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

Literacy education defined as the reading and writing of print text is undergoing a paradigmatic shift towards a pedagogy of multiliteracies (Cole & Pullen, 2010). At the same time, demands for rapid, efficient, and accurate reading skills escalate (Katzir et al., 2006) in a global society with increasingly instant and complex literacy requirements. Musical rhythm plays a role in multiliteracy and print literacy learning. Rhythm is essential for music making and reading, and may facilitate print literacy for all children, including those who struggle with traditional print-based teaching and learning. The purpose of this research was to investigate the potential for the semiotic resource of rhythm to engage early years children in print and non-print literacy learning. A twelve week mixed methods quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the effects of a multimodal Orff-based learning design on elements of reading and rhythm for grades one to three children in four schools. Students (N = 169) from nine classrooms were non-randomly assigned to one of two groups. The researcher instructed both groups two to three times a week totaling twenty-five sessions in each homeroom classroom. The experimental groups participated in Orff-based learning experiences that focused on elements of rhythm and prosodic oral reading fluency. The control group listened to and sang song-storybooks. Beat performance and oral reading rate assessments were administered as pre- and post-tests to each group. Struggling readers in the experimental group significantly improved on measures of oral reading rate compared to struggling readers in the control group using matched pairs t-procedures and analyses of variance. Associations between beat performance and oral reading rate were explored using bivariate and multivariate regression and correlation analysis. A strong positive correlation was found between measures of beat competency and measures of oral reading rate. Qualitative methods using grounded theory, semiotic data analysis, multimodal analysis, action research, and design research methods placed within a bricolage framework (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004) and examined through the lens of complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006) added multiperspectival meaning-making of data. Findings pointed to the value of multimodal music and rhythm experiences for engaged, deep, meaningful print and non-print learning for diverse individual and classroom collective learners in both control and experimental classrooms. Beat competency was important to both print and music literacy learning in experimental classrooms. Beat experiences were compelling, equitable, and appeared to organize music, oral language, and print literacy into meaningful and accessible patterns and structures. Similar findings may be occasioned through an ontology of multimodal richness, a complex epistemology, embodied ways of knowing and communicating, and systemic shared beliefs and values.

Using a critical feminist approach, and with attention to participants’ broad life experiences, this qualitative study explores seven women’s challenging, transformative decisions to give birth at home with midwives in Ontario, Canada. To make this choice, the women had to draw on their own strength, take responsibility for their decisions, and resist the dominant view of birth as inherently risky, and of women’s birth experiences as unimportant and incompatible with more narrowly defined good outcomes. As participants became informed decision-makers, resisted medicalized birth, and envisioned more woman-centred possibilities, they were empowered as active agents in their births. They were able to trust that with the care of their midwives, and the support of their partners or close family, they could have satisfying and safe births at home.

Research problem: This research focused on the following problem statement: What management strategies can be developed and used to advance effective social justice practice in schools? Research aims: Arising from the problem question, the research aims were firstly to determine theoretically, the nature of social justice (Chapter Two) and secondly to identify and analyse theoretically, the determinants that contribute to social justice practices (Chapter Three). This was done by means of a comprehensive literature review. The third aim was to qualitatively analyse effective social justice praxis in selected schools in the North-West and Western Cape Provinces (Chapter Four and Five). From the analysis and literature review, management strategies for effective social justice practice in schools (Chapter Six) were developed as part of the empirical investigation. Research methodology: The empirical investigation realised the third aim, to analyse qualitatively effective social justice praxis in selected schools by means of individual and focus group interviews which were based on the philosophical paradigm of a constructivist-grounded theory and a hermeneutic, phenomenological methodology that enabled me to listen and be part of the discursive portrayals of the participant-principals’ effective social justice praxis. The qualitative data collection and methodology entailed considerations with regard to ethical conduct between myself and the role-players, i.e. the researcher, the Ethics Committee (NWU Faculty of Education Sciences), the role of departmental officials, the role of participant principals, and documentation used. Attention was paid to determine the target population, participant and sample selection from the North-West and Western Cape provinces in accordance with predetermined criteria. These criteria were, inter alia, that these principals would: have a proven track record to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of justice and social justice; would adhere to and implement legal determinants of social justice praxis with regard to the constitutional values and human rights; provide proven evidence of social justice praxis as equality, human dignity and freedom; implement political imperatives such as the Manifesto on Values, Education for All; acknowledge the need for fair distribution and educational transformation; provide a moral basis for recognition, identity formation and social justice praxis; apply a deliberative democratic praxis; promote accountability, school achievement, and as prospective and transformative leaders believe in and practice an embracing social justice. The researcher prepared the necessary documentation, the interview protocol and interview schedule to enter the field, as well as entering the field of research (principals at schools and district offices) to conduct and record the interviews which she afterwards transcribed. The method of qualitative data analysis included three phases: Phase I that considered the first hearing-reading, Atlas.ti™ dry-run and initial code-lists; Phase II, the translation processes, and Phase III, the abstraction and crystallisation processes. The criteria for soundness were established in the account of authentic validity and credibility of the study. The collected qualitative data was analysed by means of the Atlas.ti™ software programme as a result of which seven themes and three sub-themes for each theme emerged. These themes were the principal and social justice praxis, learners, education in general, constitutional values, educational partners, the government and political establishments, and social justice: its ontology and praxis. Development of management strategies: Education is about understanding and this study presented those management strategies that culminated in answers to the fundamental question: “What management strategies can be developed and used to advance effective social justice practice in schools?” The development of management strategies are the result of the literature review and the empirical investigation. The strategy development process consisted of a three-phase strategy framework: strategy planning (aims and objectives), strategy implementation (action plan and persons), and strategy evaluation. From this process, seven aims were developed in accordance with the seven identified themes: the principal, the learners, education in general, Constitutional values, partners in education, government, political and union matters, and the ontology and praxis of social justice. These management strategies include inter alia: • Optimising the school principal’s virtues of responsibility, authenticity and presence as gemeinschaft (community) relationships to ensure effective social justice praxis (§5.2). • Inculcate a disciplined school environment for learners to embrace human diversity and dignity, democracy, and Ubuntu-principles (§5.3) to optimise effective social justice praxis. • Influence education in general - system and structures - to optimise effective social justice praxis (§5.4). • Foster constitutional values and human rights as effective social justice praxis (§5.5). • Establish a social justice culture amongst educational partners who are essential to school development and governance to optimise effective social justice praxis (§5.6). • Convince government and union officials and influence political matters to serve the best interest of the child (§5.7) to ensure social justice praxis. • Actualise management strategies for social justice praxis that epitomise compassion, love, care and human rights in a participative and respectful environment (§5.8). • These management strategies were described as techniques or aims, objectives and action steps to provide answers to the questions where and how, which determined on which level or levels these strategies were to be performed. Main findings: • At a conceptual and a theoretical level: Conceptually and theoretically this study established, for the first time, specific determinants of social justice praxis (Chapters Two and Three) and its management. This contribution is found in the syntheses that followed each conceptual discussion of justice (§2.2.7) and social justice (§2.3.4), as well as the syntheses and evaluation of these determinants (§3.2-§3.4) for social justice praxis. These determinants may be regarded as an attempt at purified, cleansed theorising with respect to social justice praxis. This study found that social justice does exist in the hearts of the principals who took part in this study and that social justice belongs to all learners, to all of humanity, whoever they are or whatever their circumstances may be. Social justice is, essentially, embodied and lived love-in-practice towards all. However, the effectiveness of social justice praxis is usually determined by pragmatic circumstances that dictate the scale and scope of its efficacy. This study found that social justice praxis in schools should deviate from a mere legalistic or juridical notion because it progressed beyond the conceptual boundaries and theoretical limits of juristic thinking towards an attempt at linking social justice praxis to a humanising pedagogy. As a consequence, social justice in this research cuts across all man-made barriers: it has become a prospective notion that reflects its restorative and transformational nature and role. • At a strategic level: Strategically, this research found that the possibility of various cycles of action research in schools as well as in higher education institutions exists. The seven themes could be viewed in isolation, but if regarded, as found in this research, as seven levels that build upon each other and whose strengths or weaknesses are interdependent, it becomes self-evident that social justice forms the basis of cohesive and holistic social justice praxis. The seven strategies (§5.2-§5.8) developed in this research may, in future, inform research and praxis in schools and higher learning institutions in order to confirm or refute the theory presented herewith. • At policy-making level: This study has implications for policy design and management development, not only at basic education level, but also at national level. This study found that social justice specifically, has neither adequately, nor officially been addressed in relevant policies. If policy amendments were to be made and management strategies for social justice praxis in schools become an essential part of national policy, it will have implications at the level of further professional development of school principals, such as the current ACE School Leadership Programme. In addition, teachers’ in-service professional development will have to include these management strategies in the offering of short courses. Furthermore curriculum changes will have to follow to incorporate pre-service or initial training programmes of Higher Education institutions that offer teacher training programmes which may have a snowball effect at provincial and school curricula levels. Another important finding of this research is that, in future, the binding agent amongst schools may yet prove to be social justice and not geo-social and/or socio-economic markers, as is the case at present. In this manner social justice may become a lived curriculum that will permeate the entire education system in South Africa, but more so, will permeate the school culture of every school. Recommendations: A management strategy for effective social justice praxis in schools should be developed at national level but specifically to schools should be tailor-made for each school, because social justice praxis becomes visible in the acts of individual men and women, girls and boys, who regard the other as equally well as the self and therefore the following recommendations are important: • Continuous professional development of principals and teachers. • The right to education and its praxis to ensure the best interest of the child should be incorporated in the Life Orientation curriculum. • Have a collective vision of schools that truly strive, cherish and inculcate a pedagogy of social justice praxis to ensure that education is life-generating, life engendering, causing life or life awakening (onderwys is lewe wek). • Fairness as a moral construct should be visible in institutions where values of fairness, equality and social justice permeate the institution and provide a moral and structural frame for judgements based on the principle of fiduciary trust. • Schools should become community hubs as centrifugal force that embraces views on African culture, Ubuntu principles and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. • Create district-wide power teams that will train teachers in positive conduct as well as assist and provide interventions. • Principals and teachers have to take responsibility and agency for social justice pedagogy. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Literacy education defined as the reading and writing of print text is undergoing a paradigmatic shift towards a pedagogy of multiliteracies (Cole & Pullen, 2010). At the same time, demands for rapid, efficient, and accurate reading skills escalate (Katzir et al., 2006) in a global society with increasingly instant and complex literacy requirements. Musical rhythm plays a role in multiliteracy and print literacy learning. Rhythm is essential for music making and reading, and may facilitate print literacy for all children, including those who struggle with traditional print-based teaching and learning. The purpose of this research was to investigate the potential for the semiotic resource of rhythm to engage early years children in print and non-print literacy learning. A twelve week mixed methods quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the effects of a multimodal Orff-based learning design on elements of reading and rhythm for grades one to three children in four schools. Students (N = 169) from nine classrooms were non-randomly assigned to one of two groups. The researcher instructed both groups two to three times a week totaling twenty-five sessions in each homeroom classroom. The experimental groups participated in Orff-based learning experiences that focused on elements of rhythm and prosodic oral reading fluency. The control group listened to and sang song-storybooks. Beat performance and oral reading rate assessments were administered as pre- and post-tests to each group. Struggling readers in the experimental group significantly improved on measures of oral reading rate compared to struggling readers in the control group using matched pairs t-procedures and analyses of variance. Associations between beat performance and oral reading rate were explored using bivariate and multivariate regression and correlation analysis. A strong positive correlation was found between measures of beat competency and measures of oral reading rate. Qualitative methods using grounded theory, semiotic data analysis, multimodal analysis, action research, and design research methods placed within a bricolage framework (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004) and examined through the lens of complexity thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006) added multiperspectival meaning-making of data. Findings pointed to the value of multimodal music and rhythm experiences for engaged, deep, meaningful print and non-print learning for diverse individual and classroom collective learners in both control and experimental classrooms. Beat competency was important to both print and music literacy learning in experimental classrooms. Beat experiences were compelling, equitable, and appeared to organize music, oral language, and print literacy into meaningful and accessible patterns and structures. Similar findings may be occasioned through an ontology of multimodal richness, a complex epistemology, embodied ways of knowing and communicating, and systemic shared beliefs and values.

This exploratory qualitative case study provides a description of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation’s practice in addressing deep-rooted conflict, from the Republic of Ireland. This research grew out of practical problems from the field of conflict resolution in Canada, in particular interest-based mediation, in addressing deep-rooted conflict. Using an extended epistemology, data is harvested from praxis to create naturalistic generalizations: guidelines for addressing deep-rooted conflict. The research findings are the result of a synthesis of three data sources: interviews with facilitators from Glencree, textual data, and nearly five months of onsite observation. The main themes derived from the research include: Glencree’s Diverse Practice; Glencree’s Approach to Conflict; Glencree’s Identity; Glencree’s Approach to Deep-Rooted Conflict; and Implementing Glencree’s Approach. This study is intended as a snapshot in time of a set of dynamic and emergent ideas addressing conflict in practice. Through an inductive research design, findings from praxis are related to theory from the field of conflict resolution. In addition, implications for addressing deep-rooted conflict are identified, including Glencree’s emphasis on the need for flexibility as a characteristic for conflict work, and an underlying worldview incorporating aspects of dynamic systems theory and chaos theory.

This exploratory qualitative case study provides a description of the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation’s practice in addressing deep-rooted conflict, from the Republic of Ireland. This research grew out of practical problems from the field of conflict resolution in Canada, in particular interest-based mediation, in addressing deep-rooted conflict. Using an extended epistemology, data is harvested from praxis to create naturalistic generalizations: guidelines for addressing deep-rooted conflict. The research findings are the result of a synthesis of three data sources: interviews with facilitators from Glencree, textual data, and nearly five months of onsite observation. The main themes derived from the research include: Glencree’s Diverse Practice; Glencree’s Approach to Conflict; Glencree’s Identity; Glencree’s Approach to Deep-Rooted Conflict; and Implementing Glencree’s Approach. This study is intended as a snapshot in time of a set of dynamic and emergent ideas addressing conflict in practice. Through an inductive research design, findings from praxis are related to theory from the field of conflict resolution. In addition, implications for addressing deep-rooted conflict are identified, including Glencree’s emphasis on the need for flexibility as a characteristic for conflict work, and an underlying worldview incorporating aspects of dynamic systems theory and chaos theory.

This thesis explores social policy outcomes of the FTLRP. The thesis comes from an appreciation that there has been a lot of attention that has been given to the process and outcomes of the FTLRP. Various and sometimes antagonistic analytical frameworks have been employed by different scholars who come from different epistemological standings resulting in academic polarity on the subject of the FTLRP in Zimbabwe. This thesis transcends all the analytical frameworks to provide a unique perspective of the extent to which the FTLRP achieved social policy outcomes. Some of the scholars who have written on this subject have grappled with some of the social policy outcomes without however a deliberate focus on social policy outcomes. The main contribution of this thesis to the body of knowledge is its exploration of the extent to which the FTLRP has been a social policy tool that has achieved social policy outcomes. This is important because for a long time land reform has not been generally considered as a social policy tool in the main stream social policy literature. The reason for this is that social policy literature has been dominated by OECD scholars who naturally focused more on social policy tools that are more relevant to their contexts. In the process they have sought to transpose the tools that are more prevalent in their contexts to Africa. Consequently, social policy tools from the global south, such as land reform, have not featured in any significant way in mainstream social policy literature. The thesis used the transformative social policy framework in both the research and analysis of the data. The conceptual framework identifies five functions of social policy namely redistribution, production, protection, reproduction and social cohesion. Using a mixed methods approach, the thesis interrogated the extent to which the five functions of social policy were realised by the FTLRP. Research findings have shown that the major outcome that was unequivocally realised was redistribution. This is so because the country’s agrarian structure dramatically changed from a bi-modal set up where 6000 white farmers owned more than 35 percent of the arable land to a new structure where about 180 000 households of diverse backgrounds, inter alia former farm workers, people from communal areas, civil servants, war veterans, pensioners, government senior civil servants and the unemployed, now work and live on the same land. The other four social policy functions were achieved to varying degrees. Lastly, the research looked at the human development outcomes of the FTLRP by focusing on the state of education in the resettled areas. The research observed that the FTLRP increased both primary (13%) and secondary (31%) education accessibility for the children of land beneficiaries. Due to the abrupt nature with which education services were on demand, the quality was compromised. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

This thesis is about newly arrived adult migrants’ meaning making and learning in Swedish society during the two years’ introduction period, after they have received the residence permit. I have specifically studied Arabic speaking adults’ meaning making and learning, by carrying out observations and individual in-depth interviews with 12 migrants. The introduction period consists mainly of three so called introduction measures; the civic orientation course, Swedish for immigrants (SFI), and different work related activities, such as internship at different work places. The results show that etablering is about shaping the newly arrived adult migrants into ”good” citizens, through the introduction measures, among other things in the civic orientation course, which is regulated through the policy documents, and which so to say provides meaning to the newly arrived. The “good” citizen has some specific characteristics, which, roughly, are that he or she is independent (and advocates individuality), free, equality thinking, secularized, law-abiding (which includes being honest), responsible, and a “good” parent. These characteristics are expressed in different ways in the civic orientation course, for instance through the course material. The Swedish society is described as something desirable, and different from what is implied to be ”Arabic” values and ways of thinking. The idea of the “good” citizen appears to aim at constructing the adult migrants’ (and their families’) identity, something which many of the study’s respondents make a resistance to. As concerns the migrant’s new experiences, it is, for example, those which the migrant get through the contact with the Swedish Public Employment Service (SPES) that affect the meaning making in the new society. The meaning which most of the respondents have made of the SPES’s measures for them is that this authority only offers “prepackaged” solutions, and does not provide the help or support that they need. Also the experiences which the migrant has in the civic orientation course, and the meaning which ”old” migrants give to him or her, play a role when he or she makes meaning of Sweden and Swedes, and of his or her new life situation. Further, it has been shown that it is those experiences that the adult individual has been socialized through, and those which he or she has gained through work or education in his or her country of origin, which affect his or her meaning making in Sweden. It is mostly values which concern child upbringing and religion that lead to a certain understanding and construction of one’s new life. These values, when related to the values which are included in the ”good” citizen idea, also lead to either a resistance or a readiness towards the meaning giving that is embedded in the ”good” citizen notion. / Denna studie handlar om nyanlända vuxna migranters meningsskapande och lärande i det svenska samhället under deras tvååriga introduktionsperiod, efter att de har fått uppehållstillstånd. Jag har specifikt studerat arabisktalande vuxnas meningsskapande och lärande, genom observationer och enskilda djupintervjuer med 12 nyanlända. Introduktionsperioden består främst av tre s.k. etableringsinsatser; kursen i samhällsorientering, svenska för invandrare (SFI) samt olika arbetsrelaterade och arbetsfrämjande insatser, såsom praktik på olika arbetsplatser. Resultatet visar att etablering handlar om att forma de vuxna nyanlända till ”goda” medborgare, genom etableringsinsatserna, bl.a. i samhällsorienteringskursen, som regleras genom policydokumenten, och som s.a.s. tillhandahåller mening för de nyanlända. Den ”goda” medborgaren har vissa specifika kännetecken, vilka, i grova drag, är att han eller hon är självständig (och förespråkar individualitet), fri, jämlikhetstänkande, sekulariserad, laglydig (vilket inkluderar ärlig), ansvarsfull, och en ”god” förälder. Dessa karaktärsdrag kommer på olika sätt till uttryck i samhällsorienteringskursen, exempelvis genom kursmaterialet. Det svenska samhället framställs då också som något eftersträvansvärt, och skilt från det som antyds vara ”arabiska” värderingar och tänkesätt. Föreställningen om den ”goda” medborgaren verka syfta till att konstruera den vuxna nyanländas (och dennas familjs) identitet, något som många av studiens respondenter gör motstånd mot. Vad gäller migrantens nya erfarenheter, är det exempelvis de som migranten har fått genom kontakt med Arbetsförmedlingen som påverkar meningsskapandet i det nya samhället. Den mening som de flesta av respondenterna har gjort om Arbetsförmedlingens insatser för dem är att denna myndighet enbart erbjuder dem ”förpaketerade” lösningar, och inte tillhandahåller den hjälp eller det stöd som de behöver. Även erfarenheter som migranten gör i samhällsorienteringskursen, samt den mening som ”gamla” migranter förmedlar till honom eller henne, spelar roll för hur vederbörande skapar mening om Sverige och svenskar, och om sin nya livssituation. Dessutom har det visat sig att det är de erfarenheter som den vuxna har blivit socialiserad genom, samt de som han eller hon har fått genom utbildning eller arbete i ursprungslandet, som påverkar migrantens meningsskapande i Sverige. Det är främst värderingar som är knutna till barnuppfostran och religion som leder till en viss förståelse och konstruktion av ens nya liv. Dessa värderingar leder också, när de stöts mot de värderingar som ingår i föreställningen om den ”goda” medborgaren, antingen till ett motstånd mot eller en beredvillighet inför det meningsgivande som ingår i den ”goda” medborgaren.

What must we transform in ourselves as white settlers to become open to the possibility of ethical, respectful, authentic relationships with Indigenous peoples and Indigenous lands? Situating this research in Stó:lō Téméxw (Stó:lō lands/world) and in relationships with Stó:lō people, this question has become an effort to understand what it means to be xwelítem and how white settlers might transform xwelítem ways of being towards more ethical ways of being. Xwelítem is a Halq’eméylem concept used by Stó:lō people which translates as the hungry, starving ones, and is often used to refer to ways of being many Stó:lō associate with white settler colonial society, past and present. Drawing on insights and wisdom of Stó:lō and settler mentors I consider three aspects of xwelítem ways of being. First, to be xwelítem is to erase Stó:lō presence, culture and nationhood, colonial history and contemporary colonial realities of Indigenous oppression and dispossession, and settler privilege. Second, being xwelítem means attempting to dominate, control, and repress those who are painted as “inferior” in dominant cultural narratives, it means plugging into racist colonial narratives and stereotypes. Third, being xwelítem is to be hungry and greedy, driven by consumption and lacking respect, reverence and reciprocity for the land. Guided by Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies, critical place inquiry, narrative therapy, and autoethnography, I shape three narratives that speak to each aspect of being xwelítem, looking back towards its roots and forward towards pathways of transformation. I draw on interviews and experiences with Stó:lō and settler mentors, personal narratives, family history, and literature from critical Indigenous studies, anti-colonial theory, settler colonial studies, analytic psychology, and critical race theory. I aim to share what I have learned from rather than about Stó:lō culture, stories, teachings, and practices as these have been shared in relationships and as they have pushed me towards seeing anew myself and my family, communities, histories, and cultures. I have also walked this path as I have become a mom, and the co-alignment of these journeys has meant a focus on my role as a parent in recognizing and intervening with becoming/being xwelítem as it influences my daughter. I specifically center the space of intergenerational parent-child relationships and intimate family experiences as a deep influence on developing white settler subjectivities, and therefore also a relational space of profound transformative potential. I end with a call for settlers to offer our gifts towards the wellbeing of the land and Indigenous peoples through cycles of reciprocity as a basis for ethical relationships. Transforming white settler subjectivities is situated within the broader vision of participating in co-resistance, reparations and restitution, of bringing about justice and harmony, which inherently involves supporting the self-determination and resurgence of Indigenous peoples. / Graduate