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Girls are expected to perform in certain ways in education and to become educational successes. However, there are girls who contravene this norm and become labelled as having the specific special educational needs of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD). They experience episodes of school exclusion and may be excluded from mainstream education altogether. The perspectives of these girls is largely missing from the literature. This thesis seeks to address this gap, representing findings from a two-year ethnographic research project undertaken at Kahlo, a specialist school for excluded girls. The school acted as a site from which to explore – with the aid of concepts from Bakhtin - the complexity of re-engaging girls with a label of BESD in learning. Focusing specifically on the stories of two of the students the thesis reports and reflects on data generated using methods designed to improve participation in research, including digital, visual and multimedia accounts from students and staff. Aspects of sensory ethnography enhanced understanding within the guiding themes of relationships and creative approaches to learning. Data generated from and with regards to the two students are included alongside the information from the material and discursive collage at Kahlo. The data emphasise how the flexibility associated with creative approaches to learning at Kahlo provided a personalised approach to learning in which the learner biography could be centred, supporting student engagement with learning activities. In this model of learning, relationships between staff and students shifted with a greater distribution of power and responsibility to the student. The desire for teachers to promote authentic interactions with students appeared more important than the methods used with regards to such in the classroom, although the affordances of the range of methodological approaches included in the research are discussed. The spaces opened up for student expression and communication of a range of identity performances enabled students to experience feeling cared for, and to subsequently reciprocate caring to staff and with regards to their learning activities.

The process of Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) identity formation is a complex one. There are many barriers in place which, implicitly or otherwise, seek to control and regulate same-sex attraction. An essential part of LGB identity formation is the process of disclosure to others, which can elicit a variety of reactions, from instant rejection to intense camaraderie. An examination of the ways in which LGB teenagers manage the visibility of their sexual identities, in the face of heterosexual control and regulation, will have profound implications for the work of those professionals who work with these young people. Using a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach (Charmaz 2005, 2006), this study examines the experiences of 14-19 year old LGB teenagers concerning self-discovery, disclosure to others, coping with negative pressures and school responses to LGB visibility. Students, teachers and school managers were asked about the promotion of heterosexual and LGB-friendly assumptions and values in a school context. Thirty-five LGB young people were asked about how these assumptions had affected their lives. Some participants seemed able to manage anti-LGB pressures much better than others and, in order to determine why, participants were asked to identify the social, verbal and non-verbal strategies they have adopted in order to manage their LGB visibility in the face of these pressures. The emergent theory is entitled ‘A Constructivist model of LGB youth identity development’. By focusing on self-presentation and the management of homonegative pressures, this study highlights the need for a greater awareness of the ways in which LGB teenagers cope with social stigmatisation and manage disclosure in order to gauge the likely reactions from others. By developing an awareness of LGB visibility management, it will be possible for those who work with young LGB teenagers to circumvent some of the adverse interpersonal and psychological effects of homonegative stigmatisation.

This research was about the lived experience of caring for someone with dementia. Six informal carers of people with dementia were interviewed. The carers were defined as ‘informal’ as they were family and friends, and therefore unpaid. Five of the carers were women who had or were supporting their mothers, and one was a man, who had cared for a friend. Three carers identified as lesbian or gay. I wanted to hear the stories of a group that are generally neglected in research (Turnball, 2002). Carers are diverse with a range of needs, and I wished to discover if services were ‘gay friendly’ or implicitly heterosexist. In addition I wanted lesbian and gay carers’ stories to be heard and their contribution to be recognised. The research is important as there are an estimated 750,000 people living with dementia in the UK and 500,000 partners, family members and friends are involved in caring for someone with dementia at a value of £6 billion a year, if care was provided by health and social care services (Department of Health, 2009). The research method was biographical in relation to the participants’ caring role. It explored three areas: the experience of caring, coping approaches and encounters with health and social care services. The interviews with carers took place in 2010 and the cared for had, or were living in: London, Wales, south-east and north-west England. The theoretical perspective of the research was person centred (Kitwood, 1997) set within the legislative and social policy framework for carers. The data was analysed primarily through pre-determined codes arising from the interview schedule and Skills for Care ‘Core Principles for Carers’ (2010) but also searching for patterns within and across cases. The findings were that the carers did not experience the person with dementia as a burden, but contact with health and social services was often problematic due to the fragmentation of services, lack of one practitioner co-ordinating care, and an absence of knowledge about carers’ legal entitlements. In addition services adopted a medical model of care focusing on the dementia of the cared for with limited interest in the cared for or carer’s biography, consequently services were not person centred, or gay friendly. Carers’ commitment to the person with dementia was on a continuum between the obligations of kinship and unconditional love. Positive aspects in the relationships endured in particular humour and shared activities. The messages for practice were that health and social care practitioners require training in person centred practice, as well as the legislation and policy framework for carers. Personalisation of services provides opportunities for shifting services from a task centred to person centred approach, including the development of gay friendly services  .

This study, an action research project to promote the teaching of culturally and ethnically diverse history with history trainee teachers on a secondary postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) course, encompasses two complete action research cycles. The first of which was during the academic year 2007-2008 and the second in 2008-2009. It draws together research from the fields of diversity education, history education and trainee teacher development. Concerns about the ability of trainee teachers from white, monocultural backgrounds to embrace diversity in their classroom practice, not only within the United Kingdom but internationally, were identified during the reconnaissance stage of the action research cycle. Data collected from eight experienced teachers and a cohort of history trainees in 2006-2007 revealed a range of specific concerns and an action plan was created to infuse the history PGCE course to address these. Thus emphasis was placed on including culturally and ethnically diverse content to help trainee history teachers appreciate the values and purposes of the subject and the appropriateness of content to be taught. There was also an increased focus on subject knowledge development, pedagogy and awareness of the impact of the history curriculum on pupils from diverse backgrounds. Seven trainees agreed to participate and provide data during the course 2007-2008. Questionnaires and ‘scenario’ interviews were used to gather data at the start and end of the course. This enabled the development of a new framework, the ‘confidence continuum’, which revealed that most trainees moved from a position of naïve confidence to greater uncertainty between the start and end of the course. A second action research cycle was therefore carried out with a different cohort in 2008-2009. The intention was to see how far a more explicit focus on diversity could embed this element into the practice of trainee teachers. The data, gathered at three points in the year using questionnaires and interviews from six participating trainees, revealed that a more explicit focus on diversity issues helped more trainees move to a position of greater confidence. Overall, the findings from this study show that it is possible for trainee history teachers from a white monocultural background to embrace diversity in their work, although this varies by individual. This research identifies the concerns that trainee teachers face, but more importantly it offers a new way to conceptualise their levels of confidence, through the ‘confidence continuum’, and in so doing demonstrates the complex interplay between different areas of knowledge and confidence. Further, it provides a theoretical model to explain the tensions which need to be addressed during a PGCE course. Together the continuum and the ‘tensions’ model identify and explain why trainees adopt particular positions. The study suggests further gains could be possible if school history departments and school mentors were supported in developing their practice in relation to culturally and ethnically diverse history.

Occupational Therapists (OTs) who recommend housing adaptations for people with disabilities, funded through public finance, must satisfy professional codes of practice and the employing local authority requirement to allocate finite resources effectively and fairly. At the same time they must also meet service user expectations. Ethical reasoning will be required to balance these demands whilst practising to a personally acceptable professional standard. This study investigates how OTs understand themselves to develop a sense of fairness and how they use their community of practice in developing professional ethical practice. This was a 2 part methodology. Firstly, OTs from 2 community services were invited to participate in small discussion groups. 3 group sessions, of different sizes ranging from 2-6 participants and duration of 2-3 hours, were recorded in which OTs discussed cases which posed ethical challenges with respect to fairness. All participants were female. Secondly, 4 individual interviews with volunteers from the groups were recorded to collect OT narratives of personal ethical development. Transcripts were analysed using a literary-critical approach focussing for transcripts of group sessions on dialogue in community of practice and ethical approaches used; focussing for interview transcripts on the process of ethical development. OTs were shown developing professional practice dialogically within their own community of practice groups. This finding confirms the importance for professional development of encouraging opportunities for dialogical interaction between OTs. Practical reasoning about justice as theorised by Sen (2009) better characterised OT ethical reasoning practices than biomedical-ethical approach applying universal, abstract ethical principles. OT narratives of ethical development fitted the Aristotelian model of growth in virtue as a whole, across both professional and personal aspects of life. Empathy was tentatively categorised as a virtue rather than a technical skill in this context. Empathy contributed to OT clinical reasoning processes as well as ethical reasoning.

This thesis will illustrate the strong, significant and positive relationship between attendance at secondary schools in England and the role of the form tutor. The aim of this thesis is to use narrative methodology to show how this relationship is auto/biographical in nature and how it could potentially be critically important to understanding and raising attendance levels. Part I will provide evidence that school attendance is currently officially approached in a restricted, quantitative manner. This has led to inaccurate and ill-defined data and initiatives, with little success in raising attendance. Further, there is a lack of qualitative understanding surrounding the role of the form tutor. Thus, although students and form tutors recognise how their personal and qualitatively described interactions influence attendance, this is not identified by official publications. Part II will argue that a new epistemological approach is required to incorporate the qualitative, individual and auto/biographical elements already positively influencing attendance but currently unable to gain just recognition. Wittgenstein’s (1953) philosophical theories will be argued to include dialectic elements of meaning and therefore provide grounding for a new approach to attendance. In turn, this requires the structure and content of narrative time, identity and ethics, based upon Ricoeur (1955, 1965, 1969, 1975, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990), to fully communicate the significant relationship between attendance, individuals and the role of the form tutor: ultimately enhancing the accuracy, definition and understanding of attendance. Part III will discuss the practical implications of this new epistemology and methodology, through an analysis of the methods used here to undertake research with a small group of form tutors within a secondary school in England. It will also be noted how narrative theory and my own auto/biographical experiences have affected this thesis. The content presented crosses multifarious boundaries, bringing together a passion for mathematics, philosophy, science and self-consciousness, with a personal experience of family love and professional experience of attendance. Consequently, this thesis auto/biographically brings together academic, practical, applied, theoretical, professional and personal concepts to gain a more meaningful understanding of secondary school attendance.

This thesis describes a biographical research study in which eight educational psychologists took part in interviews with the researcher, who is also an educational psychologist, on the subject of 'reliable evidence'. As part of this process participants were asked to discuss the personal and professional influences that have shaped their epistemological positioning and practice as applied psychologists. The research is located within broader themes in the literature that encompass debates about the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches, the scientific tradition in psychology, evidence based practice, and the turn towards standpoint perspectives in the social sciences. It is argued that a broadly positivist epistemology remains dominant within psychology as a professional discipline and that this creates tensions for many practitioner-psychologists who find its assumptions incompatible with the majority, if not all, of their work. Thematic analysis of the interviews reveals that the participants see only a very blurred boundary between their personal and professional lives and that this influences their positioning on questions of methodology and the establishment of knowledge claims. There is scepticism amongst the participants about the value of concepts such as 'reliable evidence', and concern that 'science', as the British Psychological Society has defined that term, is of relatively limited use to them and their colleagues in educational psychology. Participants feel that the generic practice of educational psychologists - work that is principally with individual children and young people, parents, teachers and other professionals - is not valued as highly within their profession as research and systemsbased work that seeks to bring about change at an organisational level. This is because the generic practice of an educational psychologist requires a highly pragmatic 'real world' approach, whereas research and systems-based work are widely perceived to offer more opportunities to implement a rigorous and scientific methodology capable of generating 'reliable evidence'. The thesis concludes by proposing that a pragmatic epistemology can be applied to the research and generic practice elements of the work of educational psychologists through the adoption of the 'bricoleur' model, which could help address the disjuncture that educational psychologists perceive between those two aspects of their role.

This research was carried out in three villages in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and looked at the ways in which Ngaju Dayak Christian women passed on their skills, beliefs and values to their children. It was an educational, ethnographic, collective case-study which was both descriptive and interpretive. The main data collecting methods were participant observation and ethnographic interviews, undertaken over a two year period from 2007 to 2008. The motivation for carrying out the study was to try to find more effective ways of delivering Christian Education to rural Christian women, based on their traditional ways of teaching and learning. The research reveals that traditional Ngaju Dayak teaching and learning fits into a situated learning model. I claim that educational practices based upon that model are not necessarily in conflict with a Christian worldview. While this study confirms many of the findings of studies which have been carried out amongst indigenous people in other parts of the world it broke new ground in that it looked for the first time at traditional education methods among the Ngaju Dayak women. It found that the mothers especially, played the dominant role in passing on skills, beliefs and values to their children. Their methods were almost totally informal, frequently modelling or demonstrating in situations where children were present and included. The younger generation learned through observation, participation and imitation and by listening and experimenting. The context for the teaching and learning was the real and meaningful environment of the village, fields and/or family and was almost always connected to ‘real-life’ situations. Skills, beliefs and values were passed on orally. Also much was visually transmitted especially through the use of artefacts used in ceremonies. With the advent of local or personal electricity supplies, skills, beliefs and particularly values were also being transmitted via the mass media. Although there were some gender specific roles and mothers were dominant in passing on the skills, beliefs and values, overall there was minimal gender differentiation among the recipients. The study showed that these Ngaju Dayak women are ‘functionally illiterate’. They are able to read and write but their main ways of learning are oral. Story telling, has always played an important role in the lives of the Ngaju Dayak people. Further, it is evident that they prefer visual, kinesthetic, modes of learning to passive, formal ones. Cultural transmission from parents to children clearly takes place, but with certain modifications. Even though culture was transmitted by the parents and the wider family, motivation and relevance were important reasons for passing on the skills, beliefs and values. In summary, learning and teaching remains strongly influenced by the traditional Dayak worldview.