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Education is facing many challenges in a time of globalization and technological progress, including the responsibility to prepare generations capable of keeping pace with the requirements of the modern era. Therefore, tools and support are required to enable the students to obtain and develop several competencies, such as using language for communication and participation in academic discourse. There has been very limited research into impact on students' learning in KSA in general and on learning algebra in particular; although, it is widely assumed that CLIL has a positive impact on students' language competences. Therefore, this study focuses mainly on CLIL as a pedagogical approach and its impact on simultaneously learning both content (algebra) and language (English) on students' conceptual understanding and language proficiency. The questions addressed by the present study are as follows; (1) What kinds of difficulties do female Saudi students in Prince Mohammed bin Fahd University (PMU) encounter in learning Introductory Algebra? (2) What kind of impact does a pedagogical approach that integrates language and algebra learning have on students' learning? (3) What are the female Saudi students' perceptions of the new learning approach? A mixed-method design was implemented to collect and analyze data in three phases; pre-intervention, intervention, and post-intervention phase. The study sample comprised one group of an Introductory Algebra class. The study group (SG) was receiving instructions using a CLIL instructional model. The content of documents, such as HW, CW, test and exam papers were analyzed to learn about the kind of challenges that students encounter in learning algebra. Tasks and learning conversations were two of the essential sources of data that aimed to answer the first research question. Additionally, students were tested in the pre- and post-intervention phases for score comparisons to learn about the impact on the pedagogical approach on students' conceptual understanding and linguistic proficiency. Similarly, the means of the students' responses to the Likert Scale items were compared in the pre- and post intervention phases. The last part of the post-intervention questionnaire was designed to provide data about the students' perception of the used instructional approach. Data analysis revealed that female Saudi students were mainly encountering three types of difficulties that included; conceptual, linguistic, and cultural difficulties. The findings also suggested that the pedagogical approach had positive impacts on students' conceptual understanding of algebra and had the potential of improving their academic language. Moreover, students had a positive perception of the instructional approach and they were open to new and modern approaches of learning. The study evolves a pedagogic model for CLIL approaches in specific mathematical contexts Saudi tertiary contexts which could be further developed to include other subjects and contexts in the future.

The collected papers represent a coherent body of research which enquired into a particular moment of educational reform in the Adult Literacies field in Scotland. The research is conceptualised as bricolage - an emergent process employing a variety of research methods and analytic frameworks to enquire into the reification of ‘the social practice approach', which, following the Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland (ALNIS) report of 2001, became a central tenet of adult literacies education in Scotland. Seemingly derived from the New Literacy Studies (NLS), the concept of ‘the social practice approach' implies a critical pedagogy. Its prominence in the discourses of adult education in Scotland might indicate critical practice. This research indicates otherwise. Appropriated by policy and practitioners within a web of power relations, the discourse of ‘the social practice approach' may have come to act on practice in ways which are antithetical to its theoretical origins. The research illuminates a complex process of transformation in an apparently radical educational discourse.

This thesis reports on an evaluation of competence-based vocational education practice in Scotland, with particular reference to Scottish Vocational Qualifications. The research was undertaken between 1996-1999 and included a national survey of higher level SVQ students in Scotland, an analysis of national database on N/SVQs and case study research with providers and students. It was found that participation in the 'new vocationalism' was highly gender patterned, had little impact on education and training targets and was skewed in favour of particular awards and occupational groups. The criterion-based assessment methodology proved more time-consuming for the students than the staff, with the emphasis on producing paper-based portfolios of evidence. A particular concern emerging from the research was the superficial nature of learning taking place on competence-based vocational education programmes and the role of the Local Enterprise Companies. These findings are discussed in the context of the growth in 'outcome-based' approaches to education adopted by policy makers in Scotland. It is argued that the narrow instrumentalist employer-led standards used to underpin education practice are ill-suited to developing a highly skilled professional workforce for the next century.