The post-modern curriculum, drawing on chaos and complexity theory, recognises the realities of a world in flux and posits that the teacher and the class are always teetering "in the midst" of chaos, "not linked by chains of causality but [by] layers of meaning, recursive dynamics, non-linear effects and chance" (Osberg 2008, viii). The phenomenon…

This paper examines an education programme devised by the New Zealand educational theatre company, "Everyday Theatre," which offers a fictional representation of family abuse. The paper raises political questions about the dramatic representation of the family as a social system, and examines how the boundaries between private feelings and social…

This article reviews "Everyday Theatre", an interactive applied theatre project from Auckland based company Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd., which explores the dynamics of family relationships and touches obliquely on issues of abuse and violence. The article looks at the form, strategies and processes of "Everyday Theatre" and explores how the…

We live in a world of normalised violence. New Zealand has high statistics of child abuse and child deaths and in 2003 had one of the highest child-death rates in the OECD. To take serious note of these statistics is to recognise that children in many New Zealand classrooms are likely to have experienced violence directly, or to have witnessed it,…

This article examines the nature of relationships between funders and applied theatre companies. Recognising that this is a murky terrain where competing agendas and goals can jeopardise the effectiveness of applied theatre programmes, the article traces the history of the funding relationship between Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd and Child,…

The centre of this article is a critical description of the development and production of "Everyday Theatre's" performed pretext, called "replay@timeout", including a detailed account of the devising process and the programme's content. The programme is located within the history and traditions both of theatre in education (TIE) and process drama,…

Chinese supplementary schools have been accused of having "old-fashioned" and ineffective teaching methods, with most teaching being undertaken by "unqualified" volunteer parent teachers. But how do pupils themselves interpret and experience the complementary school setting and to what extent do they feel it affects their learning? Drawing on…

Expectations and the way they are communicated can influence employees' motivation and performance. Previous research has demonstrated individual effects of workplace climate and individual differences on faculty productivity. The present study focused on the characteristics of institutional performance standards, evaluation processes and…

The discussion of learning and teaching in this paper is based on data from a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) programme. The research project is investigating the experiences of learning and working in further education colleges in Wales and the data used in…

Education is the business of both the schools and the homes. A school's success is more assured with joint efforts of teachers, pupils, parents and the local communities. However, translating home-school partnership into positive impact is dependent on how partnership is conceived since it is this that determines the approaches to and the forms or…

There is overwhelming evidence of the benefits of out-of-school learning. It is likely to be particularly important for disadvantaged students who have fewer material and cultural resources in the home to supplement their classroom work. However, despite the research evidence and political moves to promote out-of-school learning, it would appear…

The focus of this literature search is whether, and if so to what extent, arts participation can be shown to advance cognitive and personal/social outcomes for school pupils who participate, and the possible subsequent positive effects on the more academic aspects of school life such as achievement and attainment. The generally held belief that…

This article examines final-year teacher trainees' conceptualisation of inclusive education through the employment of a questionnaire and the analysis of eighty career entry development profiles. Three main research questions are addressed. How do trainees define inclusive education? What factors do they believe are inherent in its success? Do…

This article describes the response of 483 teacher trainees when asked their motivation for undertaking teacher training. There was no predetermined agenda, and the open responses were analysed into six distinct categories covering 93 per cent of responses. These included career-related reasons such as wanting a rewarding and challenging career or…

The work reported here is based on the second Malta National Literacy Survey, carried out in March 2002. All Year 5 pupils in Malta were involved and their literacy attainment in both Maltese and English was tested. Two parallel multi-level analyses were carried out, one for Maltese, the other for English. The background variables were; gender,…