Search

This research examines the extent to which inequality persists and is reproduced in the education system in Northern Ireland for children of the Irish-medium education sector. Irish-medium Education (IME), despite being a thriving sector of education in Northern Ireland, remains marginalised, while the benefits of immersion education continue to be overlooked as a result of political and communal disdain towards the language in a post-conflict society. A plethora of educational and linguistic research exists illustrating the distinct advantages of immersion education, through which a child is not only able to acquire proficiency in other languages, but also develop extensive cognitive and decoding capabilities applicable to other subjects. Notwithstanding this, a strong correlation also persists between special-educational needs (SEN) and children from socio-economic deprived area in which most Irish-medium institutions are located in the Northern Irish Education Sector as I will demonstrate in this thesis. Given the youth of the sector and being established through the height of civil unrest during the Troubles, there is a lack of research on good practice with regard to SEN provision in Irish-medium Education (IME). IME and Irish Language Rights are contested subjects in the current political situation of Northern Ireland, and I seek to determine to which degree SEN students in IME being are supported, included and considered as equal to their monolingual English-speaking peers. I explore and assess the current facilities and resources being provided for SEN in IME mainstream schools at primary and post-primary levels through interviews and focus groups with students, parents, school staff and departmental bodies to signify where improvements could be made. I compare the current provision for IME to provision for SEN in other Immersion Educational settings in the United Kingdom. In this research, I apply Bourdieu and Passeron's (1970) theoretical framework of reproduction to assess the extent to which inequality and inequity persists in the Northern Irish education sector, particularly in relation to children in the Irish-medium Education sector and those with additional educational, emotional, behavioural and learning needs. I analyse the Northern Irish education sector using the theoretical tools of Field, Habitus and Capital, and how the concept of symbolic violence permeates Northern Irish society through various class systems and the education sector resultant upon the deficient attitudes towards the Irish language. For the data collection section of this research, I employ a Participatory Action Research Approach within my research methodology with the establishment of three Youth Participatory Advisory Groups who assisted me in the research design of this study. Participatory Action Research strives to give voice to marginalised groups in society and presents them with the opportunity to express their testimonies as experts of their lived experience. The research study comprises of 12 semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions. This research study took place during the height of the Covid-19 Health Pandemic of March 2020 and had a severe methodological impact on the data collection of this thesis. The research participants in this study, whilst offering unwavering support for the Irish promotion of the Irish language in a divided society, also give insight to the shortcomings of their experiences with respect to both educational provision and societal acceptance of the language. I conclude that the reproductive nature of inequality of the education system in Northern Ireland deeply impacts the Irish-medium sector with respect to language rights and provision. I recommend that linguistic services, resources, facilities and legislation should be addressed in order to provide a pathway to equality for the Irish language in Northern Irish society.

The inclusion of student voices in pedagogical practice has been on educational agendas for decades. Nevertheless, student voices remain excluded. Situated within the philosophy of education, this conceptual study constructs a theoretical account that provides one way to understand why student voices in higher education are excluded from pedagogical practice. Using the literature from decolonial thinking and the epistemology of testimony to decolonize Miranda Fricker's (2007) account of epistemic injustice, this thesis examines the role of knowledge in epistemic practices and how it functions in higher education testimony to dominate, silence, and obscure student voices.

Online learning has been reported to be increasingly used within Chinese higher education. The rapid expansion has created a problem that it's difficult to carry out real-time learner interaction among a great number of students. The pure online instruction made the existing problems in university EFL teaching even worse, such as 'teacher-centred' instruction, student's low learning motivation and low level of class participation. There is a need to develop pedagogies in EFL teaching in China to meet expanding demand and solve the problems. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the integration of cooperative learning (CL) into online EFL curriculum to facilitate learner interactions, bring about meaningful learning together and research its influence on learner writing proficiency. To be specific, it was to explore whether online cooperative learning (OCL) with elements of Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) could actually manifest during learning and teaching online and whether there may be initial evidence that OCL could be effective at raising EFL learners' writing attainment. A researcher-designed online writing curriculum was delivered to 17 university students in nine weeks, once per week for 90 minutes each session. The course, named Step by Step University Writing Skills, was composed of 12 topics, aiming to develop learner's skills of writing a sentence, writing a paragraph and writing an argumentative essay step by step. Learning tasks using CL techniques Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share (TPS), Random Reporter, Assigning group roles (AGR), were assigned in each session for the learners to practice the teaching contents in groups. The Questionnaire-Scale of 'Learner Experience & Perception on Cooperative Learning' was used to assess the learners' prior knowledge of CL, their previous experience of CL and their attitudes toward CL before they took the OCL course. Learners' writing proficiency tests were taken twice before and after the course as the pre-test and the post-test to measure the potential impact of OCL pedagogy iii (notwithstanding that this was a modelling trial and did not use a control group). Learners' online cooperative interactions were video-recorded, transcribed and analyzed qualitatively to investigate the evidence of SIT in CL online. A post-course questionnaire was given after the intervention to find out learners' perceptions of the impact of CL implemented in the study. As this was a small modelling trial, the study was not powered to detect the effectiveness of the intervention. Rather, it was to explore the feasibility of CL pedagogies be used in online curriculum for EFL learners. The analysis showed that CL with elements of SIT can be identified in learner online interactions. Learners' writing attainment was improved after the course. The conclusion was that CL activities could be designed into an online course with EFL students; students reported that using the OCL pedagogies was an acceptable way to learn; that the technique could be scaled up to a larger sample. The study provided evidence on how OCL worked and how the online pedagogy was structured for CL to work. It presented a good theoretical model for planning and structuring CL activities online with EFL students. The study offered a basis to conduct a larger effectiveness study of the OCL. The findings in this study contributed to the existing literature on online cooperative language learning and CL in EFL instruction. Besides, it combined the cooperative skills into the curriculum contents, which contributed greatly to the higher education practice from the social dimension. In doing so, it offered an opportunity to make a positive contribution to the higher education reform in China.

This study is about the integration of interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology in school-based mathematics education in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). While there is a growing body of knowledge in integration of IWB technology in teacher pedagogy and its impact on student attainment in schools in the Saudi context, gaps in our knowledge still remain. Whilst the barriers to using IWB technology in schools-based education have been explored by earlier researchers in Saudi Arabia, processes of change in professional action of teachers has seldom being addressed. This study explored the factors that facilitate and obstruct teacher change in the incorporation of IWB into their pedagogical practice. This study sought to understand the reasons behind resistance by teachers in using IWB. In addition, this study aimed to understand and explore how two different school organisational setting, public and private international schools, implement the policy of using IWB. The differential outcomes of teacher change in incorporating IWB use and the efforts of school administration to overcome the barriers to change in public and private international schools are explored. This study used two theoretical frameworks to analyse processes of teacher change. Fullan's Theory of change with merit which gives seven parameters for change to occur, is used to analyse the factors facilitating/ obstructing change. Howard's Risk-aversion framework is used to analyse why teachers resist the integration of IWB technology in mathematics education. This study also conducted an evidence synthesis to analyse evidence and gaps in knowledge regarding the impact of IWB instruction on mathematical attainment. The benefits of ICT in education and the use of IWB in mathematics has been recognised by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and it has made budgetary provisions to implement the use of IWB in education. The Saudi government has been prioritising educational development for the last fifty years. Improvement in education was sought by taking structured approaches, such as revising the curriculum and introducing technology to facilitate and enhance learning and teaching. Furthermore, continuous professional development programmes were undertaken to enable the teachers to adopt new technologies in education. However, the use of ICT in education in KSA is in its nascent stage. Even though the importance of IWB as an effective tool with the potential to revolutionise classroom instruction has been widely recognised, it remains underused in KSA. This study was conducted in the capital city of KSA, Riyadh. Six public schools and six private international schools were selected for study. This study used qualitative interviewing and classroom observations to collect the data. The interviewee sample comprises of 40 participants in total. Two of whom were high-ranking officials from the MoE. The remaining interviews were conducted with 13 representatives of the school leadership team and 25 mathematics teachers drawn from across the six public schools and six international private schools. Classroom observations were undertaken in 12 classrooms (six in public schools and six in private international schools) to assess how students responded to the use of IWBs in the classroom and to triangulate findings from interviews against observed classroom practices. Findings suggested that the full integration of IWB technology in mathematics education in Saudi Arabia is still aa process in development. The conditions for change as defined by Fullen are often not met, and there was evidence of resistance to change of teachers to the integration of IWB technology in mathematics education. This study concludes by making recommendations for policy and practice in teaching and learning in respect of integration and optimisation of IWB technology in schools in KSA. The limitations of the study are also explored.

Current educational policies based upon accountability measures and evaluation practices have been given considerable attention throughout the education system. The two-sided approach is to ensure and enhance educational quality with an increased emphasis on school improvement. The aim of this study was to find out if a coeducational secondary school is meeting the requirements as detailed within the school improvement agenda. The motivation for the study was to investigate if student performance data would provide a model of progress for school improvement. It focused on student outcomes at the end of five years of their secondary education. The data was also used to evaluate the impact of a critical incident when the school was placed in the Formal Intervention Process following a school inspection. The research design is that of a quantitative study which guided the procedure for data analysis. The nature and structure of the data enabled two approaches to be undertaken to judge if improvement in standards had occurred over the five years. The first approach examined data of students within year-groups. It was an important indicator of the impact that the inspection had on teaching and learning and reflected on the work required when the school was placed in the Formal Intervention Process. For the second approach the data was partitioned into pre- and post- the intervention measures to find if there was improvement after planned actions were introduced. The numerical analysis used multiple regression and multi-level modelling software. The hierarchical data structure enabled the construct of multi-level models which partition variance in student outcomes to demonstrate if progress had been made at different levels. The data showed that there was a statistically significant effect on improvement in student attainment. It confirmed that the performance of individuals had a greater impact than their cohort which means that students take responsibility for their own learning and are not reliant on the characteristics of their year-group. The intervention measures which were embedded in a Theory of Change had a positive impact on student outcomes across the curriculum.

In the mainland of the United Kingdom (UK), primary and post-primary attainment trends according to a pupil’s demographic profile and school level factors are well documented. However, when examining the Northern Ireland context, less is known due to the lack of available data for analysis. As Northern Ireland reflects a somewhat unique cultural, historical and political landscape, studies from the rest of the UK cannot be relied upon to fully understand the effects of socio-demographics and school factors on attainment trends in Northern Ireland. This study aimed to address the gap in the current literature by executing quantitative analysis on the first dataset in Northern Ireland to combine the Census (2011), School Leavers Survey (2010-2014) and School Census (2010-2014). Multilevel modelling examined the effects of sociodemographics and school factors on GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) attainment in Northern Ireland, namely socio-economic status (measured through eight indicators), religion, gender and school type. The data used for analysis provided the first opportunity in Northern Ireland to examine attainment trends for three whole population cohorts who sat their GCSEs in consecutive academic years (2010/2011, 2011/2012, 2012/2013). The data also provided an opportunity to examine socio-economic measures (namely maternal qualifications, paternal qualifications, maternal occupational status, housing tenure, property value and the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (2010) for income) that had not previously been available for analysis in educational research in Northern Ireland. When examining the within model effects, the analysis found attending a grammar school had the greatest effect on GCSE attainment, followed by gender (in favour of females). The socio-economic factors of a mother’s and a father’s education qualifications (degree level qualification), free school meal entitlement and housing tenure (residing in a privately owned property) reflected the highest socio-economic effects within analysis. This study also found religion had a varying effect on GCSE attainment. Most notably, the attainment difference between Catholic and Protestant pupils was negligible. Interaction terms were also executed to examine the multiplicative effects of factors on GCSE attainment, which is currently limited in Northern Ireland. As attainment patterns can be understood in various ways using different perspectives, two theories were used throughout to consolidate our understanding. Social identity theory predominantly explained attainment trends according to religion, gender and school type, whilst Bourdieu’s (1986, 1984) concepts of capital and habitus were predominantly used to understand the effects of socioeconomic status and school type. Based upon the findings, this thesis addressed current gaps in the literature and provided direction for future research and policy interested in educational attainment according to socio-economic status, religion, gender and school type, especially in the Northern Ireland context.