11,687 research outputs found
Mobile Arts for Peace: Small Grants Evaluation Report
The Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) project is an international study that seeks to provide a comparative approach to peace-building utilising interdisciplinary arts-based practices, working with communities in Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Rwanda (see figure 1.1). This research was commissioned by the project lead organisation, the University of Lincoln, and has been delivered by the University of Northamptonâs Institute for Social Innovation and Impact (see Appendix A for research biographies). This report focuses on the Small Grants awarded across the four countries, and acts as a follow-up to the Phase One Report that was produced in the winter of 2021. The delivery of the Small Grants projects has taken place over the last 12 months across the above four countries, and this report seeks to demonstrate, through a narrative case-study approach, how the Small Grants work delivered has promoted arts-based peacebuilding and supported community cohesion. The research reported in this document took place between February and October 2022 and focused on the below research aim and four key research questions. Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of the MAP Small Grants projects and understand their impact in communities. Specifically: 1. What outputs were delivered through the Small Grants projects? 2. What outcomes for beneficiaries/stakeholders were delivered through the Small Grants projects? 3. What impacts delivered for communities and societies across the four countries were delivered through the Small Grants projects? The report is structured as follows: first, the methodological approach undertaken in the evaluation will be presented; second, the case-studies across the four countries will be presented and discussed, utilising data gathered by the in-country research teams and the arts-based outputs produced; third, the findings will be summarised, with specific recommendations also made for the implications related to the MAP Large Grant evaluation projects and the recently awarded MAP Medium Grant projects. References and Appendices can also be found at the end of the report
Exploring the Training Factors that Influence the Role of Teaching Assistants to Teach to Students With SEND in a Mainstream Classroom in England
With the implementation of inclusive education having become increasingly valued over the years, the training of Teaching Assistants (TAs) is now more important than ever, given that they work alongside pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (hereinafter SEND) in mainstream education classrooms. The current study explored the training factors that influence the role of TAs when it comes to teaching SEND students in mainstream classrooms in England during their one-year training period. This work aimed to increase understanding of how the training of TAs is seen to influence the development of their personal knowledge and professional skills. The study has significance for our comprehension of the connection between the TAsâ training and the quality of education in the classroom. In addition, this work investigated whether there existed a correlation between the teaching experience of TAs and their background information, such as their gender, age, grade level taught, years of teaching experience, and qualification level.
A critical realist theoretical approach was adopted for this two-phased study, which involved the mixing of adaptive and grounded theories respectively. The multi-method project featured 13 case studies, each of which involved a trainee TA, his/her college tutor, and the classroom teacher who was supervising the trainee TA. The analysis was based on using semi-structured interviews, various questionnaires, and non-participant observation methods for each of these case studies during the TAâs one-year training period. The primary analysis of the research was completed by comparing the various kinds of data collected from the participants in the first and second data collection stages of each case. Further analysis involved cross-case analysis using a grounded theory approach, which made it possible to draw conclusions and put forth several core propositions. Compared with previous research, the findings of the current study reveal many implications for the training and deployment conditions of TAs, while they also challenge the prevailing approaches in many aspects, in addition to offering more diversified, enriched, and comprehensive explanations of the critical pedagogical issues
Investigating critical thinking in higher education in Latin America: Acknowledging an epistemic disjuncture
Critical thinking (CT) in higher education (HE) has been widely investigated in Western countries. Most of the research on CT has conceived it as a higher order thinking skill with implications for learning processes. CT has also been connected with critical pedagogies, an approach that seems particularly attuned with the Latin American region. Through a systematic literature review, this article maps the scholarship on CT in HE in Latin America (LATAM). Findings point to a local character of the research on CT that heavily relies on cognitive psychology traditions. It is proposed that the scholarship on CT in LATAM is characterised by an epistemic disjuncture that favours theories and methodologies produced in the Global North overshadowing well-recognised traditions of critical pedagogies in the region. We conclude that research on CT in the region is missing an opportunity to develop powerful features that are especially fitting for LATAMâs geo-historic context
A qualitative study about first year studentsâ experiences of transitioning to higher education and available academic support resources
Successfully transitioning students to higher education is a complex problem that challenges institutions internationally. Unsuccessful transitions have wide ranging implications that include both social and financial impacts for students and the universities. There appears to be a paucity in the literature that represents student perspectives on their transition experiences. This research study aimed to do two things: first to better understand the transition experience and use of academic support services from the student perspective and second to provide strategies for facilitating a more effective transition experience based on student discussions.
This research explores the experiences of primarily non-traditional students at one institution in Australia. Data collection involved two phases using a yarning circle approach. The first involved participants in small unstructured yarning circles where they were given the opportunity to speak freely about their transition experience and their use of academic support services. This was then followed by a larger yarning circle that was semi-structured to explore some of the themes from the small yarning circles more fully. The yarning circle data was analysed using Braun and Clarkeâs (2006) six-steps of thematic analysis.
The analysis indicated that participants felt that the available academic support services did not meet their needs. It also provided insight into how the students approach higher education and what they are seeking from their institution by means of support. One major finding that has the potential to impact transition programs around the world is that older non-traditional students appear to approach higher education as they would a new job. This shifts the lens away from the traditional transition program of social integration to one that uses workplace induction strategies as a form of integration. The recommendations from this study also include recognising and accepting the emotions associated with transitioning to higher education, reworking the transition strategies for non-traditional students and facilitating opportunities for engagement as opposed to providing them directly
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BY THE NUMBERS: HOW ACADEMIC CAPITALISM SHAPES GRADUATE STUDENT EXPERIENCES OF WORK AND TRAINING IN MATERIAL SCIENCES
The neoliberal reorganization of higher education has reshaped the research and education missions of university science. Much of the scholarship examining this shift focuses on faculty experiences. This dissertation centers the experiences of student scientists to explore: (1) how entrepreneurial universities manage marginal academic knowledge workers, including students, through processes that shift responsibility onto individual workers; (2) how universities use mechanisms like internships and Individual Development Plans to shift educational responsibilities onto students; and (3) how performances of masculinity in commercial spaces of university science contribute to durable gender inequalities among students under academic capitalism. Longitudinal qualitative methods were employed to understand how students experience years of training in an academic capitalist context. The data for the dissertation were collected during a five-year ethnography in two academic science sites, and include 60 interviews with academic faculty, staff, and student scientists.
Findings show how universities shift responsibilities for handling job market instabilities or the devalued aspects of education onto academic staff, postdocs, and students. Universities use accountability practices under the narrative that grad student scientists need to âtake ownershipâ of their education. Universities create structures channeling undergraduate students into industry internships. Many material science graduate students also express a desire for industry experience, but faculty reliance on graduate student labor in academic labs deters students from holding internships. Internship dynamics at both undergraduate and graduate levels reveal how students are commodified under academic capitalism. This dissertation also finds that men students are integrated into commercial spaces of academic science while women are excluded. These processes of gender inequality exclude women from innovation teams as well as from many resources available to commercially focused scientists
Exploring experiences of âinclusiveâ education in international schools from the perspective of parents who have children labeled with SEN/D
This thesis reports on a study that explored experiences of âinclusiveâ education in international schools from the perspective of parents who have children labeled with SEN/D. I interviewed ten parents who had enrolled their child with an SEN/D label in an international school in Amman, Jordan. I analyzed this data within a critical disability studies theoretical framework to highlight the relations to neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and ableism. This approach enabled an analysis of how parents revealed support for different ideas within disability studies. This analysis highlighted their contradictions and resistance to previous understandings of disability, inclusion, and SEN/D. I analyzed the data in relation to literature from three distinct fields of scholarship: disability studies, international schooling, and school choice literature. By bringing together these three divergent fields, a novel and significant contribution to knowledge forms. The purpose of bringing together these three fields, and completing this study using a critical disability studies theoretical framework, was to highlight the unique concerns of parents of children labeled with SEN/D within the international school market and the formative processes these parents experience in relation to their desire to school their children across âinclusiveâ international schools. The findings from the study indicate that while parents of SEN/D children do experience exclusion repeatedly across multiple international schools which market themselves as âinclusive,â they largely accept this as part of the process and believe that exclusion was a necessary part of international schools being inclusive
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