This thesis is an original sequence of fifteen poems which explore the author’s reactions to Nature and God, her search for the meaningful in her life, and her search for answers to the “great questions.” Some of the works are in blank verse; some are in more controlled rhyme to emphasize the tension the writer felt. Several poems are experiments in the sonnet.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

This PhD thesis is a critical investigation of the formation of managers in the UK further and higher education (FHE) sector. It explores the character and problematics that surround the development of senior FHE post-holders as managers in the first half of the 1990s. The work draws on interviews with more than 70 senior post-holders in four universities and four further education colleges and observation in one university and one college. It analyses the narratives and practices that make up the changing working lives of the respondents. These are discussed in relation to recent social theory, particularly around approaches to 'discourse', 'the body', and 'identity/subjectivity'. This in turn is set against the backdrop of broad political-economic circumstances and conditions. Two key issues are addressed in the thesis: the problematics that surround the development of managers, and the gendered dimensions of this formation. The thesis is in three sections: 'Epistemological Commitments and Ontological Priorities' (this divides into three chapters: 'Managing Discourse and Discoursing Managers', 'Living Bodies and Inscribing Bodies' and 'The Relative Thickness of Human Material, approaching 'Identity' and 'Subjectivity'), 'Speaking Historically, Politically and of literatures' (this divides into three chapters: 'Making Sense of Making Managers, a review of the critical further and higher education management literature', 'From Methodology to Research Methods' and 'Further and Higher Education's Turbulent Years'), and 'Making Managers in Further and Higher Education' (this divides into three chapters: 'Doing the business, constructing the supervisors of production in further and higher education', 'Just how managed is the New Further and Higher Education? 'and 'University and College management; Is it men's work? '). The concluding chapter draws out the key points from the thesis, discusses these in the context of possible futures for further and higher education, and suggests directions for further research work.

The research project and its subsequent writing up in this thesis has had three primary aims, which have been to carry out and present: 1. a detailed, qualitative consideration and evaluation of the aims and expectations of participants - both lecturers and students - in small group teaching in a university; 2. a scientifically-based analysis of the practice of small group teaching across six faculties within that university, focusing on amounts of lecturer talk and student talk, the nature of that talk and the interaction patterns between the participants; 3. an exploration, using information from two recently completed surveys, of the existing level of motivation within one other university amongst its staff to act on such results as this project yields. The first three chapters serve as an introduction to the main issues within the thesis, to the design of the research programme itself and to the literature, which has informed the total project. An extended bibliography is also included, to inform further detailed study. Chapters Four and Five focus on the consideration of aims of participants, the subsequent two chapters on the analysis of the practice of small group teaching as exemplified in the video-recorded data collected. Chapter Eight presents an exploration of the current climate and context, into which the above research findings and recommendations are to be introduced. It is concluded from these various analyses of data that there is much scope for improvement not only of performance in university small group teaching, but also in perceptions of performance. Additionally it is feared that the current level of motivation to act upon such conclusions is low. It is recommended that further research is needed into models of staff development in institutions, in order that university provision might be so organised as to increase its effectiveness.

The political role of English further education colleges has been ambiguous for some 20 years, being a nationally funded service administered by local government. In 1993 this role ambiguity was challenged with the incorporation of colleges, accompanied by a shift in the locus of power to national government. Significant cultural change was driven through by an expansionary yet punitive funding regime based on the principles of the free market. In common with other parts of the public sector, this change in orientation has had mixed results. This thesis explores the issues that face the leaders of the modern FE college, approaching the subject from the perspectives of entrepreneurial leadership and market orientation. The sector was dominated by financial instability during the first five years, with the next three being characterised by improving financial health for some colleges and the failure of others. The sector has lost 25 colleges since incorporation through mergers and takeovers. The removal of barriers to competition and the development of rising standards underpinned by audit and inspection have required colleges to adapt to a hostile and turbulent operating environment. A new management paradigm and approach to client orientation has been required to compete and survive in the post incorporation era. The roles of entrepreneurial leadership and market orientation and their impact on business performance have not been widely studied in the UK public sector and the further education sector in particular. The thesis is based on an empirical study of a sample of 250 colleges, representing 60% of English FE colleges. Using quantitative analysis tools, the direction and strength of causal relationships are explored. The financial performance measurement problems typical of public sector are explored using data envelopment analysis and linear structural equations. The thesis concludes with a review of the managerial implications of the study by way of three qualitative case studies and elite interviewing, reconciling theory with the results of the study. The thesis ends with a summary of issues for future research direction.

This thesis examines the role of the board of governors in colleges of further education (FE). Despite being a significant area of activity, comprising over 440 colleges, which were allocated a total of three billion pounds of public money in 1998, FE remains a notably under-researched sector. This thesis contributes to the knowledge and understanding of the governance activity in the sector by going beyond demographic data and using a case approach to examine the nature of the work undertaken by the board. This work is also important because it is able to utilise data gathered from observations of a college board as it undertakes its work. Data has been gathered from four FE colleges and has been analysed using the framework of the three paradoxes set out by Ada Demb and F.F. Neubauer in their work "The Corporate Board". This thesis then, draws on established work to present and develop a model applicable to considering the governance issues in FE. The main conclusions of this thesis are that in order to maximise the board's contribution to strategy, two key issues need to be addressed: issues associated with the governance process and issues associated with the people involved in that process. A more widespread understanding and coherent approach to adopting the principles of the Carver model of Policy Governance across the sector, along with a reconsideration of the role of the Further Education Funding Council may go some way towards addressing process issues. However, boards also need to recognise that whilst an efficient process may provide the potential for the board to undertake its strategic role, there is a need to go beyond this and to develop ways and means of harnessing the skills and contributions of all board members in order to maximise their strategic role.

This study examines the extent of academic freedom for academics and students, university autonomy and equality of admission in the Jordanian public universities. It examines academic freedom in terms of freedom to express views and ideas, freedom to select course content, freedom to select research subjects, freedom to participate in social and political activities, freedom to participate in decision making and freedom to be promoted from one academic rank to another. Also, it considers university autonomy in terms of admission of students, appointment of academics, establishing new programmes of study and research, administration of students' affairs and university autonomy from the pressure of society. Finally, it examines the admission policy in terms of the equality of the admission criteria; these are the Tawjihi scores and the quota components. The main subjects of the study comprised a sample of higher education academics, policy makers and postgraduate students from the six public universities. The study employed qualitative and quantitative research methods; questionnaires were used to obtain the views of the postgraduate students regarding academic freedom for students and equality of admission policy. Interviews were used to obtain academics and policy makers' views regarding academic freedom, university autonomy and equality of the admission policy. There was also analysis of related documentary material. From this study, it appears that academic freedom for academics and students is controlled and limited by social, security and legal constraints. These limitations affect freedom of expression, freedom of publishing, freedom to select course content, freedom to select research subjects, freedom to participate in social and political activities, freedom to participate in decision making and freedom to be promoted from one academic rank to another. Also, university autonomy is restricted by social and governmental regulations and security restrictions, while university autonomy to admit students is restricted by the HEC (Higher Education Council) criteria of admission. Furthermore, the admission policy is flawed by the inequality of the criteria which have not achieved equality among students. In the light of the findings of this study, recommendations have been made for the development of academic freedom for academics and students, university autonomy and equality of the admission policy and an indication given of possible future research studies.

Certain modes of student voice risk being suppressed and silenced by the policies and practices of contemporary higher education. This absence threatens to erase from students' horizons additional meanings their academic identity might have, and silences embryonic voices in students which seek to express alternative understandings of who they are, who they could be, and what they know. Recovering the student voice creatively involves identifying losses in current perspectives of individual and collective student voice and proposing conditions for having a voice that might restore these losses. The concept of student voice seminal to the Western tradition of the university remains viable. Creative recovery means drawing on past ideas of student voice and showing how these theories might bear new meanings in the future. Recovery is not only retrospective but prospective. Realizing voice creates possibilities for students' becoming. Voice is creative as well as restorative. Voice is realized amid different dimensions of power, and institutional and attitudinal contexts can block or facilitate its recovery. Realization involves taking risks and generating challenges, theoretically and practically. The recovery process entails establishing conceptual conditions for what it means to have a voice and devising practical strategies for overcoming vulnerability and attaining equality. These include constructing pedagogical situations and opening up spaces that enable students to claim a hearing and challenge teachers to listen sensitively. Having a voice partly depends on someone hearing that voice with understanding, and coaching it forth. Listeners are needed who suspend preconceptions of what the student voice might mean, and avoid the danger of recognizing and validating only certain modes of voice whilst marginalizing others. Creative recovery is radical and confrontational. Recovery breaks open past and present definitions of student voice to make a new statement: an affirmation of integrity and courage expressing the complexity of the whole person.

One of the most important changes to UK higher education in the last ten years has been the funding of research within universities and particularly the introduction of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). This thesis is concerned with the organisation of research work within universities and possible impacts of this change in government policy on the research activities within university departments. Much of the recent literature on academics has documented their declining status and persistent undervaluing (Halsey, 1995). The decrease in government funding to higher education and the increase in processes of accountability and assessment are argued to weaken academic autonomy and further the `proletarianisation' of academic work. Further research, however, has raised the question of whether academics are quite so passive in their response to policy changes. Trowler (1998) argues that academics are active agents in their implementation of policy within institutional settings. This thesis investigates the disciplinary and institutional structural processes that govern academic work and analyses in detail the inter-relationship of these structures with the practices of academics. Bourdieu's framework for the analysis of the relationship between structure and agency is used in this study. He argues that there are many social fields within which agents struggle to accumulate forms of symbolic capital. His concept of habitus encapsulates the complex inter-relationship he postulates between structure and agency. Bourdieu is often criticised for being overly deterministic in his analysis of human agency. This thesis attempts to counteract this charge by placing the analysis at the site of interaction of field (structure) and habitus (agency). It is a collective case study of the organisational, managerial and ideational structures (Grenfell and James, 1998) found within six university departments and the involvement of academics in the reproduction and resistance of those structures. The way in which the RAE serves to reproduce and/or reconstruct the disciplinary and institutional structures discussed is also of central concern to this thesis. The study concludes that the RAE has had a profound impact on the forms of construction and evaluation within academic life but that this is mediated through the complex variety of organisational, managerial and ideational structures within institutions and across disciplines. Similarly, the positioning of individuals within institutional and disciplinary structures is important for understanding their particular struggles and strategies for recognition. This is most acute in struggles over the classification of research and non research active which has significantly increased the differentiation of academics within departments. This thesis also concludes by arguing that a greater understanding of the individual academics location within the context of specific institutional interactions will provide a necessary addition to Bourdieu's framework of analysis.

This thesis critically reviews, evaluates and synthesizes theories of cross-cultural adjustment and international students’ sojourn activities, and develops a multi-layered and dynamic framework of cross-cultural adjustment. Empirical evidence, collected from the experience of Taiwanese postgraduate students in the UK, is used to build a grounded theory of cross-cultural adjustment. The process of cross-cultural adjustment is examined in terms of four key dimensions - self-identity, academic pursuit, affection and sojourn life-experience - each of which is broken down into more specific components (categories and sub-categories) according to the interview responses of the student sample. The result is an in-depth appreciation of the wide range of factors that contribute to the experience and challenge of cross-cultural adjustment for Taiwanese postgraduate students. For each of the four dimensions, certain core conditions are shown to give rise to specific adjustment phenomena which are shaped by certain contextual factors, and these phenomena give rise to a characteristic strategic response by the students, which then yields a specific consequence. The study shows that cross-cultural adjustment is a continuous process in which international students establish emotional alignment through social interaction and the articulation of their self-identity. The study provides a conceptual framework for future research into cross-cultural adjustment within different host countries, and also serves as a basis to help universities anticipate and manage effectively the adjustment problems faced by international students.