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In this thesis I analyze realism and some of its social constructivist critics. The aim of the thesis is to find areas in which there is a potential for a synthesis of these two paradigms. I propose understand states and the international system as whole as social institutions, with realism to find and interpret its rules and modus operandi.

The aim of this research is to explore the views of pupils, parents and teachers about homework at Maylandsea Community Primary School. Specifically it is designed to investigate their opinions about the value and purpose of homework, about what sort of homework they think may be most suitable for primary aged children, about the different roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the homework process and about ways in which homework activities might promote children’s involvement and their enjoyment of learning. These collected views were then used to prepare a framework to provide guidance, clarification and exposition in order to assist members of the school community. This research is designed to address the paucity of understanding about homework in a primary school and to discover if and why parents, pupils and teachers think that homework is valuable and worthwhile. This study is located within a qualitative, epistemological paradigm and it employs a social constructivist research methodology. The researcher adopts the stance that homework is a socially constructed, socially described and socially conceptualised activity. This is insider research and the researcher is also the school’s headteacher. There is an acknowledgement that action research models and participatory enquiry approaches have influenced the research design but have not defined it. This research is a single case study located within one semi-rural primary school in Essex. This study finds that parents, pupils and teachers recognise that homework has an important role to play in helping primary age children to learn, in developing positive learning habits and in promoting good personal and social skills. It discovers that there is confusion about parents’ roles in supporting homework. It demonstrates that homework should be made meaningful for families and engaging for pupils and that the foundation for successful homework lies within the quality of the tripartite relationships between teachers, children and parents. This thesis offers a new framework to support teachers and families and it concludes that, whilst existing literature is ambivalent in terms of the value, purpose and effectiveness of homework, stakeholders at this primary school consider it to have positive benefits both for learning and for the personal development of young children. However, these benefits are most evident when the homework tasks are interesting, varied, personalised and relevant to learners’ needs. Families are supportive of homework when they can appreciate that it is meaningful to them and their children.

Este trabalho visa enfocar o tema da violência familiar por dois vértices: o primeiro questiona a adoção de uma lógica simples e maniqueísta com a qual as políticas públicas habitualmente enfrentam essa questão, atribuindo valores positivos e negativos à complexa dinâmica das relações conjugais, de modo a polarizar a questão da violência em vítimas e agressores, de forma rígida. Trabalhamos com a hipótese de que os efeitos destas políticas tendem a cristalizar e perpetuar aquilo mesmo que pretendem combater. O segundo vértice pretende explicitar qual o lugar destinado, ou “imposto simbolicamente”, aos homens, procurando identificar quais os determinantes culturais, sociais e psicológicos organizadores da subjetividade masculina, visando a compreender como os papéis de gênero e as relações resultantes destes são distribuídas, transmitidas e perpetuadas por esses mesmos gêneros. Para tanto, esta investigação usa do arcabouço teórico psicanalítico para cotejá-lo com estudos das relações de gênero desenvolvidos nas Ciências Sociais e na Antropologia, com o intuito de ampliar a compreensão do modo de transmissão e perpetuação das relações violentas. / The objective of this dissertation is to focus on the theme of gender violence under two perspectives: the first one questions a non-complex and dualistic logic commonly adopted by the public policies when dealing with violence practiced in intimate partner relationships, attributing positive and negative values to the complex couple relationship dynamics, hence, polarizing the understanding or such problematic giving it a rigid victim/ perpetrator form. Our hypothesis is that the effects of such kind of policies tend to crystallize and perpetuate that which they intend to eliminate. The second perspective aims to explicit a place, ‘imposed symbolically’ on men, with the objective of identifying the cultural, social and psychological factors which can be determining organizers of the male subjectivity, so as to facilitate the understanding of how gender roles and relationships based on such roles are distributed and perpetuated amongst the genders. In order to study such issues we will make use of the psychoanalytical theory and side it with the most recent studies developed by the Social Sciences and Anthropology, in order to try to offer tools to the comprehension of how these violent behavioral patterns are transmitted and perpetuated.

Este trabalho procura descrever de que forma cinco mulheres jovens, de 24 a 35 anos, profissionais de nível universitário, pertencentes às camadas médias paulistanas, experimentam a dimensão do feminino em sua vivência cotidiana e a representam através de imagens fotográficas produzidas por elas mesmas. Pela presença que têm a imagem na socialização contemporânea e como maneira de incluir o sujeito em ação na pesquisa, optamos por trabalhar com fotografias. A partir da consigna Fotografe sua experiência de ser mulher em doze poses, as participantes produziram o material pictórico, que serviu de fio condutor para as entrevistas abertas que realizei no intuito de amplificar as possibilidades de entendimento acerca das imagens e do posicionamento das participantes dentro de um contexto discursivo mais amplo referente às identidades e relações de gênero. / This paper intends to describe how five young women, ranging from 24 to 35 years of age, college graduates and professionals, belonging to the middle classes of São Paulo, Brazil, perceive the dimensions of being a woman in their everyday lives and how they represent their experience through photographs taken by themselves. Because photographic image is ever so present in the contemporary context, and as a way of including the subjects in the research through an action of their own, I chose to work with photos. The participants were told to take pictures of their experiences as women, and these images guided the follow-up interviews. Those interviews were made in the intent of amplifying my understanding regarding the visual material in a more ample discursive context referring to gender identity and gender relations.

Este trabalho procura descrever de que forma cinco mulheres jovens, de 24 a 35 anos, profissionais de nível universitário, pertencentes às camadas médias paulistanas, experimentam a dimensão do feminino em sua vivência cotidiana e a representam através de imagens fotográficas produzidas por elas mesmas. Pela presença que têm a imagem na socialização contemporânea e como maneira de incluir o sujeito em ação na pesquisa, optamos por trabalhar com fotografias. A partir da consigna Fotografe sua experiência de ser mulher em doze poses, as participantes produziram o material pictórico, que serviu de fio condutor para as entrevistas abertas que realizei no intuito de amplificar as possibilidades de entendimento acerca das imagens e do posicionamento das participantes dentro de um contexto discursivo mais amplo referente às identidades e relações de gênero. / This paper intends to describe how five young women, ranging from 24 to 35 years of age, college graduates and professionals, belonging to the middle classes of São Paulo, Brazil, perceive the dimensions of being a woman in their everyday lives and how they represent their experience through photographs taken by themselves. Because photographic image is ever so present in the contemporary context, and as a way of including the subjects in the research through an action of their own, I chose to work with photos. The participants were told to take pictures of their experiences as women, and these images guided the follow-up interviews. Those interviews were made in the intent of amplifying my understanding regarding the visual material in a more ample discursive context referring to gender identity and gender relations.

Thesis (M.Ed.) -- University of Limpopo, 2018 / Technology education was introduced in the South African curriculum by the Department of Basic Education with the intention of developing learners’ design skills while using the design process. Since the introduction of technology education, the South African curriculum has undergone a series of curriculum changes. Teachers were introduced to Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS), the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and now the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). These changes compelled South African teachers to shift from a teacher-centred approach to that of a learner-centred approach. In the RNCS, the design process was presented as a linear process, whereas in the CAPS document, the design process has been represented as non-linear. This change has led to uncertainties amongst technology teachers on how to teach the design process. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the teaching strategies that technology teachers apply when teaching the design process. The CAPS document for technology stipulates that technology should give learners an opportunity to develop and apply specific design skills to solve technological problems in real situations. To solve such problems, learners should be exposed to a problem and then engage in a systematic process that allows them to develop solutions to the problem. The theoretical framework used in this study was based on social constructivism. This theory was used based on the fact that it describes how learning occurs and puts emphasis on how learners construct their own understanding in a social context. This social constructivism was linked to the design process skills required to demonstrate the way in which the teaching and learning of the design process could be directed. The design process is seen as the backbone of technology and should be used to teach technology, it seems that teachers are struggling to use the design process in teaching technology. The literature revealed that teachers’ lack of knowledge in technology has an effect on how they use various teaching strategies to teach the design process. This is challenging and a reason for unease, therefore this study needed to explore this problem. The study engaged in qualitative research using a case study design. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants, who comprised technology teachers who obtained anAdvanced Certificate in Education majoring in technology with at least six years of experience in teaching technology. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and observations, and were analysed using Shulman’s Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The study revealed that only in exceptional cases were technology teachers using problem-solving to teach the design process. It was also revealed that technology teachers have difficulties with regard to PCK. The sampled teachers were also unable to support learners to acquire design skills such as investigation, designing, making, evaluation and communication. The observations indicated that the participants did not engage with the design process as set out in the CAPS document for technology. The implication of this study is that understanding the content and how to teach it is essential in teaching and learning situations. There should be ongoing professional development programmes to assist technology teachers. This study recommends that there should be repeated in-service training of technology teachers to address the issue of concern in teaching the design process. Teachers should be encouraged to attend such in-service training. The in-service training should also focus on teaching technology using the design process. Furthermore, technology teachers should encourage effective group-work in problem solving so that every member of the group has a role to play.

Unfortunately, for the most part, teachers do not teach the Nature of Science (NOS). Even when teachers have adequate NOS knowledge, their knowledge still does not make its way into practice. While there are various reasons for this happening, this study has isolated other, more typical, constraints to teaching in order to look more closely at the influence of personal epistemological beliefs, understandings of NOS, and their effects on practice. In an effort to minimize typical constraints of time for the teaching of NOS, a sixth grade physical science course was chosen as a way to minimize this constraint. Within this course there was a School District- mandated schedule for the teaching of NOS. This curriculum map included details of what NOS topics to teach and when to teach them. In Phase One of the study, correlational relationships between these understandings of NOS and personal epistemological beliefs were investigated. A Pearson Correlation Coefficient of 0.62 was calculated based on 28 sixth grade science teachers. In Phase Two of the research, eleven participants were chosen for a more in-depth analysis. Through the use of triangulation of interview data, classroom observations, artifact collection and survey scores to ascertain the constraints for each individual, even though few constraints could be verified that would affect instruction, only three of eleven participants taught NOS. Personal epistemological beliefs play a role in the way instruction is approached in either a constructivist or non-constructivist manner.

A credit recovery (CR) program was implemented at a rural high school in Texas to assist with high school completion. While graduation rates increased, the time for completion also increased for students in the CR program. The purposes of this correlational study were to examine factors that impact student learning in the CR program and to determine whether teachers were implementing student-centered instruction. Piaget's constructivist theory provided the framework for the study. The guiding question was to examine the relationships between student achievement and classroom environment, active learning, attendance, and student success from those enrolled in the credit recovery class at the target high school. A sample of 103 students in Grades 9-12 completed a 65-item Likert-scale customized form of the What Is Happening in the Classroom (WIHIC) survey with subscales in classroom environment, active learning strategies, student motivation, and student success. A correlational analysis was conducted using scores from the state assessment test, attendance data, and scores from the WIHIC. Results showed no statistically significant relationships among the variables. Based on these findings, a professional development program was crafted to assist teachers at the study site with writing CR curriculum to better align with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and to include more hands-on constructivist learning activities. Implications for positive social change include the potential to improve secondary students' academic outcomes.

Quality professional development is essential to enhance and sustain teacher efficacy. In a Southeastern school district, content-based, job-embedded professional development was not practiced or available for secondary school choral teachers. The purpose of this research was to discover the perceptions that choral teachers possess about what constitutes quality professional development. Guided by Bruner's constructivist approach, Knowles' concept of andragogy, and DuFour's professional development practices, this study examined the connection between these 3 ideas and supplied the foundation for the development of a professional development program. Using a case study design, data were collected through interviews and lesson plan documents from 9 secondary school choral teachers. The data were coded by hand and analyzed using an inductive approach. The key results were that the secondary school choral teachers desire quality professional development, characterized by content-based subject matter and collaborative delivery methods. A project of customized content-based choral music was constructed using teacher collaboration and mentoring as critical components of the delivery system. This study has implications for positive social change by providing professional development that addresses the needs and desires of the educators and increases their knowledge and skills. The project can perform as a prototype for professional development in other academic disciplines.