In this study, the influence of a 1:1 digital device on South African preparatory school teachers’ perceptions regarding their classroom practices is described. The focus is on the Chromebook as an ‘artifact’ of learning. Digital technology is becoming prevalent in all education spheres and, subsequently, interest in this topic is growing. In order to create an environment where optimal learning takes place, teachers and pupils should adapt their learning and teaching methods to embrace the effects of technology. Teachers are at the forefront of education and education trends involving digital devices are becoming a reality across all grades. Qualitative research was conducted to gain insight into eight teachers’ perceptions on using a 1:1 digital device (the Chromebook) for teaching and learning in a private Gauteng school. The major findings were that teachers had to adapt their preparation, facilitation and assessment strategies to accommodate the use of the Chromebook in the classroom. This was mostly done successfully by the participants. The teachers realised that the Chromebook is a useful learning and teaching artifact or learning and teaching support material as a tool in the classroom. It enhances multimodal learning, encourages the inclusion of multiliteracies, and creates a third space of learning, where teachers and pupils cooperate in constructing new knowledge. A concern addressed by the teachers was that digital learning would have a negative impact on writing skills. They also stated that there should be a balance between technology and traditional teaching methods. The most important recommendations are that teachers should change their attitude and their preparation and implementation of lessons when using the digital device in the classroom. Teachers should realise that pupils whose parents have the financial means and who have access to trending technology, today’s digital natives, have instant access to information and this has changed the way learning takes place. Although new to some teachers, the use of digital devices is second nature for many pupils of the 21st century. Teachers should embrace opportunities for professional development so that the digital device can be effectively incorporated in the learning process in the classroom. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria 2020. / pt2021 / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

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This research presents the daily life experience of the Kuwaiti Bidun people after migration to Sweden and tries to understand how they view their sense of belonging and how they deal with the emergence of new identity formations in their everyday life practices. By taking a closer look at the different modes of belonging and new identity formations in the process of migration for the Biduns, I will analyze how new interactions, new engagements, irregularity and postcolonial roots shape sense of belonging and new identity formations. By using a postcolonial perspective, I will answer the question of how the Bidun’s Bidunness identity experience the sense of belonging and the emergence of new identity formations after migration to Sweden. By conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews with a selected group of the Biduns living in Malmö this thesis aims to understand Bidun’s feelings of sense of belonging and emergence of new identity formations through their eyes. The thesis shed light on the way Bidunness identity represents itself in connections with its previous interactions and the way it experiences a sense of belonging when confronting with its other.

Though attention to academic language is a key component of the Teacher Performance Assessment and the new Common Core Standards, little has been researched regarding how pre-service teachers build academic language knowledge and integrate it into their practice teaching experience. This study focuses on the construction and delivery of academic language knowledge to pre-service teachers in a one year immersion teacher preparation program. It studies the pre-service teachers' use of academic language knowledge in their planning, teaching, and assessment throughout a practicum and clinical experience, as well as their use of academic language knowledge as part of reflective practice. Through analysis of classroom observation notes, interviews, and artifacts, the data show that after receiving instruction on academic language concepts in the areas of content-area terminology and language use, reading, and writing, pre-service teachers consciously integrated an attention to the terminology and language use of their content area into their practicum experience. However, faced with understanding themselves as teachers while navigating their mentor teacher's expectations, learning the curriculum they are teaching, and developing classroom management skills, etc., attention to academic language instruction in reading and writing was limited. Recognition that content-area terminology and language use is key to accessing content, though, influenced reflection on how content knowledge is accessed. This conscious understanding of the role terminology and language use plays in accessing content knowledge opened the door for a deeper reflection on the role academic language plays in the classroom. And, during their post-practicum clinical experience, these pre-service teachers were able to more knowledgeably reflect on how to integrate specific content-area reading and writing instruction into curriculum. These conclusions suggest that an introduction to academic language concepts and practices can reveal "blind spots" that enable pre-service teachers to better address content-area literacy in their future practice. They also suggest that more focus in academic language instruction in teacher education programs could help pre-service teachers more efficiently learn the complexities of their new role.

In this paper theater is understood as a tool to communicate social transformation and the purpose of this study is to investigate the use of Theater for Development in relation to preventing violence and explore if, how and why the use differ in relation to preventing direct or structural violence. By analyzing the narrated experiences of Kenyan theaterpractitioners work through the theoretical perspectives presented by Homi K. Bhabha and John Paul Lederach this paper then argues that theater can create an elicitive Third Space where the passive spectators in the audience can be turned into empathetic, conscientized spect-actors and where conflicting communication can occur without violence. It then goes on to theorize on how the explanation to the differences exists in what the performance need to achieve in the elicitive Third space.

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The paper starts by providing the overview of the Eurovision Song Contest, its participant countries and the audience. The aim of the research is to find out how everyday political talk takes place on non-political platforms. For this study, a blog dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest was chosen. The research is netnographic, and the conclusions are drawn based on content analysis (the comments left on the Eurovision news blog - Wiwibloggs.com) and interviews with the journalists of the blog. The paper approaches the blog as anon-institutionalized space, also known as “the third space.” It covers issues such as nation branding, communication in an anonymous setting and deliberative democracy. The paper further analyses different characteristics of the content shared on the blog and answers a question on whether such content is agonistic or antagonistic by nature.

This research discusses the issue of education reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) through an exploration of the perspectives of a range of participants involved in the preparation programme for science teachers which is run through an existing relationship between the University of Taibah and public schools in Medina city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research examines the perspectives of participants in the university and the school (university supervisors, university coordinators, headteachers, collaborating teachers and science student teachers). It discusses teacher preparation issues in the multiple contexts reported in the literature. Teacher preparation in other contexts has revealed models which could be useful in the Saudi context. Activity Theory (AT) was used as the theoretical framework to achieve this study’s objective of exploring the academic systems of the university/school and the relationship between them in science teacher preparation, focussing on the contradictions that create conflicts for student teachers learning to teach the modern science curriculum. Activity Theory was a useful tool in organizing this research as it permitted the exploration of the relationships between systems, analysing the rich data collected on the relationship between university and school. Activity Theory acted as a link between the need for a more expansive unit of analysis in initial teacher education (ITE) studies and appropriate and effective research methods. This research is situated within the interpretative paradigm. It usescase study with mixed methods as an appropriate methodology, using multiple methods of data collection, namely semi-structured interviews as the main tool, questionnaires and documentary evidence. This research revealed the utilitarian nature of the relationship between the university and the school, which did not reach the level of a cooperative partnership, and which contained many contradictions that created conflicts for science teachers when learning the teaching skills required of modern science curricula.

This feminist oral history project records, interprets, and analyzes the educational experiences of seven Ismaili college women in Chitral, Pakistan. Chitral is a part of the world where educating girls and women is not a priority. Yet in the scarce literature available one can observe an increase in the literacy rates, especially amongst the Ismaili Muslims in the North of Chitral District. This thesis introduces students' accounts of their personal educational journeys. I argue that the students' accounts exemplify third space feminism. They negotiate contradictions and social invisibility in their daily lives in quiet activism that shadows but changes the status quo of the society. Through their narratives the narrators see themselves as devout Muslim women who are receiving Western-style education through which they have learned to be women's rights advocates. The narrators now wish to pay forward their knowledge and help their families financially. Analysis of the oral histories revealed six themes: (1) distance from educational institutions, (2) sacrifices by the family, (3) support from family, (4) narrators as the first generation of women to attend school, (5) early memories of school including severe winters and corporal punishment, and (6) feminist touchstones. While honoring their families and communities, the narrators plan to become educators and advocates to empower girls and women in their own villages. In response to these oral histories, I recommend that the government of Pakistan, non-government organizations working in Pakistan, men and women, and teachers in schools work together to improve the educational journeys of future Chitrali women. Education for women needs to be introduced as a universal human right in Chitral so women, too, can get financial and psychosocial support from their families as well as communities to achieve their educational goals.