The Next Generation: Aspects of Grammatical Variation in the Speech of some London Preadolescents

PhDThis thesis is a sociolinguistic investigation into aspects of non-phonological variation in a group of preadolescents recorded in outer east London. Focusing on the analysis of selected grammatical variables, it aims to explore the nature and development of linguistic variation in an age group which has not figured prominently in the foundational sociolinguistic literature. The study is embedded within a variationist framework, and examines how the distribution of vernacular variables selected from different levels of the grammar can provide important insights into the maturing sociolinguistic competence of preadolescent speakers. The distribution of specific grammatical variables is correlated with the broad social dimensions of age and gender in order to examine the social and linguistic constraints which operate on aspects of variation in this age group. Furthermore, the findings which emerge from this study are contextualized in relation to patterns of variation used by older speakers, and are more broadly situated with regard to related patterns of variation in other dialects of English. Another primary aim of the study is to contribute to empirical characterisations of grammatical variation in southeastern England, an area in which there has been little systematic quantitative investigation of non-phonological variation. Given that London has been identified in the sociolinguistic literature as the site of considerable dialect levelling and a major locus of linguistic innovation, the study explores preadolescents' active participation in some of the burgeoning linguistic changes that are affecting not only southeasten dialects, but also other contemporary varieties of English

Deciding and doing what's right for people and planet : an investigation of the ethics-oriented learning of novice environmental educators

This study probes the ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of three novice environmental education practitioners in South Africa. Two of the cases examined work in a local government context, and the third in an environmental non-governmental organisation context. All three practitioners are studying a one-year professional development course in environmental education. The research asks how their ethical deliberations ‘come to be what they are’, at the interface of their workplace and course-based learning processes. Working within a relational, social realist ontology, the study takes a sociocultural-historical approach to learning, development and social change. Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) provides theoretical tools and a descriptive language to approach the rich, qualitative data derived from workplace and course observations, extensive interviews, and document review. Critical discourse analysis was used as a secondary analytical tool to probe ethical and environmental discourses that were found to be influential in the course and workplace activity systems. Data from the three case studies was analysed in stages. In the first stage, CHAT provided a theoretical perspective and language of description to analyse the interacting activity systems in which each learner-practitioner’s ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations occurred. This provided a platform for the second stage of analysis which was framed by Margaret Archer’s (1995) social realist theory of morphogenesis/ morphostasis, followed by a summative retroductive analysis, to give an account of the interplay of historically-emergent social and cultural structures and individual reflexivity in relation to the ethical dimensions of environmental education practice. The study traces how ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations occur at the untidy, unpredictable intersection of workplace, course and personal contexts, and are strongest when they are situated in authentic contexts that resonate with learner-practitioners’ ‘ultimate concerns’ (after Archer, 2003; 2007). In this study, the learner-practitioners’ ‘ultimate concerns’ included family, personal well-being, social justice, cultural identity and religious commitments. The scope and depth of learner-practitioners’ social-ecological knowledge was also identified as a key factor influencing ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations, although the mediation of such knowledge can be hindered by language and conceptual ii barriers, amongst others. The study also noted how ethical positions circulating in the workplace, course and personal contexts were diverse, uneven and dynamic. Some ethical positions were found to be more explicitly differentiated than others, either resonating with or being overlooked by the learner-practitioners as they deliberated the ethical dimensions of their environmental education practice. In situations where there was limited depth, conceptual clarity and/ or confidence to engage directly with ethical concerns, there was a tendency towards (inadvertent) ethical relativism. Insights derived from the study suggest that these factors have limiting effects on the ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of novice environmental educators. These insights point to the need for ethical deliberations to be re-personalised in context and underpinned by depth knowledge. A relational and pragmatic approach to environmental ethics (that recognises the validity of judgemental rationality – which can be fallible – and which seeks out practical adequacy) is put forward as appropriate and potentially generative in environmental education and training processes. This would need to be supported by careful attention to the influence of environmental discourses and practices in shaping ethical deliberations, and may also be helpful in developing a much-needed accessible, everyday language of ethical engagement. This study’s contribution to new knowledge in the field of environmental education is through its account of ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations emerging (in the Archerian morphogenetic sense) in complex, indeterminate ways at the interface of sociocultural and social-ecological contexts. The ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of novice environmental educators occur in relation to their ‘ultimate concerns’ and are advanced or hindered by the historically-emergent practices, discourses and material realities of their workplace, personal and educational contexts. These insights require that the complex interplay of intersecting contexts and concerns that shape ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations be acknowledged and carefully mediated in both workplace-based and coursebased professional development processes

Living in the Tension: A cross-cultural comparative study of the meaning and management of care, self-care, and wellbeing across two communities of faith-based youth workers.

This ethnographic project explored how faith-based youth workers in two communities – Moment of Truth Evangelistic Ministries (MOTEM) in Kampala, Uganda, and Canterbury Youth Services (CYS) in Canterbury, New Zealand – managed and made sense of their own wellbeing, against an ongoing tension between care and self-care. The comparative approach enabled an examination of two local articulations of a global faith system, as well as two situated examples of the effect of neoliberalism on the faith-based organisations (FBOs). The experience of burnout, as a culturally-grounded idiom of distress with strong ties in existing literature to care labour and the non-profit sector, was the entry point into this study. The analysis of interviews, focus group material, primary texts and ethnographic field notes drew heavily from a narrative discourse approach. This highlighted the significance of language, metaphor, and narrative in their sense-making, but with a performativity focus that examined these not as static texts, but as part of subject formation. This study also applied a post-structuralist perspective to examining the discursive construction of the ‘good’ leader in a specific historical moment. This provided context for the moral and emotional labour observed in each site My findings were that balance, paradox, and re-categorisation were key techniques used to manage discursive tension. Such strategies were both storied and embodied. Distinctive local ‘aesthetics’ which patterned practice were also identified, including self-awareness and balance (in Canterbury), and self-control and empowerment (in Kampala). Through all of these, neoliberal discourses were shown to be contributing to a responsibilisation of the youth leader for their own wellbeing. Ultimately, although numerous institutional and ideological forces are at work in their complex and morally-fraught social fields, faith-based youth workers exercise creativity, agency and resilience in navigating these to maintain their cherished identities and manage their wellbeing whilst conducting the demanding care labour involved

Superintendent Leadership and Student Achievement in Suburban High Schools: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Analysis

This research study explored the critical nature of the connection between student achievement and superintendent leadership. A great deal of scholarship has addressed either student achievement or leadership and previous evidence has suggested the impact of both parental education and racioethnicity on student achievement, but few studies have investigated the relationship between the superintendent\u27s leadership authority and the achievement of his or her students. The central research questions of this study are: 1) To what degree does parental education predict high school student achievement in suburban Chicagoland? 2) To what degree does racioethnicity predict high school student achievement in suburban Chicagoland? 3) When comparing districts with lower-achieving high school to districts with higher-achieving high school students, and taking into account factors of parental education and racioethnicity, how do Suburban Chicagoland superintendents differ in their use of the following five sources of authority for leadership as defined by Sergiovanni: (1) Bureaucratic Authority, (2) Psychological Authority, (3) Technical-Rational Authority, (4) Professional Authority, (5) Moral Authority? This study utilized a sequential explanatory mixed methodology. Participants included six superintendents from the 71 districts in suburban Chicago that include high schools. Three of these superintendents led districts where student achievement is exceeding projections and three led districts where student achievement is not meeting projections. Participation in the study was voluntary and included the completion of a Letter of Cooperation, a Letter of Consent, and a 60-minute interview with the researcher consisting of open-ended questions. The subsequent data collected from the superintendents\u27 interviews was triangulated with community-aligned student achievement data as well as Sergiovanni\u27s five sources of authority. This study concluded that community-aligned student achievement data predicted 93.6% of the variance in student achievement as measured by the ACT composite score. Additionally while superintendents used all of Sergiovanni\u27s sources of authority with different audiences, superintendents who used moral authority in decision-making that directly impacted the classroom had a positive and measureable impact on student achievement

The place of Wales: Staging place in contemporary Welsh drama in English.

This thesis discusses discursive constructions of place, which are seen to largely replace essentialist constructions of place, in contemporary Welsh drama in English (1979-2003). Place is seen as a particularly important structural element both of constructing reality in Wales and of replicating that reality in the theatre. The relatively new critical shift towards an interest in place in Western cultural criticism contributes, it is argued, to a new 'structure of feeling' (Raymond Williams) in the writing of new Welsh plays in the English language. The first chapter deals with the way in which the literary realistic paradigm, which had dominated Welsh playwriting in English from the beginning of the twentieth century, is slowly being superseded by other, often non-realistic, forms of representation. The second chapter deals with selected plays of Die Edwards. It interrogates the innovative ways this playwright constructs place and uses language to represent his highly politicised reading of Welsh reality. The third chapter focuses on selected plays written on historical themes and place. The chapter interrogates motivations to write history drama and the different forms history plays have taken in recent Welsh drama in English. The fourth chapter deals with gendered readings of place. Selected plays and two performances are discussed on the basis of a reading of Luce Irigaray's theory of 'woman as place.' The final chapter approaches place from a theoretical angle that unites the postcolonial paradigm and the new concept of sustainability. It is argued that, despite the shortcomings of the central tenets of postcolonial theory when applied to Wales, the framework of postcolonial theory offers valuable new ways of reading place in Welsh drama in English. A bibliography is attached