The research aims to investigate the responses of teachers and learners in a particular rural context to a chapter from a South African English First Additional Language textbook which is currently being developed for commercial publication. The activities and content of the chapter aim to encourage learners to think critically about power relations in teenage relationships. The material was used in two classes of Grade 11 English learners by two English teachers from the same school. Data from classroom observations, from learners’ writing and from interviews with teachers and learners was analysed in order to respond to a series of questions which focus on teachers’ and learners’ responses to a theme which was assumed to be a sensitive and controversial one and responses to the design features of the material. Firstly, the theme appeared not to be considered sensitive or controversial by either teachers or learners. Secondly, the teachers ignored almost completely the pedagogic design of the materials and in doing so negatively affected opportunities for learners to learn. Possible explanations for both findings are discussed.

Orientador: Silvia Regina Quijadas Aro Zuliani / Banca: Jorge Megid Neto / Banca: Fernando Bastos / Resumo: O Programa Nacional do Livro Didático para o Ensino Médio (PNLEM) enquadra-se dentro de uma política pública de avaliação, compra e distribuição de obras didáticas aos professores e alunos de escolas públicas, sendo uma medida recente que atendeu, progressivamente, as disciplinas de Língua Portuguesa, Matemática, Biologia, História, Química, Física e Geografia no Ensino Médio. Referente à Química, os livros didáticos enviados pelas editoras foram submetidos, em 2007, a várias etapas de análise por uma equipe de especialistas da área de Química de universidades públicas e privadas. Como resultado foi elaborado o Catálogo do Programa Nacional do Livro para o Ensino Médio (PNLEM/2008: Química), um documento que apresenta e discute, via resenha, as características das obras aprovadas, seguidas pela ficha avaliativa, no anexo. Entre os eixos orientadores dessa ficha de avaliação há critérios, eliminatórios e classificatórios, referentes à natureza da ciência. Mas, apesar de considerarem a História da Ciência na análise, verificamos que esse aspecto - natureza da Ciência - é relatado de forma vaga nas breves resenhas de alguns livros pelo Catálogo. Dessa forma, investigamos como essas obras de Química apresentam a História da Ciência, sendo escolhido o conceito de susbstância química para tal verificação, uma vez que a construção dessa temática releva uma riqueza histórico-epistemológica ao longo dos anos. A análise desses materiais didáticos foi fundamentada na análise de conteúdo, um viés que possibilitou a construção de categorias para a leitura crítica do material, com subseqüente identificação das características das obras. Os dados obtidos revelam que alguns autores levam em consideração, em maior ou menor grau, aspectos histórico-epistemológicos no tratamento de alguns conceitos, ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The National Program of the Textbook for High School (PNLEM) it's a public politic of evaluation, purchase and distribution of textbooks to the teachers and students of the public schools, being a gradual action for disciplines of the High School, as Portuguese Language, Mathematical, Biology, History, Chemistry, Physics and Geography. In the Chemistry area, its textbooks sent by publishing companies had been submitted, in 2007, to some stages of analysis by a specialists' set of the area of Chemistry of public and private universities. As result was elaborated the Catalogue of the National Program of the Textbook for the High School (PNLEM/2008: Chemistry), a document that presents and argues the characteristics of the textbooks approved followed for the valuation fiche, in the annex. It enters axles of this valuation fiche has criteria, eliminatory and classificatory, referring to the nature of Science. But, although analysis to consider the History of Science, we verify that this aspect - nature of Science - is treaty of vacant form in the brief review of some textbooks by Catalogue. Thus, we investigate as these Chemistry textbooks explore the History of Science, being chosen the chemical substance concept for this verification, a time that the construction of this thematic presents a rich historical-epistemological description. The analysis of these didactic materials was based on the content analysis, a technique that made possible the construction of categories for the critical reading of the material, with subsequent identification of the characteristics of the textbooks. The results show that some authors worked, in greater or minor degree, historical-epistemological aspects in the treatment of some concepts, but is has necessity to review some limited or absent questions, as the discussion on the scientific methodology and the... (Complete abstract, click electronic access below) / Mestre

A leitura e a escrita são importantes ferramentas para ajudar os alunos a melhor compreenderem o mundo ao seu redor. É preciso conhecer, ler, analisar e reproduzir modelos de qualidade para que seja possível escrever textos de forma mais competente. Neste sentido, as propostas de escrita podem incentivar a paráfrase de bons modelos com a finalidade de auxiliar os alunos a se comunicarem melhor, até que se constituam como autores mais autônomos. Mas, até que ponto o contato com os modelos pode afetar a liberdade de criação? É possível copiar um modelo e construir a própria autonomia ao mesmo tempo? Para responder a estas questões, George Steiner, em seu livro Gramáticas da criação, defende a idéia de que estamos a todo o momento imitando, ou melhor, repetindo modelos, ações e idéias de outros. De um modo geral, a criação estaria muito mais próxima da paráfrase do que daquilo que é visto como novo, como original. Bakhtin também disserta sobre o quanto somos ecos de outras vozes que nos cercam, repetindo idéias que não são só nossas, mas que circulam socialmente e influenciam nosso modo de pensar e de agir; interações essas que se estabelecem entre as pessoas e que nos permitem avançar em nossos conhecimentos, de acordo com a teoria sócio-cultural desenvolvida por Vygotsky. Neste sentido, é possível levantar algumas idéias sobre o papel da escola e também dos livros didáticos nesse processo de criação, ou seja, no desenvolvimento da autoria dos alunos. Neste estudo, pretende-se analisar o modo como se relacionam cópia, reprodução, paráfrase e autoria no processo de construção da autonomia dos alunos a partir das metodologias presentes nas atividades de escrita propostas nos livros didáticos. Foram analisadas seis obras de grande adoção nas escolas e que são aprovadas pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático. Em todas elas observou-se a presença de boas estratégias, cujo principal objetivo era apresentar um bom modelo para que o aluno conseguisse ressignificá-lo e, a partir dele, desenvolver o seu próprio texto. Partiu-se da concepção de que a criação humana é sempre mediada por algo que já existe e que não se trata de uma simples repetição: há trabalho dos sujeitos nisso, pois o autor é na verdade um aumentador, ele aumenta o mundo a partir de algo que já existe. Podemos considerar, portanto, que a idéia de criatividade relaciona-se, na verdade, com a idéia de transformação da realidade e que esse processo está presente nos materiais didáticos atuais, enquanto uma boa estratégia para formar escritores mais competentes. / Reading and writing are important tools that can be used by students to enhance their understanding about the world and the environment around them. The ability of writing requires prior knowledge of certain quality standards that must be properly evaluated and reproduced if one wishes to accomplish a good quality text. Thus, the best way to enhance a student´s writing ability might be through writing propositions that stimulate the paraphrases of good text models, aiming at helping their communications skills, until the autonomy in writing is fully developed. In this case, however, a few important points must be considered: can such text models affect the student´s creativity? Is it possible for a student to copy/comply to a model text and, yet, develop his/her own autonomy at the same time? To answer such questions, George Steiner, in his book Grammars of Creation, points that we are always copying, or repeating models, actions or ideas learned from other people. In a general sense, creation would be much closer to paraphrases than from what is understood as original. Bakhtin agrees with this idea, pointing that we can be echoes from other voices around us, repeating ideas that are not just ours, but belong to our social environment and influence our thoughts and actions. This is one of the major driving forces to the development of our knowledge, according to Vigotsy´s Social-cultural Theory. Thus, it is possible to draw a few ideas concerning the role(s) that must be played by the school and the textbooks in the process of developing the students as efficient and autonomous authors of written texts. It is necessary to teach students to find new meanings to the model texts, so they can go beyond copying and reproducing other people´s texts, and start creating upon such new ideas, until their writing develops into true authorship. The evaluation of writing propositions contained in school textbooks might be a good way to determine how it is possible to help students to develop this process. In this work, we evaluated the interplay among copy, reproduction, paraphrases and authorship during students development as independent writers. We considered the methodologies inherent to the writing propositions found in six different school textbooks all of them are widely used in schools across the country and have been approved by the Programa Nacional do Livro Didático. All textbooks contained appropriate exercises, in which the main objective was to force students to define new meanings to model texts, developing these new ideas into an original text. Our main concept is that human creation, although often dependent on previously conceived models, cannot be considered a simple act of repetition; there is genuine input from the author, which can be viewed as an enhancer in this process, as he/she adds upon pre-existing models to develop original ideas. In this sense, creativity is directly associated with a process of transformation of the current reality and most school textbooks can be used to develop strategies to form competent writers.

In this paper, 936 faculty free response reviews of open textbooks from the Open Textbook Library were analyzed for content and themes. The reviews were completed by faculty members at institutions in the United States and Canada. The textbooks were evaluated regarding their comprehensiveness, content accuracy, relevance longevity, clarity, consistency, modularity, organization structure flow, interface, grammatical errors, and cultural relevance. The results of the reviews found that the across 9360 comments regarding the quality of open textbooks, of these comments 97.3% reflected adequate or exceptional reviews of the textbooks. Faculty often compared the texts to traditional textbooks and in all mentions of comparison, the open textbook were regarded to be of equal or superior quality. The results of this study aid in alleviating concerns regarding quality of Open Educational Resources (OER) and provide peer reviews that faculty who consider adopting these textbooks often request. Limitations of the study and further prescriptions for research regarding OER quality and peer review research have been explored in the study.

O uso de representações visuais constitui parte fundamental da prática de ensino de Ciências. Vários pesquisadores constatam que tais representações desempenham papel pedagógico essencial no processo ensino-aprendizagem das disciplinas científicas. Desta forma, surpreende notar que pouco se tenha investigado sobre o uso e o papel dessas representações no ensino-aprendizagem de Química. Diante deste quadro, a presente dissertação analisa uma forma de representação visual, o gráfico cartesiano, existente em livros didáticos de Química destinados ao nível Médio de ensino. Buscamos conhecer a prevalência, a função, a estrutura e a relação dos gráficos com os textos nos quis se encontram inseridos. As categorias de classificação destes gráficos, algumas originais, foram definidas em concordância com o marco teórico da Semiótica Social, área da Semiótica que considera, além do estudo intrínseco dos sinais, a sua inter-relação com as interações sociais, políticas e culturais. Foram também utilizados conhecimentos advindos da área de Educação em Ciências e da Ciência como prática social. Analisamos, também, qualitativamente, gráficos de alguns dos temas mais ricos neste tipo de representação não-verbal. Nossa análise concluiu que muitos dos gráficos apresentam deficiências estruturais, e que a sua relação com o texto não é suficientemente estabelecida, de modo que estes gráficos tendem a não ser adequadamente interpretados pelos alunos. / The use of visual representations constitutes a main aspect of the practice in science learning. Various researchers agree that such form of representation has an essential pedagogical role in science teaching-learning process. Thus it is remarkable that so little investigation on the use and role of these representations in Chemistry teaching has been conducted. In face of this situation, this study concerns a kind of visual representation, the Cartesian graph, available in Brazilian high school Chemistry textbooks. This work investigated the prevalence, the function, the structure, and the relation of the graphs with the context in which they are inserted. Some of the categories of the graph classification are original and were defined in agreement with the Social Semiotics theoretical approach, a semiotic field that works not only with signs intrinsically, but also with their interrelation with social, political and cultural interactions. The knowledge of science education and science as social practice were also considered. Some graphs of the subjects that made use of this type of non-verbal representation more frequently were analyzed qualitatively. The findings show that the majority of the graphs present structural deficiencies and that their relation with the main text is not sufficiently established; thus these graphs tend not to be adequately interpreted by the students.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Magister Artium - MA / Instructional verbs (such as analyse, summarise, apply, evaluate) have been referred to as performatives and have become the object of initiatives around developing and assessing students' academic literacy competencies. Although there are extensive studies on developing and evaluating performatives such as analyse, apply, create, there is one instructional verb that has not received much attention. It is the verb 'define'. The neglect of 'defining' as a performative in the relevant research on academic literacies may be explained by the low value attributed to this performative in different taxonomies of educational outcomes where it is placed along with verbs such as 'list', 'identify', 'recall' identified as lower-order thinking skills. As a result of the dearth of studies of definition in academic literacy contexts, there are a number of questions that have not been addressed. We do not know the extent to which definitional knowledge may be central to efforts at developing the overall academic literacy of students. We do not know if the language in which students read academic texts (home language or second/third language) affects their ability to differentiate definitions from non-definitions, or to formulate definitions of concepts. This point is especially important as it is all too often assumed that (even without attention to relevant academic literacy development) the use of the home language of students necessarily enhances academic performance. Also, our knowledge is rather limited with respect to how different definitional structures affect the ability of students to recognize definitions in their study materials. It is also not clear how to intervene in order to make it explicit to students what may be expected of them in terms of defining in their academic work. Given the foregoing, this research analyses the notion of ‘definition’ as an integral component of the academic literacy of university students, with the focus being on determining the knowledge around definitions possessed by students in the Linguistics and Xhosa departments of the University of the Western Cape. Specifically, the study assesses the following: the structure of definitions in selected textbooks; students' awareness of the existence of different definitional structures in their textbooks; their ability to identify the concepts being defined in specific passages; their ability to define concepts; their ability to distinguish definitions from non-definitions; and their awareness of how definitions may be introduced. The study also investigates how the language of the textbook (home language versus second/third language of the students) may impact on the performance of students in assessments of definitional knowledge. In terms of theoretical framing, the study is informed by an approach to definitions taken in the field of terminology and by the academic literacy framework which stipulates that students' academic literacy practices are inextricably shaped by different factors such as basic skills possessed by them, institutional ideologies, contexts and issues of power. The research uses a mixed-method paradigm. A total of 100 definitions excerpted from English and isiXhosa textbooks were analysed qualitatively to describe the structure of definitions (in the textbooks), using as parameters the following: definiendum (item to be defined), definiens (meaning) and definitor (link between definiendum and definiens). Quantitative data on students' knowledge of different aspects of the notion 'definition' were collected by means of questionnaires completed by 50 students from each of the Linguistics and Xhosa departments of the University of the Western Cape. While the former have English as their major language of academic literacy, the latter have isiXhosa. Chi-square tests were administered to examine whether or not there was a significant relationship between the language of the questionnaire and students' performance. Overall, the research findings suggest that definition writing is not an autonomous phenomenon; rather, it is socioculturally (e.g. language, discipline) shaped. In this respect, the way definitions are structured in English (in a linguistics textbook) is in many respects different from the way they are constructed in isiXhosa (in books on cultural studies). With regard to students' performance on a range of definition tasks in the questionnaires administered, the findings reveal that the major language of academic literacy (also home language in the case of Xhosa students) may have a positive impact on how students perform tasks requiring them to, for instance, identify definienda (concepts being defined) and definientia (meanings), and/or to spot a definition within a passage. Unlike with these datasets, other findings show that the main language of academic literacy is not a significant explanation of students' underperformance in tasks requiring them to identify a definition that is wrongly introduced and also to produce definitions of their own. The findings underscore the need for explicit teaching as recommended by the academic literacies model. A pedagogical guide outlining how a course on definition could be structured is proposed.

Drawing attention to the material politics of the Saudi regime, this dissertation genealogically explores the ways in which the imperatives of the modern state and its oil economy came to structure the production of Arabia's history, social life, built urban environment and concepts of nationhood and religiosity. It examines cultural artifacts and commemorative spaces as evidentiary networks through which official historical knowledge moves and becomes visible. It does so first through a study of the construction and memorialization of "official" Saudi history via textbooks and archives, and of historical elisions therein. In order to discern how breaks with the past are configured within disciplinary history, the dissertation begins with a sociocultural history of late Ottoman Arabia on the eve of Al Sa`ud's territorial conquest. It reveals the ways in which early twentieth-century Arabia's shared transregional histories and emergent socio-intellectual and political worlds were transformed with the aim of developing Al Sa`ud's territorial empire into a petro-state. In the second venue of inquiry, I analyze spatial transformations characteristic of Saudi Arabia's oil modernity as central to practices of statecraft and capital accumulation by comparing the urban and cultural redevelopment plans of Riyadh and Mecca. The erasure of alternative accounts of state formation through commemoration in Riyadh and destruction in Mecca is, at heart, a continuation of Al Sa`ud's imperial project and its deep-seated violence to the everyday, the spiritual and the temporal. This dissertation is a material and spatial reading of the regime's mechanisms of political legitimation, one that focuses on the infrastructure of Saudi petro-modernity and on sites that are rarely considered in discussions of the state, despite their centrality. From the mundane lifeworlds of archival and planning documents and the spaces that house them to the spectacular commercial and archeological megaprojects, these simultaneously constitute monuments to oil modernity and serve as pillars of political governance. The projects of historical memorialization and urban planning are material realizations of the regime's late twentieth-century strategies for political legitimation and economic diversification, especially following the crisis of the 1990 Gulf War. In highlighting everyday practices of state making, I suggest new sites and modes for reading the Saudi state as an unfinished, unstable work-in-progress. I argue that oil capitalization (which produced the theory of the rentier state) is being eclipsed, increasingly, by speculation, real estate and distinctive logics of built form.

O presente trabalho debruçou-se sobre compêndios de formação de professores do final do século XIX e começo do século XX evidenciando saberes e práticas legitimadas e estabelecidas no período que descortinam culturas escolares que influenciaram a constituição da escola e do campo pedagógico no Brasil. Partindo da categorização de impressos de formação de professores, utilizados no curso da Escola Normal como fonte prescritiva de modelos de sucesso a serem aplicados, encontramos impressos que se configuraram como Guias de Aconselhamento, constituintes de Bibliotecas e Tratados de Educação, embasando cientificamente os métodos, fins e ideais de educação veiculados e orientado uma forma de pensar e de agir dos professores em formação. O período entre a década de 1870 e meados da década de 1930 compreende uma época de profundas mudanças na escolarização brasileira, em que se consolida a busca pela padronização da formação de professores e constitui-se o campo pedagógico e de produção de conhecimento sobre educação. É neste contexto histórico que os impressos de formação de professores surgem para embasar práticas e divulgar modelos escolares assumidos pela escola brasileira para os sistemas de ensino. Seu estudo permitiu compreender a materialidade do impresso como orientadora da leitura e interpretação dos conhecimentos e ideais ali defendidos, a forte defesa de métodos ativos na educação e do método mútuo como forma de organização da escola, por meio de materiais, modelos e práticas educativas embasadas especialmente na psicologia, e as orientações da prática docente que configuraram uma constituição da identidade do professor, dentro e fora da escola, como exemplo de bondade, moral e virtude a ser seguido. / This paper deals with teacher training compendiums from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, evidencing knowledge and practices legitimized and established in the period that uncovered school cultures that influenced the constitution of the school and the pedagogical field in Brazil. Based on the categorization of teacher training forms used in the course of the Normal School as a prescriptive source of successful models to be applied, we find printed material that has been configured as Counseling Guides, constituents of Libraries and Education Treaties, scientifically supporting the methods, Aims and ideals of education conveyed and guided a way of thinking and acting of the teachers in formation. The period between the 1870s and 1930s comprises a time of profound changes in Brazilian schooling, in which the search for standardization of teacher education is consolidated, and the pedagogical field and the production of knowledge about education are constituted. It is in this historical context that the teacher education forms emerge to support practices and disseminate school models assumed by the Brazilian school for the education systems. His study allowed to understand the materiality of the printed as a guide of reading and interpretation of the knowledge and ideals defended there, the strong defense of active methods in the education and the mutual method as form of organization of the school, through materials, models and educational practices based on Especially in psychology, and the orientations of the teaching practice that configured a constitution of the teacher identity, inside and outside the school, as an example of goodness, morality and virtue to be followed.

This thesis explores the research question: to what extent does the idea of 'social science' persist in constructing IR textbooks in our contemporary context? In light of the considerable changes in the discipline's canon catalysed by the Third Debate, it is surprising that there has been no sustained engagement with a large body of textbooks in over a decade. The thesis uses a folklorist approach to review contemporary undergraduate IR textbooks by exploring their family resemblances to Donkeyskin and Bluebeard stories. The thesis finds that many contemporary textbooks resemble Donkeyskin stories, both because they employ a problem/choice structure that works to curtail how IR is defined and because they rely on a number of assumptions about what it means to write a textbook and study IR. However, the thesis also finds that there is a limited but notable body of textbooks that resembles Bluebeard stories in terms of how 'forbidden' assumptions about how IR is defined and what it means to write a textbook are confronted. These two readings of textbooks are complemented by a third aspect of the folklorist approach, a reading of framing gestures. While many textbook authors employ framing gestures that cast authors as curators of the field of IR, reinforcing strict boundaries for participation in the negotiation of the IR canon, there are notable exceptions that cast textbook authors as creators. The effect is to demonstrate and open up for participation the process of negotiating the boundaries of what gets to 'count' as IR.