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This thesis sought to gain critical insights into Algerian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students' lived experiences, challenges and hopes of learning about research methodology and writing dissertations at master's level. Within Algerian universities, master's EFL students are expected to conduct a piece of independent research and write an MA dissertation demonstrating multidisciplinary contents and research skills which they acquire during both their BA and MA programmes. However, according to many scholarly local studies, master's students studying towards a degree in English Language Education encounter several challenges which hinder their dissertation progress despite previous research learning inputs. A decolonising methodology grounded in an Indigenous approach was adopted in order to avoid perpetuating 'otherness', but rather position participants as research collaborators and educators who can shape the research selection, design, analysis and production of knowledge. In fact, twenty-five students and eleven research methodology lecturers were invited to unpack their lived experiences and critically reflect upon assumptions, attitudes and paradigms shaping research methodology teaching and learning within and beyond classrooms. To reach such aim, participant-observation was used to gain an in-depth insight into the daily learning and teaching experiences of the participants, followed by a series of conversational interviews to explore into more depth the nuanced experiences of the knowledge-holders. The findings reveal a multi-dimensional picture. They show the multiple challenges which the students encountered over the course of their research learning and dissertation stage. Furthermore, these challenges were critically analysed based on both macro and micro levels revealing issues of teacher-student power dynamics, voice, the social and cultural reproduction within and beyond classrooms and the nature of the overall learning and teaching practices which were grounded in knowledge transmission. To analyse such major themes, Freire's Critical Pedagogy (CP) and other critical ideas advanced by some key luminaries such as Biesta, Bourdieu, or Giroux were utilised to provide a pluriversal critical analysis of the accounts. In light of the findings, the study demonstrates implications for lecturers and universities as well as recommendations for future research. The thesis also provides reflexive accounts regarding the tensions and intents of doing a critical and decolonising work.

This study articulates the journey, across more than six decades, of one black woman from birth through schooling to international school leadership. The purpose of the study is to open a debate about the challenges faced by women of colour in leadership roles in international schooling to be seen and heard. This is necessary firstly because it is only in the last decade that women of colour have started to be deliberately seen and heard in these roles, and secondly because the matter of colour and gender has largely been invisible in the decolonisation of leadership within international schooling. This act of invisibilisation undermines the perspectives of black women. It can therefore be argued that if such perspectives remain absent from the discourse, the decolonisation of leadership in international schooling cannot begin. This study introduces the reader to the role silence and invisibility play in international school leadership. Using the methodology of autoethnography, I am able to explore decolonisation through personal and professional narratives and show how these narratives uncover the role of silence and invisibility in a life led and attempts to illuminate the drive to decolonise international schools, from the perspective of one woman of colour. The narratives that are structured across the four phases that cover four distinct periods: 1. Colonial period and early life in Guiana (1956-1968) 2. United Kingdom: student and early career (1968-1981) 3. International career in schools and beyond (1981-2010) 4. Return to Europe and beyond (2010-2021).