Proponents of socially and culturally oriented mathematics education have argued that teaching approaches which value and connect with the learner's prior knowledge and everyday experience are more likely to promote active, meaningful, relevant and liberatory learning than approaches which rely on transmission and abstract presentation of mathematical content. In Malawi, proposals to reform the outdated secondary mathematics curriculum have been made with the aim of aligning mathematics instruction with the social and political changes in the current Malawian society. Using a case study approach, this study investigated the extent to which everyday experiences could be used as a vehicle for changing the learning and teaching of secondary mathematics in Malawi. The study was collaborative, taking place over a period of five months in severely overcrowded and poorly resourced classes in two schools. It involved three mathematics teachers in a cycle of planning and teaching mathematics lessons based on the use of everyday experiences, and observation of and reflection on these lessons, in order to document the effects of using everyday experiences on student learning and teachers' teaching practices. The data was collected through student questionnaires; classroom observations and fieldnotes; interviews and reflective meetings with teachers; and informal meetings with key education officials in Malawi. Mathematics examination results from students involved in this study and a corresponding group from the previous year were collected. A reflective and critical approach was adopted in the interpretation and discussion of the data. Teachers' participation in this study resulted in heightened awareness of their teaching roles and the value of linking school mathematics with everyday experience. The study also shows that students found mathematics interesting and important to learn despite their lack of success in it. In addition, the study documented a number of constraints to change in mathematics instruction such as teachers' focus on mathematics content and examination requirements, and students' resistance to inquiry learning. It also recorded possibilities and barriers to collaboration both between teachers and researchers, and teachers themselves. The findings of this study are timely since they could serve to inform the reform of the Malawian secondary mathematics curriculum currently being undertaken, which began without a critical examination of the classroom conditions necessary to accommodate a socio-politically relevant mathematics education.

Students who have learning difficulties generate a resource to assist them with their schoolwork. This resource has been delivered in a number of different ways. In the last decade the introduction of inclassroom assistance has been adopted in several states in Australia including the Australian Capital Territory. This method of service delivery of the resource has been considered to be helpful as it allows the student to remain in the classroom while still receiving the necessary assistance. The proponents of this delivery method believe that the students prefer remain in the classroom. Critics of this delivery method consider that it is not easy to address basic skill deficits in the classroom and that students find being helped in the classsroom embarrassing. This study examines the preference for service delivery model of three groups of population, students, classroom teachers and teachers of students with learning difficulties. A survey was used to ascertain the preference of these three groups, why they preferred a model, which model they regarded as most efficacious and why. Other specific questions were asked of each group. Interviews were also conducted with ten percent of each group and also with the principal and the counsellor from each school. Some illumination of school climate and other variables which may affect data was sought from the interviews. Teachers were found to prefer a mixed model of service. Students' results showed a preference for two models over a third, small classes, which was not favoured. Students also saw these two models as most efficacious. Interviews revealed a satisfaction with the service amongst students but some concerns about the delivery of the service and the decision making processes amongst teachers.

This study attempts to trace the development of the Australian Capital Territory Secondary Principals' Council (SPC) from the midfifties to the late seventies. The dramatic change from the monolithic centralised New South Wales state education system to one of autonomous school-based decision making of the new ACT School Authority forms the background on which this study is developed. The changing fortunes of the SPC as a pressure group are followed from their prestigious days with the NSW school inspector to the depths of the conflicts of the early seventies when change towards autonomy was imminent. The Teachers' Federation, at this time, gained power at the expense of the SPC when the union demanded that it be the sole spokesman for ACT teachers. The multiplicity of problems confronting the SPC in the late sixties and early seventies resulted in the forming of the Preservation of Principals Society (POPS), which conducted certain activities to allow principals to get away from such pressures. The gradual gaining of acceptance, within this new task environment, by the SPC saw it become an expert unit within this participative model. SPC members are on many committees which function to improve the administration, the curricula, and other major facets of ACT education. Finally, this study culminates in the SPC formulating a set of goals to guide its operations in the future. Tentative recommendations for Council to consider form a conclusion. These are to: 1. convince the ACT Legislative Assembly that the SPC is an expert body which should be heeded when the Assembly assumes control of local education, and 2. act as a group to monitor the curricula of their schools to ensure that a relevant education is available for the next generation. Principals should initiate change for the future rather than react to the problems of the past.

Parents play a central role in their children's education and social development and therefore can be extremely influential in children's attitudes, decisions and behaviour towards drugs. Despite this, there has been limited research to date which explores the parents' perspective and their needs in the area of drug education. This thesis reports on research which surveyed 92 parents of secondary students (Years 7-10) across ten secondary schools in the Australian Capital Territory. Two follow up focus group sessions, involving fourteen parents of secondary students, were also conducted with self-nominated parents of these respondents. The issues explored in the research include parents' concerns and knowledge of young people and drug issues, and their needs for a drug education program aimed at parents. The results show that parents see their role in drug education as a central one and are concerned about drugs in relation to their children and other young people. They are largely unaware of school drug policies and school drug education programs and want to work in closer partnership with the school and community in educating their children about drug issues. Parents identified a need for accurate and up to date information as they do not have sufficient knowledge in this area. Parents also identified a need to develop skills in dealing with adolescents and drug issues. This study provides insight into a range of parents' views on drug issues and confirms that parents would like to develop both knowledge and skills in order to support young people and reinforce school drug education programs. A number of implications of the results for the involvement of parents in drug education programs are presented, including: parent needs, strategies for delivery/ implementation and motivating factors for encouraging parental participation in such programs.

The study was based on the assumption that the analysis and evaluation of curriculum materials was an appropriate activity to be undertaken by practising teachers. Other studies indicated that teachers perceived a need for objective analyses of curriculum materials and for procedures suitable for use by the practising teacher which could generate information on which rational decisions concerning curriculum materials could be made. A variety of previously published analysis schemes were reviewed according to the criteria of: - range and scope of the scheme; - the relevance of the scheme to practising teachers; - feasibility; - adaptability and flexibility; - data collection procedures; - general considerations (curriculum model, presentation of report). The Sussex scheme (Eraut et al, 1975) was the analysis of junior science curriculum materials. This scheme was used in an analysis of I.S.C.S., "Probing the Natural World" materials. A simplified framework for the analysis of curriculum materials summarised the components of the scheme. In order to derive hard data on some of the effects of using I.S.C.S. materials, a quasi-experiment was attempted. Details of the quasi-experiment were included in this study. The validity of the concept of teacher-as-researcher or teacher-as-evaluator was supported throughout the field study.

This investigation was prompted by a personal concern about what I perceived to be unacceptable practices and outcomes in senior secondary schooling in the Australian Capital Territory. For me, an unacceptable practice and/or outcome is one which could be said to contribute to social control by dominant elites. Liberation, in the sense of the acquisition of personal autonomy based on reason, and equality, in the sense of parity of esteem or the right of people to develop differently but within the parameters of concern for others, are the goals I seek in relation to education and schooling. They are goals which are ascribed to by many teachers, and which partially underpin the major reports which prompted and continue to influence supposedly reformist or progressive moves in secondary schooling in the Australian Capital Territory in the 1970's. However, an examination of the framework of these reports suggest that they concealed - non too deeply - contradictions and invalid assumptions which wider examination shows to be common also to what we can call the dominant or liberal educational framework. This framework of ideas, beliefs, assumptions, values and practices, has come under strong attack in recent years by those educationists, sociologists, historians and philosophers whom we can call Marxian. That is, those people who seek to understand and transform their world within a consciousness largely informed by those theories and insights which were first given major prominance by Karl Marx. It is a consciousness which I share. In my investigation of schooling, and of my part in it, as a teacher, I have come to the point where I think that the beliefs, assumptions, and practices associated with the dominant educational ideology do contribute to the formation of a distorted consciousness; that is, people in schools do not perceive that they are oppressed, and that public schooling does not work in what I consider to be the interests of most people. I believe, therefore, that radical change is needed. If we assume that the capitalist mode of production and, consequently, its concomitant set of social relations, are likely to persist in Australia, we can also assume that radical change will be very difficult, and a long term goal. However, I believe that teachers can play a significant role in the development of a more liberating and egalitarian form of schooling for all children. First, teachers have to develop a more critical view of the schooling process and in this way enable themselves to move beyond the limits set up by the traditional and dominant, liberal ideological framework. They have to develop a pedagogy based on the concept of consciousness-raising or critical thinking. This study represents the efforts of one teacher to do just that.

Despite the fact that there is an increasing call from the community for principals to provide leadership in their schools, little work has been conducted in Australia into the question of educational leadership. This study attempts to describe the leadership styles of principals at one A.C. T. secondary school over the period 1961 to 1981. Immegart (1973), when considering possible alternative approaches to the study of leadership suggested that the genealogical approach, that is the study of the succession of leaders in one situation, may be a viable alternative. Taking up this suggestion the present study attempts to trial the genealogical approach in order to contribute to a body of knowledge on the leadership styles of principals in schools in the A.C.T. A shortened form of Likert's Management Systems Questionnaire was used to describe the leadership style of the principals. A brief survey of the staff was conducted in order to build up a profile of the staff with whom each principal worked. A number of hypotheses were tested. It was found that there had been a change in the leadership styles of the principals over the twenty year period, but this change was not uniform. Subscales of leadership, communication, decision making, goals and control were found to follow the same pattern as the overall result, with the exception of the subscale communication which had a more restricted range. The number of years a teacher taught at the school, previous teaching experience, qualifications and position on the staff were not found to affect teachers' perceptions of the leadership style of the principal.

Vietnam is a country with more than 80 percent of the population living in the countryside. Rural education is, therefore, of vital importance to Vietnamese education; and ELT effectiveness and efficiency in junior secondary schools in rural Vietnam is a problem of worthwhile attention. This study, being a pilot one, limits itself to seeking solutions to the increase of ELT effectiveness and efficiency in terms of syllabus design, textbook revision and teacher development. The study contains 5 chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1 deals with the general background of the study, schooling and educational philosophies in Vietnam. In this chapter, special attention is given to the role of foreign language teaching and learning in Vietnamese schools. In addition, educational philosophies in Vietnam are discussed as the philosophical and legal basis for any implementation of FLT and ELT innovations in junior secondary schools in rural Vietnam. Chapter 2 deals with input studies and some models of language teaching and learning that appeared in the last two decades. In this chapter, special emphasis is laid on studies which explain how input is transformed into intake and on the models of teaching and learning that may be applied to the teaching and learning of English in the context of rural Vietnam. Chapter 3 deals with language teaching methods as the neverending search for teaching effectiveness and efficiency. In this chapter, based on the understanding of such concepts as effectiveness and efficiency, language teaching methods are presented as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. Thus, the selection and use of a method depends completely on the goal set for the process of language teaching and learning. When the goal changes, the method will change accordingly. Chapter 4 deals with the actual FLT and ELT situation in rural junior secondary schools in Vietnam. This chapter includes the results of surveys on teacher quality and a critical look at the implementation of the communicative approach in language teaching in the current textbooks in use in junior secondary schools The background of rural students is discussed to clarify the context of the learners in question. In chapter 5, based on the theoretical findings in chapters 2 and 3 and on the actual ELT situation mentioned in chapter 4, possible solutions to the increase of ELT effectiveness and efficiency are proposed. These solutions are concerned with syllabus design, textbook revision and teacher development. The study closes with a conclusion which relates solutions to ELT effectiveness and efficiency to the general solutions to teaching effectiveness and efficiency mentioned at a number of workshops held in Vietnam recently.