The Future of Self-Governing, Thriving Democracies

This book offers a new approach for the future of democracy by advocating giving citizens the power to deliberate and to decide how to govern themselves. Innovatively building on and integrating components of representative, deliberative and participatory theories of democracy with empirical findings, the book provides practices and procedures that support communities of all sizes to develop their own visions of democracy. It re-vitalizes and re-infuses the ‘democratic spirit’ going back to the roots of democracy as an endeavour by, with and for the people, and should inspire us in our search for the democracy we want to live in. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in democracy, democratic innovations, deliberation, civic education, and governance and further for policy-makers, civil society groups and activists. It encourages us to reshape democracy based on citizens’ perspectives, aspirations, and preferences

Women, adult education and really useful knowledge : an essay concerning feminist pedagogy, epistemology, research, etc.

The thesis offers a post hoc account of three pieces of research relating to women's adult education which were camed out by the author over a penod of about fifteen years. In the process the thesis engages with a number of themes and issues in and around feminist theory and practite and adult education theory and practice. Radical traditions in adult education - particularly femimst-inspired traditions - are examined as spaces for the democratic production of "really useful knowledge". Changing meanings of feminist research and radical adult education are explored, as is the relationship between abstract knowledge and everyday knowledge. Developments in feminist epistemology are drawn on and related to a social justice agenda for adult education Through a critique of my own practice. I suggest that feminists and adult educators are well-placed to pursue a democratising project geared to including previously excluded groups in the production of legitimated knowledge. The thesis argues that we need to develop an understanding of our practices which combines historical, contextual understandings with an appreciation of what changed social and cultural conditions mean for the pursuit of any democratic knowledge-producing project

The Future of Self-Governing, Thriving Democracies

This book offers a new approach for the future of democracy by advocating giving citizens the power to deliberate and to decide how to govern themselves. Innovatively building on and integrating components of representative, deliberative and participatory theories of democracy with empirical findings, the book provides practices and procedures that support communities of all sizes to develop their own visions of democracy. It re-vitalizes and re-infuses the ‘democratic spirit’ going back to the roots of democracy as an endeavour by, with and for the people, and should inspire us in our search for the democracy we want to live in. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in democracy, democratic innovations, deliberation, civic education, and governance and further for policy-makers, civil society groups and activists. It encourages us to reshape democracy based on citizens’ perspectives, aspirations, and preferences

A genealogical examination of curriculum-assessment as governmentality in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Massey University, Manawatū Campus New Zealand

This doctoral thesis with four publications examines the implementation of curriculum and assessment, as globally-driven standards-based reform (SBR) in Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ). Drawing on Michel Foucault’s ‘toolbox’ and his genealogical methodology, it traces and contextualises the discursive basis of curriculum-assessment as neoliberal governmentality policies. From 1989, a policy chronology spanning three governments, analyses how governmentality inserts economics into the management of people, society and governance. As a rationalisation regime, curriculum-assessment facilitated economic efficiencies and the achievement of official objectives by enabling ‘things’, people and the future to be steered in certain ways. Governmentality policies also nurture the making of particular kinds of people who will to support official objectives. Comprising four key chapters, the thesis details the discursive ‘beginnings’ and emergence of an assessment-driven curriculum intended to boost ANZ’s global competitiveness. The failure of teacher-implemented national standards to produce reliable measurement by 1999, enabled the implementation of highly interventionist policies during the 2000s. A standardised curriculum and data-driven teaching strengthened schools as centres of calculation. The genealogy then examines two curriculum programmes designed to increase achievement and make people more self-governing and responsible. A school-parent literacy partnership (2004) taught parent-teachers to boost children’s learning through home activities. Similarly, assessment change through National Standards (2011) nurtured responsible, future-focused and calculative learners and parents. Increasing the educational outcomes of the population was part of increasing its overall health, welfare and productivity. The study illustrates how personal responsibility is now the main technique for developing more enterprising, self-governing and calculative individuals under governmentality. These biopolitical programmes, nurture desire in people to ‘freely’ re-make their bodies, skills, aspirations, emotions and living practices aligned to preferred models of the individual, culture and social relations. This involves re-moralising one’s inner life, and changing relationships with selves, families and the state. The study maps how governmentality commodifies and economises bodies and minds in the service of economic government. It confirms the usefulness of genealogically examining governmentality through this deeper, multidimensional lens and its ‘interpretative analytics’. This approach enables the uncovering of the politico-economic and cultural-socio purposes of education policy under neoliberalism

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe overall objective of this project is to develop methods that can help us to understand the movement of drugs and carriers along their routes inside solid tumors. The origins and current paradigm of targeted drug delivery offer a lot of promising strategies. However, the carriers often struggle with challenges in optimizing their own characteristics against that of the tumor's. Ultimately, they struggle with translation into the clinical setting. It is apparent that solid tumors pose a unique challenge in drug delivery. Many drug carrier characteristics are designed to take advantage of the pathophysiology of the tumor environment. However, this passive delivery and accumulation is constrained to partial distribution within the tumor. Many uncertainties remain regarding how nanoparticles enter and travel through the tumor environment. The barriers to intratumoral distribution are still currently being probed. The research herein identified transport barriers using human fibroid tumors known to have impaired drug transport. After perfusing human uteri containing fibroids with stains, probe distribution was found to correlate with features of the pathophysiology such as blood vessel characteristics, tissue and collagen density, interstitial fluid pressure, and solid stress. Methods, including custom MATLAB code, were developed to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution of two uniquely fluorescent nanoparticle doses in xenograft mice. It shows how three-dimensional distance measurements of nanoparticles from nearest blood vessels are more precise than two-dimensional measurements. Colocalization analysis on the fluorescent signals showed the two different doses (administered hours apart from each other) did not accumulate in the same locations with the tumor. Furthermore, intravital imaging showed that some vessels of the tumor would only provide access to the first dose of nanoparticles. Future work suggests further analysis of multidose interdependence and implementing these methods to screen strategies in the literature of modifying drug carriers and the tumor environment to improve intratumoral distribution of cancer drugs. The more understanding we have of the solid tumor environment and its barriers, the better we can navigate treatments to reach the tumor

Challenges for engineering students working with authentic complex problems

Engineers are important participants in solving societal, environmental and technical problems. However, due to an increasing complexity in relation to these problems new interdisciplinary competences are needed in engineering. Instead of students working with monodisciplinary problems, a situation where students work with authentic complex problems in interdisciplinary teams together with a company may scaffold development of new competences. The question is: What are the challenges for students structuring the work on authentic interdisciplinary problems? This study explores a three-day event where 7 students from Aalborg University (AAU) from four different faculties and one student from University College North Denmark (UCN), (6th-10th semester), worked in two groups at a large Danish company, solving authentic complex problems. The event was structured as a Hackathon where the students for three days worked with problem identification, problem analysis and finalizing with a pitch competition presenting their findings. During the event the students had workshops to support the work and they had the opportunity to use employees from the company as facilitators. It was an extracurricular activity during the summer holiday season. The methodology used for data collection was qualitative both in terms of observations and participants’ reflection reports. The students were observed during the whole event. Findings from this part of a larger study indicated, that students experience inability to transfer and transform project competences from their previous disciplinary experiences to an interdisciplinary setting