesson observations and the microgenetic analysis of student interaction during linguistic tasks analysed at both an inter- and intramental level. The thesis is built on the metaphor of language games and identifies strategic and linguistic moves which could potentially bring about changing the rules in order to enable an alternative game to played. The thesis leads the writer to argue for a re-conceptualisation of learner strategies based on the notion of ‘strategic classrooms’ and recommends the integration of ‘alternative’ linguistic and strategic ‘moves' into everyday classroom practice if learners are to find a ‘voice’.

This thesis explores the career perceptions and experiences of 20 experienced Asian women teachers who had commenced their careers in the last 25 years. By focusing on the accounts / stories of those Asian women teachers, I have attempted to answer the question: What is it like to be a black teacher in British schools? The stories were collected through a series of life-history interviews. Early research on the educational experience of black people in Britain focused more or less exclusively on schooling and 'black underachievement'. All tended to locate the problem and its solutions, within black children, their families and cultures, hence isolating 'race' issues from those of gender and social class. The research also have tended to continue to focus on pupils in schools and on those who are seen to have failed within the system. Instead, this study examines the experiences of Asian women teachers who had largely succeeded in their education. Despite the fact that my interviewees did not comprise a homogeneous group, there was uniformity regarding their perceptions of their career experiences and the way they related to their social environment. The Asian women teachers in this study encountered barriers at all stages in their careers and faced racism, albeit in different forms and guises. These teachers were perceived by white colleagues, parents and pupils as being the inferior 'Other'. In addition, apart from the overt, wounding type of racism, they were subjected to institutionalized racism, which denied them their dignity and made professional advancement very difficult. Many of these teachers often had to find alternative routes to promotion, in multicultural areas of teaching and not in mainstream section. They, sometimes, had to survive in hostile environments. But they all succeeded despite the system, rather than because of it. Success was often made at considerable personal cost, and with great determination and commitment. The study concludes that the experiences of these teachers were racially affected. A number of generalised patterns regarding their career developments and on the articulations of racism in their working lives emerge from these biographies and are discussed in this thesis. However, despite the existence of structural racism in society, the Asian teachers in this study found different ways of managing and responding to it.

This is a study of extreme emotional reactions to the learning of mathematics. It is conducted among mature adults, mostly well-qualified in some academic area, but with relative failure in mathematics, and showing a marked distaste for the subject. It first explores, through interviews with twenty-four people, their memories and feelings about their experiences in the mathematics classroom. Two modes of investigation follow. One is with a group of seven who, with the experimenter, seek both to learn some mathematics and examine their negative reactions to it. The group met for two-hour sessions through thirty-six weeks of an academic year. Side by side with this ran individual studies of three people, who also worked on mathematics, re-experiencing and discussing their fears. These studies lasted respectively through twelve, twenty-four, and twenty-six hourly sessions. Starting with Skemp's model of intelligence, and in particular its view of the emotions, six situations are defined which inhibit learning. A model of the most extreme reaction, panic, leads to the speculation that it is caused by authority and time pressures. This is tested, both in large groups and in individual cases. The belief that the explicit avoidance of them can lead to rewarding mathematical experiences is also examined.

In this thesis I apply Merleau-Ponty's brand of existential phenomenology to the developmental language disorder 'dyslexia'. Developmental dyslexia is marked by an unexpected failure to acquire written language skills, in particularly reading, spelling and aspects of writing, and has primarily been studied by experimental cognitive psychology, physiology, and more recently, the neurosciences. The current explanatory paradigm holds the view that symptoms of dyslexia are caused by deficits in phonological skills, in particularly verbal memory and phoneme awareness. As a means of facilitating previous research, I take a phenomenological approach to the pre-reflective, lived experience of dyslexia by studying the peculiar style of intentional relationships that are developed by dyslexics in linguistic situations. This approach adopts a non-causal, descriptive methodology which attends to the manner in which dyslexics not only have a disrupted experience of the written word, but also a meaningful relationship with language. Using the notion of the 'lived body', I propose that dyslexics are marked by a loosening of body intentionality in linguistic situations, and this is further interpreted as an incohesive sedimentation of skills. I apply these general findings to the topics of spatiality, expression and temporality, and conclude that dyslexics exhibit a different style of being-in-the-world. This difference in style is characterised as an interaction between the propensity to foreclose the transitional and differential structures of perceptual experience, and moreover, the possibility of sustaining a provisional relationship with language through the development of compensatory strategies, the latter of these observations prompting a new line of future qualitative research.

This thesis provides a sociological analysis of the in-service training (INSET) of teachers in England between 1988 and 1992, to explore issues concerning the professionalism and autonomy of teachers. Sociologists of education have produced numerous explanations of educational phenomena, and evaluation studies reveal much about INSET. Yet there remains the task of developing sociological explanations in this field. As an especially dynamic phase, the period designated merits detailed study. Teachers' professional development is conceptualized in three ways: in relation to change in the education system, to the place of teaching as a profession, and in terms of professional learning. National INSET schemes implicitly threatened teacher autonomy, yet professionalism could be redefined at the micro- level, and this study therefore addresses macro- and micro-sociological issues. The empirical research concentrates with increasing intensity on school-focused INSET experiences, through data from documentary sources, in-depth interviews, and participant observation. Chapter 1 explains the rationale for the investigation and demarcates the field of study. Chapter 2 outlines the background to the Local Education Authority Training Grant Scheme and similar initiatives. Chapter 3 sets out the sociological basis for the analysis of INSET phenomena. Methodological issues are addressed in Chapter 4, including the choice of case studies, the challenges of re-analyzing data and the criteria for selecting cases. The analysis presents a macro-sociological perspective in Chapter 5, then examines how national and LEA priorities are implemented in schools in Chapter 6. Micro-level case studies explore specific aspects of INSET: across different phases in Chapter 7 and on using information technology in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 investigates INSET for art. Chapter 10 summarizes the ways this thesis contributes to knowledge about the professionalism and autonomy of teachers through the study of INSET during a critical period. It reviews the application of the theoretical approach and points to areas for further research.

This thesis develops an Hegelian philosophy of education by presenting the concept as the comprehension of the dialectic of enlightenment. It begins by examining recent critical theory of education which has employed Habermas's idea of communicative action in order to reassess the relationship between education and political critique. It goes on to expose the flaws in this approach by uncovering its uncritical use of critique as the method of enlightenment. Enlightenment as overcoming presupposes enlightenment as absolute education. The philosophical issues raised here are then substantially examined by returning to Habermas in order to trace the presupposition of critique as method in his theorizing. It is argued that Habermas also presupposes critique as absolute enlightenment, or overcoming, in both the emancipatory knowledge-constitutive interest and in The Theory of Communicative Action, and further, that it is this presupposition which returns as the contradiction of the dialectic of enlightenment in his work. Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment is then itself examined along with Adorno's Negative Dialectics. Here it is argued that although this work marks an educational and philosophical development over Habermas, nevertheless its authors also presuppose the identity of enlightenment, this time in the claim that the dialectic of enlightenment, and negative dialectics, are not a determinate negation. The thesis shows how Habermas and Adorno, in their respective views of the dialectic of enlightenment, repeat but do not comprehend the selfdetermination which is the actual in Hegelian philosophy. The final chapter of the thesis employs Hegelian philosophy to re-examine the aporia of education as method. It argues that the dialectic of enlightenment is actual when it is recognized as the self-education of philosophical consciousness, and is the identity and non-identity which is the concept. The implications of Hegelian philosophy of education as the recognition of misrecognition are then explored, first with regard to rethinking the identity of the teacher in civil society and developing the concept as ethical pedagogy; and then to recognizing critique as comprehensive education with regard to the state in civil society.

Within the framework of task-based language learning, there has been much research on planning, under the premise that learners' language would be enhanced in planned conditions. However, the underlying mechanisms ofthis rationale have not been fully explored. To develop the present understanding, this study aims to explore the nature of planning and the psycholinguistic mechanisms of its effects on L2 performance. Earlier planning research has tended to focus on 'strategic planning' (i.e., a period of time given prior to a task), suggesting that it may improve learners' language in terms of fluency and complexity but not always in accuracy (e.g., Crookes, 1989, Foster & Skehan, 1996). In response to this, Yuan and Ellis (2003) propose 'on-line planning' (i.e., on-line processing pressure is lessened to allow active formulation and monitoring) and show its positive effect on accuracy as well as complexity. Building on these previous studies, the purpose of this research is to investigate the different form-focused effects between strategic and on-line planning. The study takes a process-product approach to planning by using a quantitative analysis of oral performance and a qualitative analysis of post-task verbal reports, prompted by stimulated recall, under non-planning, strategic planning and on-line planning conditions. The analysis of the performance of twenty-seven Japanese learners of English (grouped as high vs. low proficiency levels) demonstrates the positive effects of strategic planning on complexity and those of on-line planning on complexity and accuracy. Most importantly, different planning effects on specific accuracy measures were observed between different proficiency groups - verb forms in the low-proficiency and articles in the high-proficiency group. To complement the results of the performance analysis, the examination of verbal reports presents participants' planning processes. To support the improvement in accuracy in on-line planning, the analysis reveals that pressured conditions (i.e., non-planning and strategic planning) made participants prioritize meaning over form; on the other hand, on-line planning tended to push them into more complex structures while maintaining certain attention to accuracy. Drawing on pedagogical considerations offocus-on-form instruction, this thesis argues that strategic planning and on-line planning have different degrees of form-focused effects. In particular, on-line planning, beyond a simple improvement of accuracy, would increase consciousness of form and bring L2 learners to deeper, syntactic processing. It is suggested that some kind of on-line planning would be useful for developing learners' abilities of syntactic formulation.

Using his own professional experiences and fieldwork in the north-east of London as a starting point, the author suggests that the time is now right to consider the place of Muslim supplementary education in a wider social and educational setting. He suggests that four factors support this: the growing public interest in the emergence of British Islam; the continuing debate about the efficacy of traditional forms of Islamic education; the increasing use of networking within the educational community; and the growing official recognition of the contribution made by supplementary schooling. Following a review of a wide range of relevant literary material, the author draws on a number of life-story interviews in order to portray the reality and variety of British Muslims' experience of Islamic education. The outcomes of ethnographic fieldwork are then used to describe and analyse what takes place in a British maktab (elementary mosque school). This includes a detailed explanation of how and why the Qur'an is learned, particularly by those individuals who are training to become huffaz (those who have committed the whole Qur'an to memory). The ways in which Muslim supplementary schools might form part of the wider social and educational community are then explored together with factors that might block or encourage the creation of such an ideal. Analysis includes a review of existing organisational attempts to promote the work of supplementary schooling. A case is also presented for the reappraisal of the role of memorisation as a distinct form of learning. The thesis ends with a concluding statement, focusing on the ideal of maktabs and mainstream LEA schools working together to mutual benefit, and a number of recommendations aimed at researchers and those involved in both Muslim and wider community schooling.

This study analyses the roles, responsibilities and functions of parents in the education of their children. Parents are found to be involved in classroom-based as well as non-classroom based school activities. A sample of 5 headteachers, 35 teachers, 45 parents and 12 parent governors was selected in exploring parental involvement in schools. Parental involvement was also examined in four supplementary schools. The views expressed by parents, teachers, headteachers, parent governors and the organisers of the supplementary schools were analysed. Parental involvement was found to have been in practice for over two decades or so, recent development such as the 1986 Education Act and the 1988 Education Reform Act have brought in parents to be more responsible and more aware of their roles in the education of their children than before. Parental involvement has been examined as a model, having a set of four activities - accountability, partnership, supportive and advisory. Having looked at these activities closely, it is argued that accountability and partnership tend to play a more dominant role than supportive and advisory activities. This is because accountability and partnership permeate most activities of parental involvement. The views expressed by parents, teachers, headteachers and parent governors as well as the organisers of the supplementary schools, supported this view. A theory of conflict and integration was examined, which also showed that if there is objective accountability and partnership, and both parents and teachers see each other in this partnership with respect, then accountability will bring about mutual relationship, hence, making conflict gives way to integration of ideas, experiences objectives and methods. However, parental involvement practices have been found to be of benefit to the child, parents, teachers and the community in immeasurable terms. A prominent area that has shown such immeasurable benefit has been in reading which were done either in the school or at home by parents, organised and supervised by teachers. In this particular area, there has been much more research than in any other area of activity of parental involvement. The aspect of governing bodies has recently tended to deflect the attention of professionals, school administrators and educationists from other areas of parental involvement processes. It is however, enlightening parents on their roles and responsibilities for their children's education.

This study draws on a feminist perspective on time and space, or a feminist time and space literacy, in order to better understand the times and spaces in distance learning. I seek to respond to some of the key gaps in the literature by considering the multiplicity of times and spaces in distance learning, and the underpinning power relations, within respondents' stories of being a distance learner. This research makes a substantial contribution to the research on time, space and distance learning. This is not only in terms of bringing a feminist time and space literacy to the area of distance learning but, by doing so in conjunction with data collected over time and space, it also adds many new layers to the stories about the multiplicity of times and spaces in distance learners' lives, and the ways in which gendered and other power relations shape these. Moreover, this study has contributed to the wider body of feminist knowledge in seeking to explore a multiplicity of times and spaces in women and men's lives- as opposed to a binary of women's time and space and men's time and space - and in seeking to focus on time and space simultaneously.