This thesis is a study of two extracurricular groups – a Dance Group and a Singing Group established for students at a university in the United Kingdom. The study centres on learning facilitated by student group social practices in relation to the production of identities, focusing particularly on gender and the role of the body. A review of the existing literature reveals distinct strands in this area. The first focuses academic success and future employment. A second strand critiques simplistic notions of academic skills and employability. The third analyses a diversity of student identities development within communities of practice in legitimate peripheral participation. This study extends this third strand by investigating the questions: How are student identities constructed in extracurricular dance and singing groups in a UK university? What role do the body and gender play in identity construction? Ethnographic techniques mainly participant observation and general conversations were utilised for collection of empirical data from student groups for one academic year (2007-2008) for ten sessions each term, as well as additional related events. The analysis draws on three bodies of theory: the theory of the body and of corporeal realism (Shilling, 2012), feminist theory and theories of masculinities and femininities (e.g. Connell, 2013); and the community of practice theory of learning (Wenger, 1998; Lave and Wenger, 1991). Analysis suggests that extracurricular groups were used to both achieve an externally-set objective and for engagement in complex social relations that constitute a significant aspect of student life. Furthermore, analysis explores specific ways in which masculine and feminine identities were produced. Gendered norms and relations were variably repeated, challenged or resisted through students’ embodied engagement in group activities. Thus, this contribution enhances existing knowledge through analysis that incorporates the importance of the human body in gendered identity production within extracurricular activities in higher education.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of Year 9 school pupils' responses to horror films, and, in particular, The Company of Wolves (Jordan, 1984). It employs social semiotic theory to analyse both film texts and audience engagements with such texts, exploring how such engagements involve transformations of subjectivity, particular kinds of competence in reading visual codes, and certain types of affective response to horror texts. It explores, briefly, histories of elements of the horror genre, especially the figures of the werewolf and the folktale heroine, in the period from the Enlightenment to the present day. The thesis develops a theory of textual pleasure in relation to horror films, drawing on Bakhtin's theory of carnival, Freud's theories of pleasure, and Bourdieu's theory of taste. It argues that fear and pleasure are related in this context; that such pleasures are socially situated; and that they relate to forms of textual identification. A theory of the sublime is also developed in the context of the social semiotics of film, exploring the history of the sublime from Kant and Burke to postmodernist theory. It is argued that sublime images operate through a dialectic of revelation and concealment, and that audiences replicate this mechanism in their viewing, and in the social sites in which they spectate. These structures are associated, furthermore, with socially-determined structures of aesthetic taste, and ways in which these in turn determine texts as popular or elite (or a hybrid of the two). Finally, the thesis addresses the pedagogies of English and Media Studies, arguing that classrooms need to become spectatorial spaces, open to new literacies of the visual, and equipped with the texts, technologies, and practices adequate to these new competences.

In this thesis I set out to develop a social symbolic approach to context and communication which goes beyond a code-systemic perspective on language, and one of economic exchange in language use. I begin by reviewing relations between linguistics and language teaching, and the dangers to the latter when it becomes preoccupied with linguistic theory and description. I consider the potential of applied linguistics to synthesise key ideas from various language related disciplines in descriptively adequate accounts of communication in social situations. In the remainder of chapter one I examine a number of 'centrifugal' approaches to the analysis of language use, arguing a tendency for them to underestimate the importance of social symbolism in communication. Taking a range of social symbolic structures and processes in educational contexts as the starting point for 'centripetal' investigations, in chapter two I describe salient aspects of social symbolism in contexts of communication. These include contrasting social, educational and economic forces in educational institutions, conceptions of role and role relations between students and teachers, and structural symbolic features such as dominance and dependency within rites of transition. In chapter three I explore further aspects of social symbolism revealed in communication, such as identity and risk-taking. I also discuss criteria for developing and appraising models of 'an ecology of context and communication'. Chapter four deals with the notion of negotiating meaning as a key process in social encounters, and the influence of social symbolic factors on meaning negotiation in dyadic communication. Having explored important dimensions of social symbolism in both context and communication, along with implications for the negotiation of meaning, I argue the value of raising awareness of social symbolism in educational processes in the final chapter of the thesis. I address ways of incorporating major aspects of social symbolism into language education and discuss a range of issues involved in so doing.

Performance in an assessment is not the reflection of just one’s knowledge and skills;motivation also plays a part. When the stakes of the assessment are low, it is logical to assume that students will have lower motivation to perform well in it. The Diagnostic English Language Tracking Assessment (DELTA) diagnoses and tracks students’ English language progress during their years of study at three universities in Hong Kong. Although the DELTA is a low stakes assessment, students get a report with their DELTA measure and detailed feedback on their performance. This study provides insights into test motivation as well as how useful students find a diagnostic report is to their language learning by ways of questionnaire survey and group interview, so as to explore students’ perceptions of test stakes and test value. The survey includes the Student Opinion Scale by Sundre and Moore (2002),which measures students’ motivation during the test; and a feedback usefulness scale specifically designed for this study to measure students’ perceptions of the usefulness of the diagnostic report. The results show that both scales are valid instruments to be used in this context and students are not motivated whilst sitting the test although they find the DELTA report quite useful. Data from the students’ interviews provide further information as to students’ motivation before and after the DELTA. In general they are not motivated before the test and their motivation to work on their English after the test largely depends on their perceived usefulness of the DELTA report. Lastly, as L2 motivation is a dynamic entity which will not remain constant over time, the study also demonstrates how Dörnyei and Ottó’s (1998) process model of L2 motivation can be adapted in explaining students’ test preparation and test taking process in low stakes diagnostic tests.

This thesis develops a social semiotic analysis of pedagogic communication in a media studies course which the author taught from 1993 until 1997. The author taught the course as part of an undergraduate honours degree about science, culture and communication in a university in the UK. The analysis describes the structuring of pedagogic practice on the level of the curriculum, and within the author's own "Communicating Science" module. The analysis also describes student receptions of pedagogic practice. The research reveals the extent to which pedagogic communication served to sustain the order which the degree was designed to contest: an order based on positivist conceptions of science, science communication, and therein, media theory and practice. The thesis concludes by proposing a theory of instruction which is designed to enable students to acquire the rules of realisation for more critical forms of science communication.

This research is concerned with the aspirations -goals, hopes and desires- of architecture students. The twenty eight students investigated studied in a student-centred, problem solving programme based upon multi-disciplinary work in Mexico City. Most participant students’ mid-level education was in teacher-centred pedagogies. Despite the importance of Bourdieu’s capital volume concept –reading, museum visits, knowledge of the arts, listening to classical music, educational qualifications, parents’ studies and jobs, prestige, as well as social connections- little empirical research has been conducted using this concept in relation to that of educational codes and with that of aspirations, within sociology and much less within architectural research. Educational codes, in Basil Bernstein’s theory, are the principles that through the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation of a degree programme shape a student’s views. The research purpose is to identify what generates some students’ dissatisfaction with the flexible or student centred and problem solving pedagogy. The thrust of the thesis is to show how students’ previous educational codes, their capital volume along with the blurred expectations the social system offers to them builds their aspirations (subjective experiences) and how these influence the choice of their priorities that in turn define their advancement in a flexible-rigid architecture programme. Each participant was investigated and analysed as case study on three stages of her/his higher studies. Data were collected through a combination of open interviews, sentence completion questionnaires, observations and school records. Students’ answers were analysed to find patterns in the interconnection of their personal and contextual factors impinging on their educational trajectory. Each student’s capital volume was defined to locate them in Bourdieu’s representation of the social space to gain insight of their nearness and farness to satisfy material and symbolic needs (objective conditions). The students' responses were analysed using Bernstein’s constructs of classification (power) and framing (control) to identify their orientations to meaning and learning. Students with higher levels of economic capital have lower levels of cultural capital than students in less favourable objective conditions. The thesis demonstrated that students with higher levels of economic capital, or in favourable objective conditions, but with scarce cultural capital are more oriented to things than to people and delayed his/her educational trajectory more than the students in less favourable objective conditions. The patterns of interconnections between students’ objective conditions, orientations and marks were made explicit introducing a language of description from the sociology of aspirations. A language of description is understood as a language necessary for making the tacitly constructed explicit “in a non-circular way” (Bernstein, 1996: 135-136). Three levels of cultural, educational and professional aspirations drawn from literature in the field were combined to conceive students’ aspirations level. The thesis demonstrated that students in higher social positioning have lower aspirations levels and lower performance than those in lower social positioning. In the last type of students excellent or very good performance replicates. Students whose previous educational codes were less flexible than that of the architecture programme held low aspirations levels and dysfunctional cultural principles (codes). Students who studied high school in a flexible educational process learn to prioritise their goals, becoming more realistic, open to accept ambiguity and diversity. Students identified strategies for improving the teaching-learning process some of which is outside of the design studio. The research contributed in a methodological and conceptual nature by explaining, in a non-circular way, how the interconnection of architectural students’ previous pedagogic codes, their objective conditions and subjective experiences influence their learning in a flexible-rigid educational context.

The knowledge economy is a construct of a neo-liberal imaginary that is linked closely to the promotion of educational technology use in schools. In the belief that educational technology can assist in the rapid development and modernisation of the education systems in the Middle East, over the last 20 years, donor agencies, international conglomerates and supra-national organisations have encouraged governments in the region to embed information and communication technology into the policies for the reform and development of their education systems. Taking Michael Peters’ assertion that there are three elements to the knowledge economy – learning, creativity and openness, the study points to the paradox of promoting these concepts within the context of the deeply conservative authoritarian regimes in the Arabian Gulf. By way of an ethnographic case study into the formulation and subsequent enactment of education policy reforms in the small kingdom of Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf, this account analyses the historical context together with political and social conditions giving rise to the education reforms in this region and the conflicting pressures experienced by those in schools that are tasked with enacting the reforms. Comparisons are made with the situation in Jordan from whence much of the regional impetus for technology-led education reforms arose. The analysis of the findings uses the lens of New Institutional Economics as a way of focusing upon the conflicting cultural, social and political factors that influence the policy enactment. In this way a more satisfactory narrative is achieved than one simply centred upon a neo-liberal analysis or upon conventional models of technology adoption. Ultimately, the study concludes that it is only through a rebalancing of the conflicting forces of structure and agency that successful social reform and policy enactment can take place in this part of the world where autonomy and selfactualisation are novel concepts for the great majority of the population.

This thesis explores the effects of Creative Writing exercises on student writer subjectivities. It explores the hypothesis that an encounter with enigmatic Creative Writing exercises can facilitate a shift in students’ relation to their writing, or their writer subjectivity. The study used a methodology informed by Lacanian psychoanalytic ideas. Data was generated through an “experiment” course: an intervention of six sessions especially for this research with five volunteer participants, Creative Writing students from a UK higher institution. In addition, free--‐associative one--‐to--‐one interviews were carried out before and after the intervention. Lacanian theory informed the attempt to maintain ambiguity in both the exercises and in the researcher’s enigmatic stance throughout the intervention. The analysis proposes the concept of writing fantasy as a formalized structure that orients a writer’s spoken and written discourse about her writing. Using the (emergent) structure of fantasy in the participants’ texts and interviews, the analysis chapters explore the participants’ writing fantasies and how the research project shifted or added to their fantasy, thus affecting the structure of their writer subjectivity. The outcome of the analysis suggests that writing fantasies can be shifted, at least momentarily, through the exercises. The analysis, however, also indicates that fantasies do not shift easily; the interpretation of the setting and/or the exercises’ instructions as threatening to a participant’s writer subjectivity seemed to impede the shift. The design of the research with pre and post interviews and an intervention aimed at disrupting or shifting fantasmatic attachments constitutes an approach to exploring fantasy that has not previously been explored in the field of Psychosocial Studies. The thesis also constitutes an original contribution to the field of Creative Writing Studies in the way it conceptualizes learning in relation to the inherent assumptions in writer--‐students’ spoken and written discourse. More specifically, it provides an initial knowledge--‐base for the pedagogical and psychosocial function of Creative Writing exercises used in Creative Writing pedagogy.

This study explores Kosovan teachers’ identities, beliefs, self-reported practices and perceived needs, concerning the interface of music, society and education. It does this at a time when the newly independent country is emerging from war and establishing an education system, of which music forms an important part. The discussion takes a social constructivist viewpoint, whereby music learning and teaching are understood in relation to the historical, political and cultural contexts of the society in which they occur. The focus of the investigation is on the current practical and theoretical situation faced by music education in Kosovo. This is approached through the voices of music teachers, all of whom belong to the Albanian-majority ethnic group in Kosovo (92%), which was subject to political oppression and acculturation under the former Serb regime until the Kosovan war ended in 1999. Using an ‘explanatory mixed methods design’ (Creswell, 2003, p. 15) a questionnaire survey was conducted with 204 teachers falling into two main, very different, groups – generalists and specialists – across all regions of Kosovo. The survey was followed up with semi-structured interviews of 16 individuals, selected as representative of each of the two main groups. The study investigated issues within and across each group, concerning: i) the teachers’ musical identities in relation to Kosovan history, culture and Albanian ethnicity; ii) their beliefs about the role of music and music education in Kosovan society; iii) their self-reported music teaching practices and iv) their perceived needs and opportunities for professional development. Similarities and differences between the two groups were found to be of potential importance in the future development of music education. In addition, the findings reveal serious challenges faced by Kosovan music teachers, who find themselves trapped between traditional musical values, styles and practices on one hand, and modern, Western music ideologies present in the newly developing music curriculum. Finally, the thesis offers some concrete recommendations to the relevant institutions in Kosovo, aimed at furthering and supporting the development of the new music curriculum.

Moving beyond the ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘digital native’ rhetoric, this thesis investigates what Chinese undergraduates are actually doing (and not doing) with online tools and applications to learn English outside the classroom and, why they choose to do so. Particular attention is paid to their use and non-use of the social web in their English learning context. A sociocultural framework is adopted to understand learners’ behaviours surrounding digital technology. This theoretical position puts learners at the centre of their English learning and decision-making regarding technology use. It guides the exploration into the contextually mediated choices and practices of English learners in the so-called ‘2.0’ era. Data collection for this mixed sequential study took place during the 2010-2011 academic year. The data consist of a survey of 1,485 undergraduates and semi-structured interviews with 49 participants in two large Chinese universities. The data demonstrate a few embryonic signs of how Chinese undergraduates try to ‘escape’ from their English learning context with online technologies. However, a vast majority of the participants chose to use the web as an instrument to handle their academic duties. When it comes to English learning, their use of Web 2.0 is limited and mostly non-interactive and unspectacular. In light of the above, the thesis goes on to consider a number of contextual factors that appear to constrain participants’ use of technology – not least the discourses of English learning and the cultural artefact of exams. Based on these findings, the thesis provides a framework that challenges existing beliefs about (language) learning with Web 2.0, and that contributes to understandings of how context mediates language learners’ behaviours surrounding digital technologies. The thesis concludes by suggesting ways of maximizing the learning potential of Web 2.0 for English learners at Chinese universities.