This thesis explores some ways in which language can be employed as a tool for crosscurricular learning in Key Stage 3 (KS3) education. An examination of how linguistic interaction is employed by pupils as a means of facilitating their attainment of curriculaspecific learning objectives provides a case study for exemplifying how language can be used effectively across disciplines in secondary education. Within the context of exploring pupils' interaction in the subject of Technology, this thesis explores some gender differences in interaction and the potential effects that such differences can have upon gender-differentiated attainment levels in KS3 Technology. The data obtained for the thesis comprises transcripts of small group pupil-pupil discussion taken from KS3 Technology lessons. The conversations of the groups were recorded, transcribed and then analysed using a revised version of Francis and Hunston's (1992) system of discourse analysis. Gender differences in the types of discourse strategies employed by the participants were identified and evaluated in terms of how effectively they function to facilitate the successful attainment of specific learning objectives. The conclusions drawn from the findings of the research are that the discourse collectively produced by the girls in the study tends to be more effective in facilitating the attainment of learning objectives than that which is produced by the boys. This may, in part, provide one possible explanation as to why the girls in the study achieve higher attainment levels in KS3 Technology than the boys.

This research concerns tensions between ‘personalisation’, a neo-liberal concept adapted by New Labour to empower and motivate students and ‘performativity’, an aspect of governance whereby institutional effectiveness is monitored by statistical outcomes. Their ambiguous reconciliation in Personalised Learning (DfES 2004a) continues to develop in schools and colleges. A research focus on Key Stage 3/4 wider curriculum choice, one of five key but under-researched elements in this policy, provides the opportunity to explore this paradox. Involving an investigation into the recent experience of 14-15 year olds in an inner city English comprehensive school, the degree of equity afforded students in decision-making, based on teacher perceptions of students as achievers and underachievers may reveal conflicting values in the management of this process. Taking an ethnographic approach to case study development, triangulation of method and source is used to test internal validity. Analysis of interview data from a range of pastoral staff provides outline images of the institutional management of student choice. A comparative statistical analysis using data from anonymous student questionnaires provides an independent account of the effects of this interpretation on the student stakeholder role. From the questionnaire sample, qualitative data from twenty student interviews offers further insight into the processing of decisions. Relying on respondent validation procedures throughout, for ethical reasons the identification of student interviewees as ‘achievers’ or ‘underachievers’ is retrospective. Demonstrating how student access to the KS4 optional curriculum operates, the research reveals power differences firstly between the student cohort and ‘gate-keeping’ pastoral staff and secondly between individual students. While some evidence of social control through self-surveillance, implied through Foucauldian criticism of neo-liberal strategies (Rose and Miller 1992) may exist, the extreme social and economic deprivation of the area is used to justify this institutional interpretation of the stakeholder role through the moral imperative of social inclusion.