This thesis presents an exploration of the nature, extent and characteristics of a disciplinary Inclusion Room (IR), from the perspectives of students and staff in a South West secondary school. Over the past five years, this school has significantly reduced fixed term exclusions and improved school attainment against Local Authority averages. This research presents an organisational response to a socio-cultural problem and the paradoxical lenses of social inclusion and discipline. The research uses Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a theoretical and methodological framework. I explore inclusion and professionalism using the perspectives of nine students who entered disciplinary IR and nine staff who knew the students. Inclusion constructs explored include participation, equality and diversity. Professionalism is deliberated through a continuum of managerial control/discretionay judgement, individualistic models/collegial approaches and bureaucratic/continuous learning dimensions. Mixed methods used include document analysis, an on-line questionnaire, student and staff interviews, visual timelines and observations of the students in classrooms. The analysis of IR considers primary, secondary and tertiary contradictions along with disciplinary rules, community and division of labour/power constructs amongst participants to develop a rich understanding of the context. Exploratory data, in the form of a questionnaire, suggests that the students and staff broadly share understanding of inclusion policy, practice and culture in this school. Interviews, further informed by examination of documents, student timelines and observations, show how a disciplinary IR is integrated into, and complements, educational processes; participation (being there), equality and diversity, within the school. Professionalism is characterised by discretionary lenses, collegial working and continuous learning governed by problem solving to support that educational vision. Findings from this work are generalisable as the research develops experience of the school in a naturalistic manner and is illustrative of expectations rather than formal predictions. Nevertheless, schools can use the findings to consider how a disciplinary IR can complement educational processes through increasing participation, equality and diversity. Goals for inclusion can be enhanced through collaborative partnerships and active, ongoing engagement amongst students and staff to develop the educational experience.

This research explores the learning of volunteers who are being trained to perform service-providing roles within UK health and social care charities. Within these charities, volunteers often perform complex roles in dynamic environments, supporting service users and addressing challenging causes. This thesis argues that the charity and voluntary environment offers certain affordances, and also constraints, that provide opportunities for transformative learning experiences. The limited previous studies on the learning of volunteers have tended to concentrate on training evaluations or informal learning 'on the job', resulting in an unhelpful formal/informal dichotomised approach to learning. The research proposes that this approach has been unable to offer a detailed insight into the learning experienced by volunteers within the training process. In particular, this dichotomised view has been unable to account for both the learning of scientific concepts, such as the specific health conditions these charities are addressing, and everyday experiences of both volunteers and service users that are integral to the learning process. To address this gap, the thesis draws upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which is an approach grounded in Hegelian dialectics. Specifically, the CHAT-informed theories of expansive learning (Engeström, 1987) and Transformative Activist Stance (TAS) (Stetsenko, 2008) are synthesised to examine how volunteers interact with and within the charity environment through practices of training. Through this perspective, learning is conceptualised as a form of individual and social transformation, which expands the possibilities for collective activity. Expansive learning and TAS have previously been drawn upon to provide insight into learning in the workplace and in projects of social change respectively. However, so far the theories have not been focused on learning within the charity and voluntary environment. A multiple case study of three health and social care charities based in North West England provides the empirical data for the research. Each charity addresses a complex health and social cause, including stroke, sexual violence and HIV, and relies on volunteers to help provide services. Multiple qualitative methods, including observations of training, charity staff interviews, along with interviews and focus groups with volunteers, allow a range of perspectives and positions to be taken into account in line with the epistemology of the study. Data are analysed through the process of abduction drawing upon a CHAT-informed theoretical framework. The thesis intends to contribute to knowledge in two main areas. Firstly, it aims to increase understanding of learning within volunteer training, including how learning in the charity environment can be supported, sustained and made meaningful to enable transformative experiences. Secondly, it aims to theoretically advance CHAT, and the charity and voluntary environment is presented as a fruitful setting for developing particular aspects of the theory, such as emotion and agency.

Over the past two decades the contribution of postmigrant literature to Germany's literary landscape has attracted significant scholarly interest. This study investigates selected prose of Turkish-German authors. Six primary texts are reconceived as "transgressive" as they intervene in contemporary spatial, especially urban and global discourses. They employ diverse "spatial tactics" by citing conventional dichotomies (local-global, West-East) in order to abandon and replace them subsequently with dynamic views on space and time. This thesis proposes a new theoretical model of literary analyses in order to grasp the multidimensional aspects of space. Thereby, Lotman's cultural semiotics is used as springboard to expand the model throughout the readings of the texts. By including additional theories on space from disciplines such as gender studies (Gleber; Weigel), urban geography(Lynch; Downs/Stea), cultural-historical psychology (Nora; Assmann) and postcolonial criticism (Said), this analysis focuses on narrative strategies that challenge physical and conceptual concepts of boundaries. The originality of this approach lies in a perceptive, thorough reading of textual productions of space that refrains from pinpointing the texts as homogenous minority literature. The theoretical model examines spatial motifs and themes inherent in the primary texts while disregarding the alleged "foreignness" of the authors. Each of the main chapters discusses two works focusing on the dimensions gender-space, memory-space and geography-space: Emine S. Ozdamar's Die Brikke vom Goldenen Horn and Aysel Ozakin's Die Blaue Maske are analyzed as novels transgressing gender-coded urban spaces. The Berlin settings in Aras Oren's Berlin Savignyplatz and Zafer Senocak's Gefahrliche Verwandtschaft are conceived as multi-discursive fragments shedding new light on German "realms of memory". Yade Kara's Selam Berlin and Feridun Zaimoglu's Zwolf Gramm Gluck are investigated in relation to "glocal" dislocations and Oriental imaginations. This dissertation makes two key contributions to German literary studies: First, it proposes an alternative reading to the common practice of categorizing postmigrant literature by cultural heritage and generation by putting forward the idea that writers adopt manifold perspectives on spatial configurations. Second, by reading literary spaces through an alternate disciplinary lens, this dissertation reads the texts as multilayered complexities of spatial presentations and advocates a comparative, text-centered method of literary analysis.

<p>Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a growing field, which aims at facilitating, by means of technology, coordination and communication between people, working together. One problem within the area is that users often have problems learning the systems. Activity theory, a theoretical framework often used within CSCW, includes theories of learning, which however, have received relatively little attention within CSCW. Activity theory, as developed by Leont'ev, stems from Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, and has been further developed by Gal'perin. In this thesis the theories of learning in the works of Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Gal'perin in particular, have been applied to CSCW in order to investigate the contribution these theories can make to support learning within CSCW. Several conclusions are drawn from the theories analysed in this thesis. To begin with, learning should take place in social settings. Learners also need to be motivated to learn and need to be oriented in the learning task before performing the action to be learned. They need to be guided by a teacher, who asks guiding questions during the learning process. It is of importance that the learner performs the action to be learned him- or herself and describes, both verbally and quietly, what he or she is doing. During the performance of the action, the learner should manipulate material or materialised objects. The conclusions from the analysis are summarised in a number of guiding principles for CSCW system training that may provide a theoretical starting point for taking a closer look at learning problems pointed out within CSCW.</p>

For several decades improvement of science education has been a major concern of policy makers concerned that the U.S. is a “nation at risk” owing to the dearth of students pursing careers in science. Recent policy proposals have argued that provision of broadband digital connectivity to organizations in the informal sector would increase the reach of the formal, academic sector to raise the overall level of science literacy in the country. This dissertation reports on a longitudinal study of a physics telementoring activity jointly run by a university-community collaborative at a community learning center. The activity implemented a digital infrastructure that exceeds the technical and social-institutional arrangements promoted by policy makers. In addition to broadband internet access (for tele-conferencing between students at the community center and physicists at a university), supplemented by digital software designed to promote physics education, the activity included the presence of a collaborating researcher/tutor at the community learning center to coordinate and document the instructional activities. The current research revealed a fundamental contradiction between the logic, goals, and practices of the physics instructors, and the corresponding logic, goals, and practices of the participants at the community learning center. This contradiction revolves around a contrast between the physicists’ formal, logocentric ways of understanding expressed in the ability to explain the scientific rules underlying physical phenomena and the informal, pragmatic orientation of the youth and adults at the learning center. The observations in this dissertation should remind techno-enthusiasts, especially in the arena of public education policy, that there are no turnkey solutions in “distance” science education. Technically “connecting” people is not equivalent to creating conditions that expand opportunities to learn and a functioning socio-technical system that supports learning. Secondly, for designers and practitioners of informal learning in community-university collaborative settings, it is critically important to understand distance learning activities as developing “cross-cultural, ” collaborative encounters, the results of which are more likely to be hybrids of different ways of learning and knowing than the conversion of informal learning into a tool for instruction that will allow youth to “think like physicists.”

Over the past two decades the contribution of postmigrant literature to Germany's literary landscape has attracted significant scholarly interest. This study investigates selected prose of Turkish-German authors. Six primary texts are reconceived as "transgressive" as they intervene in contemporary spatial, especially urban and global discourses. They employ diverse "spatial tactics" by citing conventional dichotomies (local-global, West-East) in order to abandon and replace them subsequently with dynamic views on space and time. This thesis proposes a new theoretical model of literary analyses in order to grasp the multidimensional aspects of space. Thereby, Lotman's cultural semiotics is used as springboard to expand the model throughout the readings of the texts. By including additional theories on space from disciplines such as gender studies (Gleber; Weigel), urban geography(Lynch; Downs/Stea), cultural-historical psychology (Nora; Assmann) and postcolonial criticism (Said), this analysis focuses on narrative strategies that challenge physical and conceptual concepts of boundaries. The originality of this approach lies in a perceptive, thorough reading of textual productions of space that refrains from pinpointing the texts as homogenous minority literature. The theoretical model examines spatial motifs and themes inherent in the primary texts while disregarding the alleged "foreignness" of the authors. Each of the main chapters discusses two works focusing on the dimensions gender-space, memory-space and geography-space: Emine S. Ozdamar's Die Brikke vom Goldenen Horn and Aysel Ozakin's Die Blaue Maske are analyzed as novels transgressing gender-coded urban spaces. The Berlin settings in Aras Oren's Berlin Savignyplatz and Zafer Senocak's Gefahrliche Verwandtschaft are conceived as multi-discursive fragments shedding new light on German "realms of memory". Yade Kara's Selam Berlin and Feridun Zaimoglu's Zwolf Gramm Gluck are investigated in relation to "glocal" dislocations and Oriental imaginations. This dissertation makes two key contributions to German literary studies: First, it proposes an alternative reading to the common practice of categorizing postmigrant literature by cultural heritage and generation by putting forward the idea that writers adopt manifold perspectives on spatial configurations. Second, by reading literary spaces through an alternate disciplinary lens, this dissertation reads the texts as multilayered complexities of spatial presentations and advocates a comparative, text-centered method of literary analysis.

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a growing field, which aims at facilitating, by means of technology, coordination and communication between people, working together. One problem within the area is that users often have problems learning the systems. Activity theory, a theoretical framework often used within CSCW, includes theories of learning, which however, have received relatively little attention within CSCW. Activity theory, as developed by Leont'ev, stems from Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, and has been further developed by Gal'perin. In this thesis the theories of learning in the works of Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Gal'perin in particular, have been applied to CSCW in order to investigate the contribution these theories can make to support learning within CSCW. Several conclusions are drawn from the theories analysed in this thesis. To begin with, learning should take place in social settings. Learners also need to be motivated to learn and need to be oriented in the learning task before performing the action to be learned. They need to be guided by a teacher, who asks guiding questions during the learning process. It is of importance that the learner performs the action to be learned him- or herself and describes, both verbally and quietly, what he or she is doing. During the performance of the action, the learner should manipulate material or materialised objects. The conclusions from the analysis are summarised in a number of guiding principles for CSCW system training that may provide a theoretical starting point for taking a closer look at learning problems pointed out within CSCW.

The aim of this study is twofold: firstly, to give a general and broad picture of the painter, W.H. Coetzer as a person and as an artist; secondly, to stress the cultural historic importance of his work. His faithful execution of events in the history of our nation has contributed significantly to the history of South African Art. He inherited his artistic talent solely from his mother. His youth was a time of hardships. His father died when Coetzer was still young. Notwithstanding his duties in supporting his family he turned his back upon a career of wagon-building and dedicated himself with self-assurance exclusively to the art of painting. After numerous initial setbacks his work came to the notice of a few prominent Johannesburg art connoisseurs in 1928. Through their active aid Coetzer could study intermittently at schools of art in London between the years 1925 and 1934, where he received a course aimed at thorough academic training. Returning to South Africa, a period of hardships followed. It was a struggle to have his work accredited. In these years he started feeling it a calling to fulfil a national role as artist. He undertook a thorough study of the history of South Africa and more specifically of the Great Trek. He followed the various routes of the Voortrekkers, making numerous sketches and notes on the way. Con¬sequently, within a few years, he received several commissions from public institutions. To commemorate the historic Trek by wagon (1938) and the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument (1949), he designed a series of special stamps, dust-covers for publications and various memento's. These brought him acknowledgement as a "national" artist. Coetzer's sketch designs for the historic frieze in the Monument served as the first-indicators and contributed to the unity-existing in the work today. Apart from commissions for portraits of personalities of national importance, public demand for his landscape and still-life paintings increased rapidly. After his marriage in 1942 he came to own, for the first time, a spacious and well-equipped studio. Coetzer's six most frugal years as creative artist were devoted to the designing of the series of tapestries in the Voortrekker Monument. This creation can perhaps be regarded as the climax of his cultural historic art. Coetzer's admiration for the Trekker leader, Louis Trigardt, inspired the creation of his last and biggest mural, "For you, South Africa", painted for the T.P.A. Building in Pretoria. Although known for his works on an historic level, Coetzer is not bound by this theme which required factual rigidity; today he paints according to the inspiration of the moment and for the pleasure it gives him. As a versatile artist adept in handling various media of art, the past forty years have witnessed paintings of divergent nature. His landscapes vary from grandiose, impressive mountain scenes to humble interpretations of Highveld winter lanscapes. It is, however, his Still-life paintings that assert his skill as artist most highly. Today W.H. Coetzer's paintings are resplendent in many public and private collections and will always testify to the history of his nation and will serve as herald to the beauty of his native land. / AFRIKAANS : Die doelstelling met hierdie studie is tweeledig: Eerstens om ‘n algemene en oorsigtelike beeld van die skilder W.H. Coetzer as mens en kunstenaar te gee; tweedens om sy kultuurhistoriese betekenis te benadruk. Met sy uitbeelding van gebeurtenisse uit ons volksgeskiedenis, en die histories-korrekte, realistiese weergawe daarvan, het W.H. Coetzer ‘n groot kultuurhistoriese bydrae tot die Suid-Afrikaanse kunsgeskiedenis gelewer. Hy het sy kunsaanleg uitsluitlik van sy moeder geëerf. Sy jeugjare is gekenmerk deur swaarkry. Sy vader het hulle vroeg ontval. Nie-teenstaande sy verpligtinge om te help met die onderhoud van sy familie, het hy met kenmerkende selfvertroue die wamakery in 1925 laat vaar en hom voltyds op ‘n kunsloopbaan toegelê. Na herhaalde teleurstellings het sy werk in 1928 onder die aandag van ‘n paar Johannesburgse kunskenners gekom. Deur hulle daadwerklike hulp kon Coetzer, met onderbreking, van 1928 af tot 1934 aan Londense kunsskole studeer. Daar het hy deeglike, akademies-gerigte opleiding ontvang en goed presteer. Na sy terugkeer in Suid-Afrika volg ‘n periode van stryd om erkenning vir sy kuns. In hierdie jare ontwikkel by Coetzer die drang om as kunstenaar ‘n nasionale roeping te vervul. Hy onderneem ‘n deeglike studie van die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis, veral die Groot Trek, en maak talle sketse en aantekeninge op sy reise langs die ou Voortrekkerroetes. Binne ‘n paar jaar verwerf hy op hierdie wyse verskeie opdragte van publieke instansies. Vir die Historiese Ossewatrek (1838), en die Inwyding van die Voortrekkermonument (1949), ontwerp hy reekse spesiale posseëls, stofomslae vir publikasies en ‘n verskeidenheid aandenkings. Dit het vir horn erkenning as „volkskilder” meegebring. Coetzer se sketsontwerpe vir die Historiese Fries in die monument het die eerste aanwysing gegee en bygedra tot die eenheid wat vandag in die werk bestaan. Benewens opdragte vir portrette van nasionale figure het die publieke aanvraag steeds toegeneem vir sy landskap- en stilleweskilderye. Na sy huwelik in 1942 beskik hy vir die eerste keer oor ‘n ruim en goedtoegeruste ateljee. Aan die ontwerpe vir die Voortrekkermuurtapisserie vir die Voortrekkermonument het Coetzer ses van sy rypste jare as skeppende kunstenaar gewy. Dit kan bestempel word as die hoogtepunt van sy kultuurhistoriese werk. Coetzer se bewondering vir die Trekkerleier Louis Trigardt het die tema vir sy grootste, en laaste, kultuurhistoriese skildery bepaal, naamlik die muurskildery „Vir jou, Suid-Afrika" vir die Provinsiale-gebou in Pretoria. Wat betref sy persoonlike kuns is Coetzer nie gebonde aan enige beperkende opdrag wat historiese korrektheid vereis nie; vandag skilder hy volgens eie ingewing en vir sy plesier. As veelsydige kunstenaar wat bedrewe is in die hantering van ‘n verskeidenheid kunsmedia, lewer hy oor die afgelope meer as veertig jaar skilderye van uiteenlopende aard. Sy landskappe wissel van grootse, indrukwekkende bergtonele, tot die weergawe van eenvoudige Hoëveldse winterlandskappe. Dit is egter in sy stillewes wat sy kunstenaarskap in hoë mate bevestig word. W.H. Coetzer se skilderye pryk vandag in talle publieke- en privaat kunsversamelings en sal altyd die geskiedenis van sy volk verkondig en die skoonheid van sy land besing. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Visual Arts / Unrestricted

Over the past two decades the contribution of postmigrant literature to Germany's literary landscape has attracted significant scholarly interest. This study investigates selected prose of Turkish-German authors. Six primary texts are reconceived as "transgressive" as they intervene in contemporary spatial, especially urban and global discourses. They employ diverse "spatial tactics" by citing conventional dichotomies (local-global, West-East) in order to abandon and replace them subsequently with dynamic views on space and time. This thesis proposes a new theoretical model of literary analyses in order to grasp the multidimensional aspects of space. Thereby, Lotman's cultural semiotics is used as springboard to expand the model throughout the readings of the texts. By including additional theories on space from disciplines such as gender studies (Gleber; Weigel), urban geography(Lynch; Downs/Stea), cultural-historical psychology (Nora; Assmann) and postcolonial criticism (Said), this analysis focuses on narrative strategies that challenge physical and conceptual concepts of boundaries. The originality of this approach lies in a perceptive, thorough reading of textual productions of space that refrains from pinpointing the texts as homogenous minority literature. The theoretical model examines spatial motifs and themes inherent in the primary texts while disregarding the alleged "foreignness" of the authors. Each of the main chapters discusses two works focusing on the dimensions gender-space, memory-space and geography-space: Emine S. Ozdamar's Die Brikke vom Goldenen Horn and Aysel Ozakin's Die Blaue Maske are analyzed as novels transgressing gender-coded urban spaces. The Berlin settings in Aras Oren's Berlin Savignyplatz and Zafer Senocak's Gefahrliche Verwandtschaft are conceived as multi-discursive fragments shedding new light on German "realms of memory". Yade Kara's Selam Berlin and Feridun Zaimoglu's Zwolf Gramm Gluck are investigated in relation to "glocal" dislocations and Oriental imaginations. This dissertation makes two key contributions to German literary studies: First, it proposes an alternative reading to the common practice of categorizing postmigrant literature by cultural heritage and generation by putting forward the idea that writers adopt manifold perspectives on spatial configurations. Second, by reading literary spaces through an alternate disciplinary lens, this dissertation reads the texts as multilayered complexities of spatial presentations and advocates a comparative, text-centered method of literary analysis. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

The persistence of a 120 year-old mathematics curriculum despite dramatic changes in society (Dossey et al., 2016; NCTM, 2018) and the failure of the US mathematics education system to achieve many of its stated aims, especially for students from traditionally marginalized populations (Attridge & Inglis, 2013; Carnevale & Desrochers, 2003a; Ganter & Barker, 2004; Kastberg et al., 2016; Lei et al., 2015; Mullis et al., 2016) raises the question: “What aims, if any, actually shape the curriculum experienced by students?” This dissertation adds to what is known about curricular systems by building a theory of the role of aims for school mathematics in curriculum development, planning, and enactment. It does so by undertaking a qualitative analysis of ten lessons by four different teachers at two different high schools; tracking how the lessons are transformed from instructional materials into plans by the teacher and then enacted in classrooms and perceived by students. This dissertation analyzes these lessons through the lens of activity theory, enabling a deeper understanding of how aims can be described and how they permeate curricular systems. The data analysis produces a framework for how aims can be described and categorized, how aims permeate an individual stage of curriculum, and how aims permeate across stages of curriculum. It finds that aims can be conceptualized as having two parts, a central activity for which mathematical learning is designed to prepare students and the function that school mathematics plays in preparing students to participate in that central activity. The extent to which and how aims permeate a stage of curriculum can be described as the extent to which the mathematical goals for the lesson are connected to clear central aims. The aims found in particular stages of curriculum and the levels of permeation of those aims in those stages can be tracked across stages to determine whether the stages are reinforcing each other’s support for the achievement of aims or working at cross purposes. The application of this framework to the selected curricular systems reveals many lessons with low levels of aim permeation and extensive changes in the aims of lessons as the curriculum is transformed from intention to plan to enactment. This study suggests that aims are underutilized in curricular planning and provides evidence that the mathematics curriculum may be built following disciplinary logic with aims created to justify what is already in place. Further research must be done to explore this conjecture. If it is supported, then curriculum decision makers who seek to improve the extent to which they achieve their aims and eliminate racial and economic disparities in this achievement must begin by elevating the role of aims in their curricular work.