Nigeria is beset with many educational, economic and social challenges, including poverty, unemployment, gender inequality, lack of skills and poor access to education, especially among young people. Lifelong learning is widely recognised as a means of addressing social injustices and economic instability in the 21st century. Although there has been much public discourse on lifelong learning (LLL) in Nigeria, the subject is under-researched. This study examines LLL policies and the practices that influence young adult engagement in lifelong learning, the pedagogies that influence the development of LLL skills, as well as the impact of lifelong learning on the transformation of young adults, and their communities in Nigeria. This study adopted a quasi-longitudinal case study that involved two methods of data collection: document analysis and semi-structured interviews, underpinned by a social constructivist perspective. The study involved analysis of three national policy documents in Nigeria: The National Policy on Education (2013); Nigeria-UNESCO: Revitalizing Adult and Youth Literacy (RAYL) (2012); and the National Universities Commission (NUC) Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) (2011). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 participants: national level policymakers (n=4); students (n=16), graduates (n=12), instructors (n=5), and management level officials (n=3) drawn from one institute (YCV) in Katsina State, Nigeria. The YCV is an LLL initiative that attempts to address social injustices and develop individuals’ lifelong learning skills for personal and economic growth. The YCV is a successful adult education initiative that empowers distressed young adults in Nigeria. While in Nigeria the predominant goal of LLL are social justice and economic growth this research shows that lifelong learning is difficult to implement in Nigeria. The triggers for participation in LLL are life transitions such as divorce, examination failures and few opportunities to find employment which demoralise young adults, as well as a need to update knowledge and provide community services. The findings suggest that pedagogy of practice informed by critical pedagogy promotes lifelong learning skills, and that the principles of critical pedagogy can transform graduates into becoming economically and socially active individuals within a very challenging economic, political and social context. The study contributes to the existing literature about the potential of LLL based on critical pedagogy to offer transformational experiences to young adults/adults. These include economic and social transformation beyond self-transformation to promotion of peace building, societal cohesion, social security and community wellbeing; a transition from ‘learning to earning; and a way to rebuild lives after divorce, particularly for women. The study concluded that the challenges to implementing lifelong learning in Nigeria are not only cultural or peoples’ attitude to learning but structural and institutional. The study recommends that the implementation of LLL should take into account local knowledge and structures based on critical pedagogy to address internal challenges rather than being guided by internationally agreed development targets.

Book Summary: Applying Techniques to Common Encounters in School Counseling: A Case-Based Approach helps counselors in training bridge the gap between theory and practice by showing them how to theoretically frame or understand the problems and issues they encounter, how to proceed, and what action steps to take when they enter the field as school counselors. It answers the questions new counselors have in real school settings, such as What is it really like to live the life of a professional school counselor? How does the theory presented in the classroom apply to the myriad of situations encountered in the real life, everyday school setting? Case studies and scenarios give readers examples of many commonly encountered presenting issues. For each scenario the case is introduced, background information is supplied, and initial processing questions are posed. The authors include a discussion of the theoretical models or frameworks used to address the issue, along with a table segmented by theoretical paradigm and grade level that includes other techniques that could be used in the presenting case. With these tools at their disposal, readers gain a firm understanding of the issues from several frames of reference, along with interventions meant to create movement toward a successful resolution.

This thesis focuses on the ways in which theoretical models based in rhetorical studies can be used to enhance both the understanding and the practice of communication. In particular, my project shows that rhetoric and communication theory can provide a foundation for improving communication practice. <p>Every communicative act takes place within a context, as Lloyd F. Bitzer established. This same understanding of the centrality of situation to communicative effectiveness permeates the work of several other theorists whose work is discussed in this thesis, among them Wayne C. Booth, Kenneth Burke, George L. Dillon, Barnett Baskerville, and Donald Schon. <p>Using Bitzers conception of the rhetorical situation as the theoretical focus, two main concerns are addressed in the thesis: the relationship between rhetoric and the practice of technical communication, and the integration of theory and practice as the foundation of rhetorical understanding. The first three chapters present a series of theoretical models, and the practical use of this theory is tested by an exercise in writing a public speaking handbook for engineering undergraduates (presented as Chapter Four of the thesis). The audience for this handbook is specific and the purpose is narrow to give advice on preparing, practising, and presenting design presentations to professors and clients. This experiment is then followed by a reflection on the writing process and some conclusions about the relationship between rhetorical theory and communicative practice.<p> The key result of this research and case study is a deepened understanding of how rhetoric operates or how it should be studied. As a rhetorician, I found it discouraging even at times humiliating to discover how much difficulty I had in adapting my discourse to a specific audience. This research makes clear that an understanding of theory without a solid grounding in practice is insufficient for rhetorical mastery. While my original goal was to demonstrate the usefulness of theory to improving practice, this thesis shows as well the extent to which rhetorical theory also depends on an understanding of the demands and constraints of actual practice.

The main purpose of the study was to design, develop, deliver and evaluate a new distance web design course for the needs of students in a vocational higher education institution. Proactive action research was used as a framework during the research process. This research focused on the analysis of the existing face-to-face course to mitigate its problems in the new design. Then, accomplishments and insufficiencies of the new design in the new context were investigated. For this study, data were collected in two different semesters, in a vocational higher education institution. In the first semester, an existing course was investigated to see the problems and the needs. The results revealed that there were problems associated with &ldquo / motivational&rdquo / , &ldquo / interactional&rdquo / , &ldquo / instructional activities&rdquo / , &ldquo / support materials&rdquo / , &ldquo / up-to-date content&rdquo / , &ldquo / technologic&rdquo / , and &ldquo / non-technologic&rdquo / aspects of the existing course. Before the delivery of the new distance course in the second semester, it was completely redesigned with the new characteristics to mitigate some of the predetermined problems of the existing course. In this new structure, an instructor from Ankara gave the course via smart class to this vocational institution located in another city. In the second semester, data were collected to understand what the accomplishments of the new course, and what aspects of the new course needed to be modified. To triangulate qualitative findings, two questionnaire were conducted to see the students&rsquo / attitude towards web-based instruction and students&rsquo / perceptions about learning environment. With the findings of these data collection procedures, the accomplishments of the new design can be categorized in five main headings. These are &ldquo / working with an experienced instructor&rdquo / , &ldquo / extended learning opportunities&rdquo / , &ldquo / increased future expectations of students&rdquo / , &ldquo / fulfilled software requirements&rdquo / , and &ldquo / applicability of a distance vocational course&rdquo / . On the other hand, in the new structure of the course, new problems emerged such as &ldquo / course delivery problems&rdquo / and &ldquo / students&rsquo / readiness&rdquo / , because technology use in education sometimes comes with its unique problems including the solutions. Those accomplishments and insufficiencies points of the new design would be helpful in the new distance course design projects.

This thesis focuses on the ways in which theoretical models based in rhetorical studies can be used to enhance both the understanding and the practice of communication. In particular, my project shows that rhetoric and communication theory can provide a foundation for improving communication practice. <p>Every communicative act takes place within a context, as Lloyd F. Bitzer established. This same understanding of the centrality of situation to communicative effectiveness permeates the work of several other theorists whose work is discussed in this thesis, among them Wayne C. Booth, Kenneth Burke, George L. Dillon, Barnett Baskerville, and Donald Schon. <p>Using Bitzers conception of the rhetorical situation as the theoretical focus, two main concerns are addressed in the thesis: the relationship between rhetoric and the practice of technical communication, and the integration of theory and practice as the foundation of rhetorical understanding. The first three chapters present a series of theoretical models, and the practical use of this theory is tested by an exercise in writing a public speaking handbook for engineering undergraduates (presented as Chapter Four of the thesis). The audience for this handbook is specific and the purpose is narrow to give advice on preparing, practising, and presenting design presentations to professors and clients. This experiment is then followed by a reflection on the writing process and some conclusions about the relationship between rhetorical theory and communicative practice.<p> The key result of this research and case study is a deepened understanding of how rhetoric operates or how it should be studied. As a rhetorician, I found it discouraging even at times humiliating to discover how much difficulty I had in adapting my discourse to a specific audience. This research makes clear that an understanding of theory without a solid grounding in practice is insufficient for rhetorical mastery. While my original goal was to demonstrate the usefulness of theory to improving practice, this thesis shows as well the extent to which rhetorical theory also depends on an understanding of the demands and constraints of actual practice.

This study aimed to explore the present state of educational administration scholarship in Turkey as perceived by the educational administration scholars working actively at universities in Ankara. In this study, qualitative research technique was employed. It was conducted in Educational Administration Programmes of Departments of Educational Sciences at the three state universities in Ankara. The participants were 8 professors, 1 associate professor and 10 assistant professors from Ankara University, Hacettepe University and Gazi University. The main data collection instrument was the semi-structured interview. The data were analyzed using content analysis technique. Based on the review of the literature and the results of the study, the findings revealed that the present state of the educational administration scholarship is in kind of a turmoil related with some concerns and problems in the field as perceived by the scholars in Ankara.

This study aims to discover the perceptions of the visually disabled students at a public university in Ankara, Turkey for attending and participating in an online communication and discussion environment on the Web to access information and establish social relationships with others. The purpose of this research is six folds: (1) to investigate the current status of the visually disabled university students at a public university in Ankara, Turkey for accessing and using computers and the Internet, (2) to learn the kind of web sites that those students prefer to visit on the Internet, (3) to discover the topics and subject they prefer to see in the Web forum that will be designed and developed for them, (4) to identify the topics and subjects in the Web forum that those visually disabled university students mostly visited for reading, replying and adding new titles under them, (5) to show the effects of the Web forum on the participants for accesing information and establishing social relationships with others, (6) to learn the views and opinions of those visually v disabled university students about that Web forum after actively participating and spending meaningful time in it. In this study, mixed research method is used. The participants of this study were the visually disabled students of a public university in Ankara, Turkey and found by the researcher with the help of an academician colleague working in the Special Education Department under the Faculty of Education in that university. In that university, there were totally 39 visually disabled students and 36 of them accepted to be enrolled in this study on a voluntary basis. Within the scope of the study, &ldquo / EnabledForum - EngelsizForum&rdquo / was designed and developed by the researcher as a communication and discussion environment for those visually disabled university students for enabling them to establish social relationships with others via submitted posts for the topics and subjects of the forum. Moreover, this forum helped those visually disabled university students for accessing up-to-date information from the Web based sources. Finally, the usage logs of the &ldquo / EnabledForum - EngelsizForum&rdquo / helped the researcher to analyse and report which topics and subjects were mostly interested by those visually disabled university students.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of students in an implementation of &ldquo / Learning by Design&rdquo / method through a web based learning environment. The information gathered from the students enrolled in the undergraduate course / &ldquo / Foundations of Distance Education&rdquo / in 2009 Summer School and 2009-2010 Fall Semesters was evaluated. The course was given in blended form, i.e. face to face lessons and online instructional activities were performed together. In the web based part of the course, several educational modules of an open source learning management system (LMS), such as quizzes, forums, lesson pages, wiki pages, mail interface etc. were used. The students were responsible for implementing an educational course site on the LMS platform, using the course curriculum applications. Within the scope of this thesis, the perceptions of the students about course-related projects, and online and classroom activities were investigated through interviews and questionnaires. The academic development of students was also considered in the study. Additionally, several informal interviews were also done with the instructor of the course in order to investigate his perceptions about the conduct of the course. Questionnaire results have been analyzed quantitatively and face to face interview results have been analyzed qualitatively. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the students&rsquo / perceptions about how the course was conducted and the learning by design activities were generally positive. Especially the project work, which was assigned as a requisite of the learning by design method, was pointed out as a positive factor in students&#039 / learning of the subject matter both in the questionnaires and in the face to face interviews. Another important finding of the interview and questionnaire results was that the communication between the instructor and the students contributed positively to not only learning the course content but the quality of the projects as well. As an outcome of this study, many important factors, which lead to successful results in implementation of learning by design method in a web based environment, have been identified. These results are presented in detail in the &#039 / Discussion and Recommendations&#039 / section.

This study seeks to explore how social constructions of femininity during the Romantic Period were challenged in literature by proto-feminists in such a way as to form a revised feminine ideal of which both radical and conservative women could approve. It is an exploration of both nurturing (the figurative breast) and punitive maternal power (the figurative cane) as portrayed in Mary Wollstonecraft’s novellas, Mary and Maria, Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray, and Charlotte Smith’s Celestina. As these three authors’ social circles overlapped, they shared many of the same convictions, facilitating the analysis of the style and method of expressing these ideals. It is indisputable that women of the period were allotted some authority over their own children. However, the avenues of self-empowerment open to childless women have hitherto been overlooked. According to novels of the time, did women have any power over their own destinies? Did they have any socially acceptable power over men? This study’s aim is to discover if maternal authority was posed as an empowering tool for all women by tracing how it is being defined by Wollstonecraft in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters through an evolution from the overtly didactic style of works written for teachers and children (such as her Original Stories from Real Life) to the slightly more covert style of her two novellas, Mary and Maria. The similarity between the treatments of these two very different readers is carried forward through the examination of the other two authors (Opie’s Tales of the Pemberton Family and Adeline Mowbray; and Smith’s Rural Walks and Celestina). This study has found that all three authors commend the wielding of maternal power to their readers. The maternal voice of these authors and the portrayal of more traditional maternal roles in their didactic works for children and teachers draw parallels between this persuasive style and the style of the works written for adults seeking entertainment (rather than enlightenment). The authors’ treatment of these two categories of readers traces the use of maternal power as a tool for influencing the perception of the social status quo and indeed suggests a reification of maternal authority in order to empower the contemporary reader. Through copious examples in all of the texts, maternal power (even punitive power) is shown to be innocuous enough to challenge social constructions of femininity within the confines of prescribed socially acceptable behaviour detailed by the novelists themselves. These novelists therefore offer the reader an alternative interpretation of maternity by liberating the act of mothering from the biological state, in order to examine social maternity and its implications for proto-feminism.

Σκοπός της παρούσας μελέτης είναι αφενός να διερευνήσει το οικονομικό και πολιτισμικό κεφάλαιο των εκπαιδευομένων του Σχολείου Δεύτερης Ευκαιρίας (ΣΔΕ) Αγίων Αναργύρων κι αφετέρου να ανιχνεύσει τις προσδοκίες που αναμένουν από την αύξηση του συνολικού τους κεφαλαίου μέσω της αξιοποίησης του νεοαποκτηθέντος απολυτηρίου τους. Επιπλέον, αναζητά τον βαθμό ταύτισης των προσδοκιών τους με τους διακηρυγμένους στόχους του θεσμού των ΣΔΕ. Το θεωρητικό πλαίσιο της έρευνάς μας βασίζεται στη θεωρία της πρακτικής του Pierre Bourdieu η οποία συνδέει το κεφάλαιο με την έξη (habitus) και το πεδίο. Η συλλογή των δεδομένων έγινε με τη χρήση 14 ημι-δομημένων συνεντεύξεων και η επεξεργασία τους με ποιοτική ανάλυση περιεχομένου. Τα ερευνητικά μας ευρήματα κατέδειξαν ότι υπάρχει διαφοροποίηση των προσδοκιών μεταξύ των ενήλικων εκπαιδευομένων οι οποίες οφείλονται στις ενσωματωμένες «έξεις» τους καθώς και στο διαφορετικό οικονομικό και πολιτισμικό τους κεφάλαιο. Διαπιστώνεται επίσης ότι οι προσδοκίες των εκπαιδευομένων κατά την περίοδο της οικονομικής κρίσης δεν ταυτίζονται με τους διακηρυγμένους στόχους των ΣΔΕ, όσον αφορά τη μετάβασή τους στο πεδίο της εργασίας. / The purpose of this study is to investigate on the one hand, the economic and cultural capital of learners of Second Chance School (SCS) of Ag. Anargiroi and on the other hand, to detect their expectations on the increase of their total capital by boosting their qualifications through the newly acquired High school degree. Furthermore, the research focuses on to what extent their expectations meet the stated goals of the institution of SCSs. The theoretical framework of our research is based on the theory of practice by Pierre Bourdieu, which connects the capital both with the exis (habitus) and social field. The data collection was performed by using the technique of 14 semi-structured interviews which were thereafter processed with the use of qualitative content analysis. The surveyed data showed that there is a variation among adult learners’ expectations which were mostly due to their embodied "habitus", as well as, their different economic and cultural capital. What is more, the results demonstrated that the learners’ expectations during the period of economic crisis do not identify with the stated goals of SCS regarding their transition to the field of labor.