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This thesis is a critical edition of William Sampson's mid-seventeenth-century play, The Vow Breaker, or The Fair Maid of Clifton, edited according to the guidelines set down by the Revels Plays Series. The Introduction is divided into ten sections: William Sampson; performance; synopsis; the siege of Leith; navigation of the Trent; other seventeenth-century vow breakers; the significance of The Fair Maid of Clifton; genre; the 1636 text; Hans Wallrath. In addition, there is a full textual collation and details of editorial procedures. The play itself is presented in a fully modernised version. There is a full Commentary with index, and a bibliography. In the Appendix there is a facsimile of the Bodleian copy of The Vow Breaker and a map suggesting Sampson's connection with the counties of Nottingham and Derby. This is the first modem edition of The Vow Breaker and is supported by a full Commentary. The Introduction supplements that of Hans Wallrath of 1914 and brings together in one place all the other information that I have been able to find about the play and its contexts. My thesis makes this little-known play accessible to modem readers and enables some, at least, of its original meanings and resonances to be recovered. In addition, I have produced a text that might be usable to anyone who wished to stage a performance.

STEM Schools purport to prepare students to learn and work in the 21st Century by providing students with innovative learning experiences through the interdisciplinary integration of science, technology, engineering, and math (Tsupros, 2009). Advocates of STEM and innovative school models argue that the traditional school system does not and cannot prepare students for the global or innovative economy (Wagner, 2010; Zhao, 2012). The purpose of this study was to research not only how STEM Schools are innovative but how an evaluative tool can be constructed and administered to determine a school's Taxonomy of Innovation. A multiple case-study was the appropriate method (Yin, 2014). As there is a lack of qualitative research regarding innovation in STEM Schools, this is the first study to determine how the degree of innovation in school design-school culture can be qualified. Additionally, the research design supported the development of the nomenclature to simultaneously deconstruct and synthesize the components and elements in each school, specifically, its school design-school culture (Smith, 2012), in order to determine the degree of innovation. Employing Zhao's (2012) 36 innovative indicators for world class education, the methodology relied on interviews, frameworks, and school artifacts. A case report for each school and a cross-case analysis provided the data for comparative analysis. The findings in the cross-case analysis indicated that STEM Schools are Mixed STEM Schools, traditional and innovative. The most innovative element was Product-based Learning. The most innovative components were Beliefs, Standards, Teachers, STEM, Community, Strength-based: Unique and Local, Authentic Products, Sustained and Disciplined Process, Personalization, and Mentoring. The components of Student Voice, Choice, Support, Global Orientation, Global Competence and the elements, Student Autonomy, and Global Campus were traditional. The Core of the Taxonomy of Innovation at the base of the U Path process, adapted from Senge's (2012) organizational theory and U Theory (Scharmer, 2009), part of the researcher's evaluative tool, recommends an upward move on the U Path so schools can challenge barriers to innovation, in order to repurpose, and develop the Core of Innovation, providing students with an innovative world class education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This thesis examines Gaelscoileanna in terms of the socio-historical, political, and ideological contexts from which the movement emerges, and their place in contemporary Irish society. Employing ‘machine theory’, the project examines the movement as both the product of, and also productive of power, desire, and competing social realities. Chapter one examines the position of the Irish language in Education throughout history, focussing on the marginalisation of the language, and current disparities of policy and practice that persist today. Gaelscoileanna emerge in response to the marginalisation of the Irish language in Education. Gaelscoileanna are both produced by and productive of social machinations involving power and desire, emerging to facilitate the reproduction of an Irish language community, not catered to by the state. Through ethnographic interviews, the emergence of Gaelscoileanna, and the structural barriers to their emergence, is examined. Chapter two explores the rationale for the discrepancies in State language policy that has provided Gaelscoileanna their impetus. Employing a cross-cultural, post-Colonial comparison, it is argued that the imperial structure of Irish education has been maintained as a means of legitimising the State, by producing citizens to the state. In so doing, the rationale for the marginalisation of the Irish language has also been maintained. In this way, it is argued that Gaelscoileanna represent an indigenous movement reacting against cultural imperialism, rather than a minority language initiative struggling against language shift. Gaelscoileanna represent a démocratisation of education, demanding the decentralisation of the primary means of socialisation - education - from state to people. This implies that the subjectivities created in Gaelscoileanna differ, then, from those produced by the state. The third chapter examines the transformation of education in ideological terms, exploring Gaelscoil subjectivity and the production and reproduction thereof, language acquisition, innovation and ownership. Thus, the production and products of Gaelscoileanna are examined, in the machine of their production.