This thesis set out to examine how teachers understand, experience and respond to mandated curriculum reforms in English in years 11 and 12 at a Senior High School in Western Australia over the period 2004 – 2005. The time period is significant as it is a halfway point between the commencement of the new policy driving reform of senior secondary education and the partial settlement of the policy and curriculum reform. The research is conceptualised using labour process theory as a means of analysing how teachers are being separated from their intellectual work throughout this curriculum reform process. The methodology chosen to inform this research is a dual approach using critical ethnography of lived individual experiences and critical policy ethnography to analyse the changing landscape of education policy in Australia. This dual approach offers a system level of understanding of mandated curriculum reform with an emphasis on the individual experience of expert teachers implementing the contested curriculum reform. Several central themes emerged over the course of the research: growing deprofessionalisation of teachers’ work; intensification of workload and curriculum creation; technocratisation of teacher roles; diminishing autonomy, increased accountability and responsibility; and heightened external surveillance and control. Significantly, the data also captured and analysed in this research demonstrates how teachers are continually experiencing the processes of reprofessionalisation as a consequence of sustained critical reflective practice and the imposition of mandated curriculum reform. The data also relates the need for an authentic consultation between teachers and policy makers/government authorities in order for curriculum reform to be successfully established and taken up in secondary State schools. The processes of reprofessionalisation are a source of continued professional renewal and reinvigoration for the teachers involved.

The nature and role of workplace literacy and numeracy are the subject of considerable debate (Baker, 1998; Castleton, 2002; Gee & Lankshear, 1997; Hull, 1997; Jackson, 2000; Marr & Hagston, 2007). The debate in New Zealand, (as in many other countries), is taking place amid concerns about the adequacy of the skills of its workforce and the latter’s ability to meet future demands of everyday work and life (Tertiary Education Commission, 2008). These concerns have resulted in major investment at a national level in a Skills Strategy (New Zealand Government, 2008) with particular emphasis on improving adult literacy and numeracy levels. However, Castleton (2002) suggests that conceptualising literacy as a skill ignores the reality of workplaces which, she suggests, consist of communities of workers who engage in purposeful communication and who possess and use different skills and knowledge in complementary ways, while Hull (1997) believes that too great an emphasis is placed on literacy, particularly in low skilled work. I teach on a programme for students with limited English literacy and numeracy proficiency. A common entry point into the workforce for current and past learners from the programme is entry-level supermarket work. However there is limited information available about the literacy and numeracy pre-requisites for this type of work or the literacy and numeracy demands placed on those in employment. In seeking to contribute to the body of knowledge about low skilled work in general and entry-level supermarket work in particular, research was carried out in a large, busy, suburban supermarket. The study was underpinned by the belief that both literacy and numeracy are social practices which cannot be separated from the contexts in which they occur. It adopted an ethnographic approach and was conducted through semi-structured interviews with supermarket managers and entry-level workers/supermarket assistants; observation of assistants during induction and at work; and analysis of some significant supermarket documentation. Findings indicate that, while literacy and numeracy are generally not considered to be important pre-requisites for entry-level supermarket work, supermarket assistants are exposed to highly context-specific literacy texts and ‘embedded’ and invisible numeracy demands at induction and during parts of their working day. The findings have significance for the teaching of literacy and numeracy in vocational training programmes. They indicate that off-site programmes have an important role to play in providing a learning foundation but also point to the importance of, and need for, workplace-specific, on-the-job literacy and numeracy training.

PhD / This thesis explores the lives of key female members of the Bolshevik elite from the revolutionary movement’s beginnings to the time of Stalin’s death. Through analysing the attitudes and contributions of Bolshevik elite women – most particularly the wives of Lenin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Bukharin – it not only provides for a descriptive account of these individual lives, their changing attitudes and activities, but also a more broad-ranging, social handle on the evolution of elite society in the Soviet Union and the changing nature of the Bolshevik elite both physically and ideationally. Chapters one and two focus on the physical and ideological foundations of the Bolshevik marriage. Chapter one traces the ideological approach of the Bolsheviks towards marriage and the family, examining pre-revolutionary socialist positions in relation to women and the family and establishing a benchmark for how the Bolsheviks wished to approach the ‘woman question’. Chapter two examines the nature of the Bolshevik elite marriage from its inception to the coming of the revolution, dwelling particularly on the different pre-revolutionary experiences of Yekaterina Voroshilova and Nadezhda Krupskaya. Chapters three and four then analyse two key areas of wives’ everyday lives during the interwar years. Chapter three looks at the work that Bolshevik wives undertook and how the nature of their employment changed from the 1920s to the 1930s. Chapter four, through examining the writings of wives such as Voroshilova, Larina and Ordzhonikidze, focuses upon how wives viewed themselves, their responsibilities as members of the Bolshevik elite and the position of women in Soviet society. The final two chapters of this thesis explore the changing nature of elite society in this period and its relationship to Soviet society at large. Chapter five investigates the changing composition of the elite and the specific and general effects of the purges upon its nature. Directly, the chapter examines the lives of Zhemchuzhina, Larina and Pyatnitskaya as wives that were repressed during this period, while more broadly it considers the occupation of the House on the Embankment in the 1930s and the changing structure of Bolshevik elite society. Chapter six focuses on the evolution of Soviet society in the interwar period and how the experiences of Bolshevik elite wives differed from those of ‘mainstream’ Russian women. While previous studies of the Bolshevik elite have focussed upon men’s political lives and investigations of Soviet women’s policy and its shifts under Stalin have mainly concentrated upon describing changes in realist terms, this thesis demonstrates that not only is an evaluation of wives’ lives crucial to a fuller understanding of the Bolshevik elite, but that by comprehending the personal attitudes and values of members of the Bolshevik elite society, particularly with regards to women and the family, a more informed perspective on the reasons for changes in Soviet women’s policy during the interwar period may be arrived at.

In recent years, the Jewish prayer for healing, the Mi Sheberach (literally, "the one who blessed"), has become a central element of North American liberal (non-Orthodox) religious and ritual life. The growing centrality of these prayers comes at a time when American Judaism has shifted away from congregational and communal life to a more personalized approach to Jewish beliefs, practices and identities; participation in both ritual and prayer practices is now based in personal choice and the desire for an individually-meaningful experience, as well as communal obligation or belief in God. This dissertation seeks to understand the meanings and impacts of these Jewish prayers for healing, by using ethnography as a tool for understanding the lived experience of religious practices, beliefs, and identities. Based in two years of ethnographic field-work in Southern Arizona, it places the relationship between Judaism and healing within the larger social, communal and historical contexts in which both of these concepts acquire meaning. I describe the complexities and contradictions inherent in modern liberal American Jewishness, demonstrating that these modern Jewish American selves are multiply-situated, multi-voiced, and characterized by diversity and dissonance. My research shows that, among liberal American Jews, the individual's search for meaning blends with the collectivist nature of Judaism, in an ongoing process of interpretive interaction between text, tradition, personal experience, and other members of the community. I find that Jewish representations of God are also complex and contradictory. Many people have difficulty articulating their thoughts about God, and their views are dynamic and inconsistent. Furthermore, Jewish belief develops in a multifaceted relationship to Jewish ritual and communal practice. Within this context, healing prayer becomes become one site, among many, through which relationships to Jewish traditions, practices and communities are negotiated and constructed. Healing prayer leads to a feeling of connection to community, ancestors and traditions; it transforms fear and anxiety into comfort, strength and acceptance; promotes spiritual transcendence; and provides a sense of agency and control at times of vulnerability and helplessness. Healing in a liberal Jewish context may involve the physical body, but it more often involves emotions, spirit, relationships to other people, and relationships to Judaism. Prayer may refer to a dialogue with the divine, but it is also a dialogue between the individual and the community, and between Jewish history and modernity. Finally, this dissertation contributes to discussions of religion and secularism, demonstrating that these analytical categories, which emerged out of European Protestantism, are neither sufficient, nor appropriate, for the study of modern Jewish life.

While scholars of ruin have long foregrounded the importance of imagination in encountering sites of ruin, they have failed to provide concrete examples of their own imaginative experiences. This dissertation is a collection of aesthetically rendered moments at various sites of ruined landscapes and of the autobiographical (in)sights of loss I have gleaned in their presence. In speaking from a concept I refer to as the autobiographical imaginative--a performative exchange between land and self where life narratives are summoned as a result of land's presence--this project weaves biographical stories of landscapes and others with stories of my own autobiography. As such, the work utilizes multiple interpretive, ethnographic methods and representational strategies, including documentary ethnography, autoethnography, performative writing, and performance auto/ethnography, as a means of illustrating the dialogic, reflexive, evocative, and fluid relationship among researched and researcher, site and self. In doing so, it reveals how land can signify lived experience, extending the traditional geography-centered notion of landscapes toward the creation of memoryscapes, bodyscapes, and mediascapes.

Tent cities date back to the 1930s; however, the past decade has seen a rise in formalized camps, many attempting to function as democratic communities. Here, democratic communities refer to temporary spaces in which people without homes (PWH) live together with the goal of governing their own affairs (horizontal rather than top-down). Findings of the first “village” for the homeless indicate mixed results with self-governance among PWH in terms of the autonomy of individuals or as a method to mitigate homelessness. Given decline of social welfare budgets, as well as criticisms that shelterization and criminalization try to control the poor, government-sanctioned camps have provided safe, legal, dignified spaces for PWH. Studies of tent cities are growing, yet few follow their attempt to implement self-governance within the first few years of existence. This ethnography of a transitional “village” in the Pacific Northwest fills a gap by uncovering socio-cultural and organizational processes that facilitate and impede self-organization. The village is collaborative; a nonprofit provides oversight to residents dwelling in tiny houses. The village is neither run exclusively by the homeless nor directly managed by housed “outsiders.” Using participant-observation, interviews, and documents, I study the development of the village’s vision, rooted in Occupy yet influenced by neoliberal principles. Some view this village as a safe, stable place in which to secure future housing while providing dignity and autonomy; residents themselves were divided in how they experienced autonomy. For some, living there can be difficult since they have the authority to enforce community rule violations on fellow residents but often do not out feeling threatened or uneasy about putting a fellow resident in check. Some residents perceive a lack of power in regulating others. The authority of the nonprofit board is inadvertently reproduced even as it seeks to relinquish that authority. My work also has implications for research on relations between “housed” and “homeless”, and for decoupling processes that focus on divergence between stated organizational policies and actual practices. Materials related to this work (Appendices A-E) are included as supplemental files with this dissertation.

This thesis examines the transformations of music circulation and consumption brought about by new media platforms. Specifically, it shows how the social and technical design of online music platforms link the consumption of music immanently to its circulation. The thesis makes contributions to ethnomusicology, media studies, and digital anthropology, as well as to the study of music's technical cultures. It is based on a comparative ethnographic study of music circulation and consumption within two field sites: the commercial streaming service Spotify and the extralegal, unlicensed peer to peer platform 'Jekyll'. Governance comes to the fore in both sites: the study shows how practices of music curation, collection and consumption are regulated by the technical design of these platforms. Surprisingly, music consumption and circulation on Jekyll generates a variety of social relations, including pronounced social hierarchies. This is far less apparent on Spotify, due to the platform's individuated mode of address. The subjectivities of online music consumers are mediated by both their personal histories and by the broader technical genealogies of the platforms they use. The thesis illuminates the mutual interdependencies of the licensed and extralegal spheres, two domains often portrayed as not only separate but antagonistic. It also provides insight into the hybrid modes of exchange that generate digital music platforms. Through examining the entailments of circulatory participation, the study offers new insights into digital polymedia and to labour, exchange and governmentality online, as well as providing nuanced understandings of the ownership and collection of music in digital environments. Moreover, it advances new concepts to identify core aspects of digital music cultures, namely 'circulatory maintenance' and 'circumvention technology'. The thesis shows overall how Spotify and Jekyll are not merely emblematic of emergent consumption practices engendered by new media, but are bound up in the mutual co-creation of culture, engendering novel musical subjectivities, practices, socialities and ideologies. The complex musical, technical and social assemblages formed around music circulation online point to the affective potentials of music itself, producing inalienable attachments to the objects through which music is formatted, experienced, and circulated.

Background: The rights of children to freedom of expression and receiving information are underpinned by Articles 12 and 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989), which was ratified by the Malaysian government in 1995. There has been increasing shifts toward recognising the importance of children’s rights with many initiatives to realise and uphold the rights of children in Malaysia. However, no previous studies of children’s participation have been conducted in Malaysia. The aim of this study was to explore children’s participation in decisions regarding their nursing care from the perspective of the children, their parents, and nurses in an oncological ward in Malaysia. Methods: This was a focused ethnographic study. Participant observation was carried out with 61 participants (21 children, 21 parents, and 19 nurses) in the paediatric oncology-haematological ward, Malaysia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants (6 children, 7 parents, and 8 nurses). The existing documents pertinent to the research focus were examined to validate the participant observations and interview findings. Data were analysed using Roper and Shapira’s (2000) focused ethnographic data analysis techniques. Findings: There were different degrees of the participation of children in decisions among children diagnosed with leukaemia, including: being physically present, being informed, being consulted where children can express their wishes and opinions during the provision of nursing care, and being able to make their own decisions in relation to their nursing care. The degrees to which children participated in decisions fluctuated throughout the course of their hospitalization; moving from lesser degrees of participation (passive participant) to greater involvement (active participant) and vice-versa. The extent to which children participated in decisions were significantly influenced by the children’s preferences for participation. The preferences of children also fluctuated over the course of their illness and treatment. There were several factors contributing to children’s participation in decisions including; i) interpersonal relations in the child-parent-nurse interactions; ii) experiences of the child (veteran or novice); iii) attitude of nurses; iv) parental role; and v) the ward policy. Conclusion: The children want to be involved and really appreciate participation in communication and decisions but their opportunities for participation are somewhat limited. This study calls for a flexible model to assess children’s preferences for participation and different forms of participation for children in relation to decision-making in paediatric oncology.

Background: Appropriate child feeding prevents nutrient deficiencies, diseases, and deaths in children. However, only 13.3% of children aged 6-23 months in Ghana receive the minimum acceptable diet. Thus, undernutrition remains high in rural northern Ghana, especially among under-fives. This is showing no improvement despite economic development and implementation of globally recommended nutrition & feeding interventions. There is limited context specific evidence about child feeding in rural northern Ghana. Aim: To examine how culture might impact upon the feeding of children under five years of age in rural northern Ghana. Methods: A qualitative ethnographic study was completed between October 2014 and May 2015. Data were collected in a rural Ghanaian community via participant observation and sixty-one ethnographic interviews with mothers, fathers, and grandparents in 15 households, and spiritual leaders are known as "diviners". Themes were developed through inductive analysis of field notes and verbatim transcribed interviews using a framework approach. Results: The content of a child's diet and the pattern of feeding were found to be influenced by the community's notion of food, taboos, and beliefs which originated in a traditional African religion. Shared household responsibility for feeding children and the gendered and age related hierarchy of household decision making also influenced child feeding. Discussion: This study has shown multifaceted taken-for-granted social and cultural influences on child feeding. Whilst mothers are the main recipients of the official public health nutrition and child feeding advice, the communal structures, living arrangements and social interactions support, enhance, and reinforce the community inclined practices that limit mothers' independent decision making. Conclusion: To effect community change and promote uptake of public health nutrition recommendations, a community wide nutrition intervention approach may be more beneficial than the current approach which targets mothers. Furthermore, community and cultural influences must be understood and considered by health professionals if such interventions are to succeed.

A small-scale ethnographic case study of young children's learning from television in southern Illinois provides understanding about the frameworks used for interpreting media use in family life. The research consisted of in-home interviews about patterns of using the media, observations, and family diaries of children's viewing behavior to examine family engagement with a prosocial television program, Shalom Sesame, depicting Jewish culture, Hebrew language, holidays, and the land of Israel. Family responses to the program are identified in terms of appeal, use, and overall fit with Jewish identity and tradition in the homes. Data analysis reveals that quality educational program features of Shalom Sesame such as repetition, role models, humor, on screen textual cues, and follow-up activities in the home support learning. The case study concludes that Shalom Sesame helps connect families with young children, especially those who are isolated from other members of their minority, to the larger community of diverse Jewish people and culture around the globe.