Retaining students, particularly in the 16- to- 24-year-old category, is a constant challenge for adult basic education programs nationwide. Educators need to understand factors that affect adult learners' experiences, have a better understanding of ways to motivate adult students in a nontraditional school setting to enhance their engagement, and apply research-based techniques and targeted, practical strategies to improve student persistence. The primary objective of this case study was to investigate the perceived factors that students considered influential on their persistence and retention in adult basic education programs. Knowles's andragogy theory and Tinto's persistence theory were the theoretical frameworks for this study. The research questions were designed to understand the factors that motivate students to remain engaged in academic courses. Ten students enrolled in a high school equivalency program in a large northeastern city participated in semi-structured, individual interviews. Coding and thematic analysis were used to identify, describe, and interpret the data collected. The findings indicated that factors such as individual drive, the instructor's encouragement and high expectations, relevant topics, and connection to school all contributed to sustain a learner's persistence. A professional development project was designed from the findings to provide instructors with research-based best practices and techniques to increase students' motivation and persistence through active learning experiences in student-centered classrooms. The project will impact social change by helping educators to have more insights on theories about adult learning styles and a deeper understanding of current approaches to inspire active participation, sustain learner motivation, and improve student academic performance.

O presente trabalho tem como referência dois contextos de imposição de reformas sobre a educação básica brasileira: o primeiro decorrente da lei federal 5.692 (BRASIL, 1971) e o segundo, da Medida Provisória (MP) 746 (BRASIL, 2016), seguida da lei 13.415 (BRASIL, 2017). Ao investigar esses dois momentos, esta tese visa demonstrar a potência do trabalho de memória (BOSI, 2012) e de registro (ZABALZA, 2004; MELLO; BARBOSA; FARIA, 2017) para a discussão sobre o ensino-aprendizagem de língua francesa nas escolas do Brasil. Por meio de uma investigação sobre documentos e lembranças que apontam práticas daquela disciplina no Instituto Caetano de Campos entre 1960 e 1970, constatam-se silenciamentos (ORLANDI, 2007) de vozes docentes, bem como retrocessos políticos que ecoam permanentemente em nossos currículos. Ao longo do primeiro semestre letivo de 2018, buscamos ressignificar tal constatação, realizando uma pesquisa autoetnográfica em Escola de Ensino Fundamental onde o francês foi inserido como componente curricular. Como resultado dessa experiência de ressignificação e de conexão entre o passado e o futuro, emerge o protagonismo da documentação pedagógica (REGGIO EMILIA, 2014), para tornarem visíveis e possíveis a constituição e a resistência de corpos pedagógicos (TELLIER, CADET, 2014) que, a despeito de ciclos recessivos, ousam ensinar línguas estrangeiras, notadamente, o francês, em comunidades de aprendizagem do país. / This research has as reference two contexts of imposition of reforms on Brazilian basic education: the first resulting from the federal law 5.692 (BRASIL, 1971) and the second from the Provisional Measure 746 (BRAZIL, 2016), followed by law 13.415 (BRAZIL, 2017). In order to investigate these two moments, this thesis aims to demonstrate the power of memory work (BOSI, 2012) and registration (ZABALZA, 2004; MELLO; BARBOSA; FARIA, 2017) for the discussion on French language teaching and learning in schools of Brazil. Through a research on documents and memories that point to practices of that discipline in Instituto Caetano de Campos between 1960 and 1970, we can see the silence (ORLANDI, 2007) of teachers\' voices, as well as political setbacks that echo permanently in our curricula. During the first academic semester of 2018, we sought to re-signify this finding, performing an autoethnographic research in Elementary School where French was inserted as a curricular component. As a result of this experience of re-signification and connection between the past and the future, the protagonism of pedagogical documentation emerges (REGGIO EMILIA, 2014) to make visible and possible the constitution and resistance of pedagogical bodies (TELLIER, CADET, 2014) who, despite recessive cycles, dare to teach foreign languages, notably French, in learning communities of the country.

The field of adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) has undergone dramatic changes in recent years with the advent of labour market programs, accreditation, competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. Teachers' working conditions have deteriorated and their professional autonomy has been eroded. ALBE has been increasingly instrumentalised to fulfil the requirements of a marketised economy and conform to its norms. The beliefs and value systems which traditionally underpinned the work of ALBE teachers have been reframed according to the principle of 'performativity' and the demands of the 'performative State' (Lyotard, 1984: 46, Yeatman 1994: 110). The destabilisation of teachers' working lives can be understood as a manifestation of the 'postmodern condition' (Lyotard 1984; Harvey 1989): the collapse of the certainties and purposes of the past; the proliferation of technologies; the impermanence and intensification of work; the commodification of knowledge and curricula; and the dissolving of boundaries between disciplines and fields of knowledge. The critiques of the modernist grand narratives which underpin progressivist and critical approaches to adult literacy pedagogy have further undermined the traditional points of reference of ALBE teachers. In this thesis I examine how teachers are teaching, surviving, resisting, and 'living the contradictions' (Seddon 1994) in the context of struggles to comply with and resist the requirements of performativity. Following Foucault and a number of feminist poststructuralist authors, I have applied the notions of 'discursive engagement' and 'the politics of discourse' (Yeatman 1990a) as a way of theorising the interplay between imposed change and teachers' practice. I explore the discursive practices which take place at the interface between the 'new' policy discourses and older, naturalised discourses; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity; how teachers are discursively constructing adult literacy pedagogy; what new, hybrid discourses of 'good practice' are emerging; and the micropractices of resistance which teachers are enacting in their speech and in their practice. My purpose was to develop knowledge which would support the reflexivity of teachers; to enrich the theoretical languages that teachers could draw upon in trying to make sense of their situation; and to use those languages in speaking about the dilemmas of practice. I used participatory action research as a means of producing knowledge about teachers' practices, structured around their agency, and reflecting their standpoint (Harding 1993). I describe two separate action research projects in which teachers of ALBE participated. I reflect on both projects in the light of poststructuralist theory and consider them as instances of what Lather calls 'within/against research' (Lather 1989: 27). I analyse written and spoken texts produced in both projects which reflect teachers' responses to competency-based assessment and other features of the changing context. I use a method of discourse mapping to describe the discursive field and the teachers' discursive practices. Three main configurations of discourse are delineated: 'progressivism', 'professional teacher' and 'performativity'. The teachers mainly position themselves within a hybridising 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse, as a discourse of resistance to 'performative' discourse. In adapting their pedagogies, the teachers are in some degree taking the language and world view of performativity into their own vocabularies and practices. The discursive picture I have mapped is complex and contradictory. On one hand, the 'progressivist /professional teacher' discourse appears to endure and to take strength from the articulation into it of elements of performative discourse, creating new possibilities for discursive transformation. On the other hand, there are signs that performative discourse is colonising and subsuming progressivist /professional teacher discourse. At times, both of these tendencies are apparent in the one text. Six micropractices of resistance are identified within the texts: 'rational critique', 'objectification', 'subversion', 'refusal', 'humour' and 'the affirmation of desire'. These reflect the teachers' agency in making discursive choices on the micro level of their every day practices. Through those micropractices, the teachers are engaging with and resisting the micropractices and meanings of performativity. I apply the same multi-layered method of analysis to an examination of discursive engagement in pedagogy by analysing a transcript of the teachers' discussion of critical incidents in their classrooms. Their classroom pedagogies are revealed as complex, situated and eclectic. They are combining and integrating their 'embodied' and their 'institutional' powers, both 'seducing' (McWilliam 1995) and 'regulating' (Gore 1993) as they teach. A strong ethical project is apparent in the teachers' sense of social responsibility, in their determination to adhere to valued traditions of previous times, and in their critical self-awareness of the ways in which they use their institutional and embodied powers in the classroom. Finally, l look back on the findings, and reflect on the possibilities of discursive engagement and the politics of discourse as a framework for more strategic practice in the current context. This research provides grounds for hope that, by becoming more self-conscious about how we engage discursively, we might become more strategic in our everyday professional practice. Not withstanding the constraints (evident in this study) which limit the strategic potential of the politics of discourse, there is space for teachers to become more reflexive in their professional, pedagogical and political praxis. Development of more deliberate, self-reflexive praxis might lead to a 'postmodern democratic polities' (Yeatman 1994: 112) which would challenge the performative state and the system of globalised capital which it serves. Short abstract Adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) teachers have experienced a period of dramatic policy change in recent years; in particular, the introduction of competency-based assessment and competitive tendering for program funds. 'Discourse politics' provides a way of theorising the interplay between policy-mediated institutional change and teachers' practice. The focus of this study is 'discursive engagement'; how teachers are engaged by and are engaging with discourses of performativity. Through two action research projects, texts were generated of teachers talking and writing about how they were responding to the challenges, and developing their pedagogies in the new policy environment. These texts have been analysed and several patterns of discursive engagement delineated, named and illustrated. The strategic potential of 'discourse polities' is explored in the light of the findings.

This study aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the circumstances under which adult education, in particular adult basic education, can support and occasionally initiate participatory development, social action and the realisation of citizenship rights. It traces developments in adult basic education in South Africa, and more specifically literacy and language learning, over the years 1981 to 2001, with reference to specific multilingual contexts in the Northern and Western Cape. The thesis is based on four individual studies, documenting an arc from grassroots work to national policy development and back. Study I, written in the early 1990s, critically examines approaches to teaching English to adults in South Africa at the time and proposes a participatory curriculum model for the additional language component of a future adult education policy. Study II is an account of attempts to implement this model and explores the implications of going to scale with such an approach.  Studies III and IV draw on a qualitative study of an educator development programme after the transition to democracy. Study III uses Bourdieu's theory of practice and the concept of reflexivity to illuminate some of  the connections between local discursive practices, self-formation, and broader relations of power. Study IV uses Iedema's (1999) concept of resemiotisation to trace the ways in which individuals re-shaped available representational resources to mobilise collective agency in community-based workshops. The summary provides a framework for these studies by locating and critiquing each within shifts in the political economy of South Africa. It reflects on a history of research and practice, raising questions to do with voice, justice, power, agency, and desire. Overall, this thesis argues for a reconceptualisation of ABET that is more strongly aligned with development goals and promotes engagement with new forms of state/society/economy relations.

The aim of this study is to investigate teachers&rsquo / perceptions of constraints on improving student thinking skills in schools, and to find out whether there are differences in teachers&rsquo / perceptions of constraints in terms of subject area, educational background, teaching experience, gender, geographical area, and school location. A survey design was used in this study. The questionnaire used in the study was developed by making use of the related literature, and it was administered to 522 teachers working in the public high schools in four different regions of Turkey during the fall semester of 2002-2003 academic year. The data gathered are analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics (one-way ANOVA and t-test). There were four major constraints on improving student thinking, namely, teacher-related, student-related, curriculum-related, and external factors to classroom. The results indicated that the most agreed constraints were the student-related ones. The results also showed that there were no statistically significant differences in teachers&rsquo / perceptions of the constraints on improving student thinking based on the background variables, i.e., subject area, educational background, teaching experience, gender, geographical region, and school location.

The study described in the following pages was conducted in the summer of 19 9 3 at the King Edward Campus, (KEC) of Vancouver Community College. The subjects of the study were students attending classes at the Provincial Level of the Adult Basic Education (ABE) program at the college. The primary purpose of the study was to determine the characteristics of the students as compared with the literature, and to discover whether students used the support services designed to assist them. A student survey was developed and administered to students by instructors during class time. The sample was selected by targeting all Provincial Level classes in session at the time the survey was conducted, and thirty questionnaires were given to instructors in the self-paced program to be handed out to students when they were scheduled to come in. The information from the questionnaires was then entered into the computer and a statistical analysis was done. When the results of the study were compared with the information gathered from the literature review, it was learned that at KEC, the Provincial Level ABE student is more traditional than nontraditional, that is, the students were younger than anticipated, and the number of female students was only 3.8% higher than the ABE STUDENT PROFILE AND USE OF SUPPORT SERVICES III number of male students. It was also learned that the majority of the students had already completed secondary school before coming to study at KEC, but were stil l taking grade twelve level courses in order to have the prerequisite knowledge to enter the programs of their choice at Vancouver Community College or other institutions. Although students used the support services available to them, there were some differences in how the high proportion of second language speakers used them. However counselling, in particular, although used somewhat differently by second language speakers, was used by students at the Provincial Level for advising before registration, rather than for personal counselling or career planning. As colleges plan for the future, it has become even more important to obtain student feedback regarding services designed to assist them. The development of a student profile enables administrators and practitioners alike to gain insight into their student population and what the students perceive to be their needs. It is hoped that this study will be the first of many which will help to identify the needs and gaps in ABE programs and the services that are provided to support the students.

Šiuolaikinis švietimas įgauna vis didesnį pagreitį. Nuolat veikiamas tokių procesų kaip globalizacija, vartotojiškos kultūros sklaida, informacinės visuomenės revoliucija, jis tampa vis sudėtingesnis. Didėjantys žinių srautai keičia žmonių visuomenės supratimą. Kartu keičiasi ir išsilavinimo reikalingumo samprata. Vis didesnis dėmesys skiriamas bendram žmogaus išsilavinimui, kuris sudaro sąlygas asmeninei raidai, intelektiniam savarankiškumui, integracijai į dirbančiųjų visuomenę ir suteikia galimybę dalyvauti kuriant demokratinę visuomenę. Ugdymo turinį, orientuotą tik į žinias, keičia turinys, kuriame be žinių atsispindi įgūdžiai, gebėjimai, vertybinės nuostatos. Vis dažniau ugdymo procese įsigali individualizavimo, diferencijavimo sąvokos. Šiame kontekste socialinis ugdymas tampa svarbi bendrojo ugdymo dalimi. Mokiniai nagrinėja žmonių gyvenimą gamtinėje, socialinėje ir kultūrinėje aplinkoje. Mokyklinį socialinio ugdymo pagrindą sudaro socialiniai ir humanitariniai mokslai: antropologija, filosofija, ekonomika, istorija, politologija, psichologija, teisė. Išskirtinis dėmesys tenka geografijai. Šis mokslas visada užėmė tarpinę padėtį tarp socialinių ir gamtos mokslų. Nors tradiciškai geografija priskiriama socialinių mokslų ratui, tačiau kai kurie autoriai ją priskiria prie fizinių mokslų. Apibendrinus galima teigti, kad šiuolaikinė geografija yra sudėtingas glaudžiai tarpusavyje susijusių mokslų sistemą, kurią sudaro fizinės (gamtinės) ir socialinės (visuomeninės)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Modern education is becoming more and more accelerated. Constantly affected by such processes as globalization, the spread of the consumer’s culture and the revolution of informational society, it becomes increasingly difficult. The rising flows of knowledge change the understanding of human society. At the same time consequently changes the concept of the need of education. Therefore, the increasing attention is paid to the common human knowledge, which provides opportunities for personal development, intellectual independence and integration into the workforce and gives a chance to participate in the creation process of the democratic society. The content of training, oriented mostly towards knowledge, now is substituted by the content, which is based not only on knowledge, but also reflects skills, abilities and the provisions of values. More and more often the concepts of individualization and differentiation set in the process of education. In this context social education becomes a very important part of general training. Students examine the life of human beings in natural, social and cultural environment. The basis of social education at school consists of social and humanitarian sciences: Anthropology, Philosophy, Economics, History, Politics, Psychology and Law. A particular attention is paid to geography. This science has always occupied an intermediate position between social and natural sciences. Traditionally geography is attributed to the circle of social... [to full text]

美洲開發銀行在海地與其基礎教育協同合作之研究 / This paper presents the findings of my researches on the matter of building “Quality education” in Haiti. The study aims to identify whether or not the efforts made to build quality education in the country after the January 2010 earthquake has achieved the results expected and consequently to propose alternative ways to achieve the goals targeted. In this sense, the paper hypothesizes that “Even with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which was selected as main partner to help in rebuilding the sector after January 2010, the actions implemented in the sector by the Government of Haiti (GOH) lack of effectiveness in building quality education. To evaluate the quality of the results achieved in the sector, the study uses a gap analysis by comparing the state of the sector before and after the earthquake. This analysis is based on a mixt of empirical data and qualitative data that were collected both through online sources and through interviews with stakeholders deeply involved in education in Haiti. The analysis has proven that performances are poor and that they have suffered from the same problems that have hindered the effectiveness of the interventions implemented in the sector even before the earthquake. In this sense, to rebuild the education sector as one major pillar to launch the country’s development process, the paper proposes building on a public-private partnership in education that should help to achieve quality education through the revamp of the following tree pillars: “quality teacher”, “quality tools” and “quality environment”.

This thesis explores the constitutional right to receive basic education in the language of choice. This fundamental human right imposes a duty on the state to provide children with education in the language of their choice whenever reasonably practicable. It is not a matter of whether the state has to fulfil section 29(2) of the Constitution, but rather how to give effect to this provision. The right to receive basic education in the language of your choice is however, qualified by the specific internal limitation that provides that the right is subject to the condition that provision of education in the preferred language has to be reasonably practicable. Section 36, the limitation clause, is also a measure that can be used to limit this right. The aim of this paper is to contextually interpret the fundamental right to receive education in the language of one’s choice and to weigh up the intent of the provision to the provision’s actual result. All relevant factors will be taken into consideration to examine the possibility of limiting the right to receive instruction in the language of choice to comply with the purpose of education and the best interests of the child. / Thesis (LL.M. (Comparative Child Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

This thesis explores the constitutional right to receive basic education in the language of choice. This fundamental human right imposes a duty on the state to provide children with education in the language of their choice whenever reasonably practicable. It is not a matter of whether the state has to fulfil section 29(2) of the Constitution, but rather how to give effect to this provision. The right to receive basic education in the language of your choice is however, qualified by the specific internal limitation that provides that the right is subject to the condition that provision of education in the preferred language has to be reasonably practicable. Section 36, the limitation clause, is also a measure that can be used to limit this right. The aim of this paper is to contextually interpret the fundamental right to receive education in the language of one’s choice and to weigh up the intent of the provision to the provision’s actual result. All relevant factors will be taken into consideration to examine the possibility of limiting the right to receive instruction in the language of choice to comply with the purpose of education and the best interests of the child. / Thesis (LL.M. (Comparative Child Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.