Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Thesis (Th.M. (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (Th.M. (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Shawn Lennie, Ethical Complexities in the Virtual World: Teacher Perspectives of ICT Based Issues and Conflicts, Doctor of Philosophy, CTL, OISE, 2013. Using a qualitative research methodology, this study explores the perceptions that K-12 teachers have on the ethical issues they have experienced as a result of, or in relation to, ICT. Participants included 10 practicing teachers who had identified experience with ICT based issues in their teaching practice. Each participant engaged in two semi-structured interviews focused on the research topic. The first interview explored the perceptions and experiences that the participants had with ICT based issues in their practice, while the second involved an examination of eight vignettes involving ICT based issues that were ethical in nature. The use of this approach provides a descriptive account of the experiences and perceptions of the participants in the study. Results from the study highlight the impact that ethical issues involving technology have on the moral work of teachers and the challenges that emerge as teachers attempt to identify morally responsible ways to respond to the complex and dynamic challenges that they face. Participants demonstrate a heightened sensitivity to ethical issues involving technology that compromise the safety and well-being of children, such as cyber-bullying, as well as those that compromise professional and academic integrity, such as plagiarism. Results also reveal the predominant use of subjective moral judgment when evaluating the moral significance of ICT based issues and reluctance on the part of teachers to challenge the inappropriate use of technology by their colleagues. This contrasts with a strong belief that teachers play an important role as moral models for students who are developing an understanding of what constitutes responsible digital behaviour. These results are significant to scholarship on teacher professionalism, digital ethics and citizenship, and policy development relating to ICT based issues.

Shawn Lennie, Ethical Complexities in the Virtual World: Teacher Perspectives of ICT Based Issues and Conflicts, Doctor of Philosophy, CTL, OISE, 2013. Using a qualitative research methodology, this study explores the perceptions that K-12 teachers have on the ethical issues they have experienced as a result of, or in relation to, ICT. Participants included 10 practicing teachers who had identified experience with ICT based issues in their teaching practice. Each participant engaged in two semi-structured interviews focused on the research topic. The first interview explored the perceptions and experiences that the participants had with ICT based issues in their practice, while the second involved an examination of eight vignettes involving ICT based issues that were ethical in nature. The use of this approach provides a descriptive account of the experiences and perceptions of the participants in the study. Results from the study highlight the impact that ethical issues involving technology have on the moral work of teachers and the challenges that emerge as teachers attempt to identify morally responsible ways to respond to the complex and dynamic challenges that they face. Participants demonstrate a heightened sensitivity to ethical issues involving technology that compromise the safety and well-being of children, such as cyber-bullying, as well as those that compromise professional and academic integrity, such as plagiarism. Results also reveal the predominant use of subjective moral judgment when evaluating the moral significance of ICT based issues and reluctance on the part of teachers to challenge the inappropriate use of technology by their colleagues. This contrasts with a strong belief that teachers play an important role as moral models for students who are developing an understanding of what constitutes responsible digital behaviour. These results are significant to scholarship on teacher professionalism, digital ethics and citizenship, and policy development relating to ICT based issues.

By analyzing surveys, census data, policies and curriculum, it is demonstrated that the Toronto District School Board’s policies for equitable, anti-heterosexist, and anti-homophobic curriculum become stymied by how students and sex are routinely treated as subjects of moral control in curriculum. According to Gilles Deleuze's (1988) interpretation of Baruch Spinoza's (1632-1677) philosophical works, the distinction between morals and ethics is also the difference between slavery and freedom. Together with theoretical perspectives of sex and sexuality from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin, the distinction between morals and ethics works to specify how particular discourses of sex can work to enslave or to empower students. Comprehension and circulation of the distinction between morals and ethics is proposed to increase the potential for curriculum to reciprocate with students’ individual learning needs, support the free and autonomous organization of desire, and promote the possibility of a democratic, inclusive, pluralistic, and secular society.

The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to the debate about Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and provide a practical tool for teachers with which they can relate to ethical and moral learning in the ESD context. This aim is based on the ambition to develop an approach that takes its starting point from our practical experience of ethics and morals, inspired by the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the transactional perspective developed by John Dewey. This implies that ethics and morals are regarded as a human tendency that is observable in action. The central method used to clarify ethical and moral meaning-making is, by the use of examples, to remind of common experiences of how this meaning-making appears in everyday situations. These clarifications are made in order to dissolve (rather than solve) philosophical problems, as well as to create new knowledge. The approach has been applied to four different studies. The first study focuses on the differences between three selective traditions in environmental education: fact-based, normative and pluralistic, with regard to the relationship between facts and values. It is argued that a pluralistic approach can be seen as way of relating facts and values in practice, and consequently that the democratic process neither precedes nor succeeds education but is an integral part of it, and that students therefore are constituted as citizens participating in the progress of sustainable development. The purpose of the second study is to suggest an approach that allows in situ analysis of how individuals’ prior experiences are included in the processes of moral meaning-making. A concrete example shows how individuals can transform the moral discourse in different situations. In the third study, it is suggested that the ethical tendency can be recognised as a communication in which certain values and actions are treated as if they were universally good and right. Three different kinds of situations in which this communication appears are highlighted: personal moral reactions, norms for correct behaviour and ethical reflections.The diverse conditions for learning in these situations are discussed, and specific notice is taken of the risk of indoctrination in ESD. The fourth study addresses the question of how to understand and deal with criticism in a pluralistic educational approach. Through reminders of how criticism appears in everyday practice, it is argued that criticism does not necessarily have to be understood theoretically. Criticism can also be seen as the diverse ways in which human beings morally react, encounter different norms and ethically reflect.

Midwifery is a dynamic, ever changing, specialised field of nursing involving the care of women and childbearing families. Clients are central to the practice of midwifery and thus their well-being is the main focus of midwives. So, it is not surprising that much of the relatively small body of midwifery research is client focused. As a result, client perspectives have been studied in a number of ways, regarding several aspects of midwifery care. This research, however, aimed to consider midwifery from the midwives' perspective by exploring the everyday encounters of everyday midwives who are working in institutional settings, and identifying the ethical aspects of those encounters. From the researcher's standpoint, it is clear that midwives' everyday encounters are ethical encounters and have potential to be either beneficent or harmful. There was, however, uncertainty that midwives recognized this "everydayness" of ethics. This research sought to clarify the place of ethics within midwives' everyday activities. A further purpose was to ascertain how the ethics that entered into the encounters and activities midwives participated in on a daily basis had affected their practise, their profession and/ or themselves. In doing this, the intent was to broaden the understandings of the ethical dimension of the practice. A particular ethical approach was adopted for this project. It is a view of ethics where persons have regard for, and responsibility toward, each other (Isaacs, 1998). The fact that midwifery is a social practice was expected to be significant in both the everyday encounters that midwives experienced and the ethical responses to those encounters. Members of social practices share an overall purpose and have a moral obligation or desire to practise ethically. As they share a culture and a covenantal commitment to care for those the profession seeks to serve - in a context of gift, fidelity and trust (Isaacs, 1993; Langford, 1978), it was anticipated that midwives would, generally, work in an ethically laden "world". Narrative research offered an appropriate framework for investigating these dimensions of midwifery practice. Many authors have noted the value of story-telling for making sense, and illuminating the ethical features, of our lives. It is, Kearney says, "an open-ended invitation to ethical ... responsiveness" (2000, p. 156). By enabling the participants to tell their stories, rich, contextual narrative material was obtained. The researcher was able to engage with both the participants and the stories as audience. An introduction to the study is provided in Chapter One, while Chapter Two explains both why narrative inquiry was chosen for this research project and the framework that was utilised. The insights from the study are presented in Chapters Three through Six. Each chapter considers the issues and concepts arising from stories that involve midwives' relationships and interactions with a different group of people: midwives, institutions and administration ("them"), doctors and families. In Chapter Three different types of interactions between midwives and their colleagues are explored. Some of the issues that arise are the importance of understanding one's own values and the place of ethics in practice, as well as the need to "do ethics-on-the-run". Many ethical concepts are evident including autonomy, integrity and professional identity. Participants had many negative experiences, and some conveyed feeling a lack of support, threatened or overwhelmed. Conversely, some stories share very positive images of mutual understanding where midwives worked together empathetically. Chapter Four looks at how managers' interactions with midwives impacted upon them and their practice. Unfortunately, this seems to be mostly negative. The midwives convey a sense of feeling undervalued both professionally and personally. Doctors have their turn to interact with the midwives in Chapter Five. In this chapter it becomes evident that doctors and midwives view birth from different perspectives. The participants' stories tell of challenging situations that alert us to the fact that normal, in the context of birth, is not as simple and common place as one might think when doctors and midwives have to work together. Wonderful, positive stories of midwives and doctors working together told of the symbiotic relationship that these two groups of professionals can have when the client is the focus. The last of the insights chapters, Chapter Six, focuses on the relationships midwives have with families. Interestingly, these are the people they spoke of least, even though they are the people for whom the profession exists. Here the concept of midwife as friend is discussed. Then, through their stories some of the participants help us to learn how midwives work together with their clients, care about them, not just for them, and how their past experience has had a lasting impact on their practice. Professionalism (or a lack of it) was implicated as a possible cause of some of the participants' concerns, as was the improper use of power. Both of these concepts arose many times throughout the project. Chapter 7 discusses these issues in some depth. The final chapter provides an overview of midwives situated within their practice. An account is offered of how the participants see the future of their practice and it is questioned if midwifery is, in fact, a social practice with common goals. The thesis draws attention to the embeddedness of ethics in the everyday practice of midwives, and to the vital role that relationships play in midwifery practice. This suggests the need for a relational, contextual ethics approach if the practice is to flourish.

This thesis proposes a new conception for pre-service teacher education. Current pre-service teacher education programmes are, in the main, one-dimensional, skill-based and performative: one-dimensional, in that programmes focus on preparing teachers to deliver a pre-determined curriculum; skill-based, in that professional judgement and reasoning are ignored; and, performative in the prescribed nature of knowledge and the drive to establish standards and competencies. Rather than focusing on professionalism - which is at the heart of what it means to be an educator - professionalisation, economic-driven policies and political ideologies underpin contemporary pre-service teacher education programmes. The new conception for pre-service teacher education has at its core, teachers as professional educators. This thesis argues that in order for teachers to become professional educators, their preparation ought to be enhanced and broadened to incorporate aspects of professional judgement, professional expertise, and ethical and moral commitment. To enable this to occur, pre-service teachers need to learn what it means to be moral agents through active and authentic engagement within communities of practice and learners. In sum, the professional educator's role is argued to be an agent for, and of, change who promotes and engenders an education system that underpins a socially, culturally and economically just society.

Diss. Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007.