DOCSLIB.ORG

Download The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download The CULTURE, CULTURAL DISCONTINUITY AND THE NEED FOR CHANGE: UNDERSTANDING CANADIAN AND CHINESE CONCEPTIONS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING by Jessica Marie Akehurst B. Mus., The University of Victoria, 2003 B. Ed., The University of Victoria, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The College of Graduate Studies (Education) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) January 2012 © Jessica Marie Akehurst, 2012 ii Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to examine sources of potential cultural discontinuity between Chinese students and Canadian teachers at an International school in China. Cultural discontinuity is a school-based process whereby culturally-based learning preferences and practices of students are discontinued at school (Ogbu, 1995). Since curriculum and classroom practices at International Schools are rooted in mainstream Western cultural values and worldviews, this dominant ideology may result in the discontinuance of cultural, value-based learning behaviours by Chinese students. This thesis delineates some of the issues that illustrate the incongruence between primary culture (home-based values) and secondary culture (school- based cultural values) and the implications for teaching and learning in British Columbian Offshore Schools. Conceptions of teaching and learning, the value and use of questioning, the issues of silence and plagiarism, and the role of the teacher and students are examined. iii Table Of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ vii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................... viii Dedication .................................................................................................................................. ix 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Context ..............................................................................................................................1 1.2 The Demand for English in China ................................................................................... 1 1.3 Cultural Discontinuities .................................................................................................. 2 1.4 A School-Wide Problem ................................................................................................. 5 1.5 Importing Western Pedagogy to the Detriment of Chinese Learners ............................. 5 1.6 Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 7 1.7 Overview of Research in the Field of Chinese and Canadian Cultures of Learning ...... 7 2 Review of Related Literature ........................................................................................... 9 2.1 Culture and Cultural Discontinuity ................................................................................. 9 2.2 The Hidden Curriculum ................................................................................................ 11 2.3 Culturally Responsive Teachers ................................................................................... 13 2.4 Culturally Responsive Instruction ................................................................................. 14 2.5 The Collectivist-Individualist Framework .................................................................... 15 2.6 The Influence of Confucius on Chinese Conceptions of Teaching and Learning ........ 18 2.7 The Socratic Influence on Canadian Conceptions of Teaching and Learning .............. 21 2.8 Socrates and Confucius Compared ............................................................................... 23 2.9 The Evolution of Chinese and Canadian Education ..................................................... 24 2.10 Factors to Consider when Examining Cultural Discontinuity ...................................... 27 2.11 Passive Versus Active Learning ................................................................................... 28 2.12 Peer Assessment ............................................................................................................ 30 2.13 The Appropriate Time for Questioning ........................................................................ 31 2.14 Critical Thinking: A Necessary Skill or an Unwarranted Attack? ............................... 34 2.15 Who is Responsible for Ensuring Student Learning and Achievement? ...................... 35 iv 2.16 Recent Interpretations: Moving Away from the Confucian Interpretation of Chinese Learners ...................................................................................................... 37 2.17 Leaving the Confucian Framework for Understanding Chinese Learners Altogether: Avoiding Racial Stereotyping .................................................................... 40 2.18 Chinese Students’ Autonomy and Agency ................................................................... 41 2.19 A Holistic View of Chinese EFL Learners ................................................................... 43 2.20 Silence: Reticence or Something Else? ......................................................................... 45 2.21 Silence as a Cultural Expectation ................................................................................. 46 2.22 Factors Contributing to Chinese EFL Students’ Silence in Western Classrooms ........ 48 2.23 Experience Sharing Indigenous Knowledge ................................................................. 51 2.24 Chinese EFL Students’ Perception of Silence .............................................................. 54 2.25 Western Teachers’ Perception of Silence ..................................................................... 56 2.26 Plagiarism Defined ........................................................................................................ 59 2.27 A Brief History of Western Authorship: Divine Inspiration or Human Genius? ......... 60 2.28 The “Crime” of Plagiarism ........................................................................................... 61 2.29 “They are Just Words . What is the Big Deal?” ........................................................ 62 2.30 Classical Confucian Education and its Influence on Chinese Intellectual Property Rights ............................................................................................................. 64 2.31 Confucian Heritage and “Learned Plagiarism” ............................................................. 66 2.32 Looking Beyond Cultural Conditioning ....................................................................... 68 2.33 Alternate Explanations for Plagiarism .......................................................................... 69 2.34 Negotiating Attribution of Sources and Original Ideas ................................................ 69 2.35 A Closer Look at Patchwriting ..................................................................................... 71 2.36 In Defense of Patchwriting ........................................................................................... 73 2.37 Voluntary and Involuntary Plagiarism .......................................................................... 74 2.38 Voluntary Plagiarism as the Result of Insufficient Linguistic Competence ................. 75 2.39 The Pressure to Succeed ............................................................................................... 77 2.40 The Influence of Student Attitudes on Voluntary Plagiarism ....................................... 77 2.41 Guanxi and Cheating from Peers .................................................................................. 78 2.42 Final Thoughts on Plagiarism ........................................................................................ 80 v 2.43 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 81 3 Implications for Teachers ............................................................................................... 88 3.1 Asking Rather Than Assuming ..................................................................................... 88 3.2 Why Should We Ask? ................................................................................................... 89 3.3 The “My Way Is Better Than Your Way” Mentality ................................................... 90 3.4 Learning to Embrace the CLT Model ........................................................................... 92 3.5 Giving Up the “Chinese Way” of Learning .................................................................. 93 3.6 The Dangers of Unexamined Beliefs ............................................................................ 94 3.7 The Context Approach: Retaining the “Chinese Way” of Learning ............................. 95 3.8 Teaching Approaches ...................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Dialogic Education for and from Authorial Agency
    ISSN: 2325-3290 (online) Dialogic education for and from authorial agency Eugene Matusov Mark Smith University of Delaware, USA University of Delaware, USA Elizabeth Soslau Ana Marjanovic-Shane University of Delaware, USA Chestnut Hill College, USA Katherine von Duyke Newmann University, USA Abstract In this paper, we extend Bakhtin's ethical philosophical ideas to education and introduce a dialogic authorial agency espoused approach. We then consider this approach in opposition to the mainstream technological espoused approach, while focusing our contrasting analysis on student’s authorial agency and critical dialogue. We argue that the technological approach assumes that the "skills" or "knowledge" are garnered in pursuit of preset curricular endpoints (i.e., curricular standards). Since the goals of the technological approach are divorced from the students’ personal goals, values, and interests, they are incompatible and irreconcilable with what we idealize as the true goal of education, education for agency. The authorial agency approach to education (Dialogic Education For and From Authorial Agency) emphasizes the unpredictable, improvisational, eventful, dialogic, personal, relational, transcending, and ontological nature of education. The authorial agency of the student and of the teacher are valued and recognized by all participants as the primary goal of education – supported by the school system and broader society. The approach defines education as a learner’s leisurely pursuit of critical examination of the self, the life, and the world in critical dialogue. The purpose of authorial agency pedagogy is to facilitate this process by promoting students’ agency and unique critical voices in socially desired practices – critical voices, recognized by the students themselves and others relevant to the particular practice(s).
    [Show full text]
  • Dialogic Pedagogy and Semiotic-Dialogic Inquiry Into Visual Literacies and Augmented Reality
    ISSN: 2325-3290 (online) Dialogic pedagogy and semiotic-dialogic inquiry into visual literacies and augmented reality Zoe Hurley Zayed University, Dubai Abstract Technological determinism has been driving conceptions of technology enhanced learning for the last two decades at least. The abrupt shift to the emergency delivery of online courses during COVID-19 has accelerated big tech’s coup d’état of higher education, perhaps irrevocably. Yet, commercial technologies are not necessarily aligned with dialogic conceptions of learning while a technological transmission model negates learners’ input and interactions. Mikhail Bakhtin viewed words as the multivocal bridge to social thought. His theory of the polysemy of language, that has subsequently been termed dialogism, has strong correlations with the semiotic philosophy of American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce’s semiotic philosophy of signs extends far beyond words, speech acts, linguistics, literary genres, and/or indeed human activity. This study traces links between Bakhtin’s dialogism with Peirce’s semiotics. Conceptual synthesis develops the semiotic-dialogic framework. Taking augmented reality as a theoretical case, inquiry illustrates that while technologies are subsuming traditional pedagogies, teachers and learners, this does not necessarily open dialogic learning. This is because technologies are never dialogic, in and of themselves, although semiotic learning always involves social actors’ interpretations of signs. Crucially, semiotic-dialogism generates theorising of the visual literacies required by learners to optimise technologies for dialogic learning. Key Words: Dialogism / signs / semiotics / questioning / opening / augmented reality / technologies Zoe Hurley (PhD, Lancaster University, UK) is the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs in the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dialogic Approach to Online Facilitation
    A dialogic approach to online facilitation Jennie Swann Centre for Learning and Teaching Auckland University of Technology Social construction of understanding has long been a significant underlying principle of learning and teaching and while there are many models for the design of online activities to promote this there are considerably fewer models for the facilitation of such dialogue. This paper examines some of these facilitation models from the point of view of a university lecturer seeking to encourage social construction of understanding through online dialogue and proposes an alternative which extends the principles of Community of Inquiry theory. It unpacks conceptions of knowledge and dialogue in order to aid learning and teaching through online dialogue. Further, it provides principles for the active encouragement of participation in that dialogue. Keywords: dialogic, Community of Inquiry, online facilitation If we declare that we value different perspectives, as a commitment to dialogic literacy will lead us to do, perspectives of those new to a discipline or to academia, perspectives different from ours culturally, then we must develop practices which also value these differences. Such practices in turn commit us to a dialogic theory of learning that sees knowledge not only as the product of disciplined inquiry, where well-established conventions allow the accumulation of co-ordinated data, but also as the product on ongoing discourse, where different perspectives draw on the power of the negative to lead to a higher integration of understandings. Practices that value difference and a dialogic approach to language and learning are not easy to formulate or to employ in our academic environment (Cooper, 1998, p.
    [Show full text]
  • John Dewey's Democracy and Education 100 Years On
    CONTENTS Editorial Experience is Not The Whole Bob Davis Story: The Integral Role of the JOURNAL OF EDUCATION OF PHILOSOPHY 52: ISSUE 2 VOLUME 2018 MAY Situation in Dewey’s Democracy Original Articles and Education 287 Philosophy, Translation and the David L. Hildebrand Anxieties of Inclusion 197 Growth and Growing in Education: Journal of Naoko Saito Dewey’s Relevance to Current Teaching as an Immortality Malaise 301 Project: Positing Weakness in Ruth Heilbronn Philosophy of Education Response to Terror 216 Courage, Uncertainty and Cathryn van Kessel and Kevin Burke Imagination in Deweyan Work: Inferentialism at Work: The Challenging the Neo-Liberal Significance of Social Educational Agenda 316 Epistemology in Theorising Vasco D’Agnese Education 230 Devil, Deceiver, Dupe: Hanno Su and Johannes Bellmann Constructing John Dewey Peirce and Aesthetic from the Right 330 Education 246 Kelley M. King Juliana Acosta López de Mesa ‘To Be Is To Respond’: Realising Working through Resistance to a Dialogic Ontology For Resistance in Anti-racist Teacher Deweyan Pragmatism 345 Education 262 Rupert Higham Jenna Min Shim Dewey as Virtue Epistemologist: Open-Mindedness and the The Journal of John Dewey and Democracy Training of Thought in Democracy and Education and Education 359 John Dewey’s Democracy and Ben Kotzee Philosophy of Education Education 100 Years On 284 Philosophy of Education Book Series Christine Doddington, Ruth Heilbronn Society of Great Britain and Rupert Higham 52: ISSUE 2 VOLUME JJOPE_52_2_cover.inddOPE_52_2_cover.indd 1 117/09/187/09/18
    [Show full text]
  • Analyzing Teacher-Student Relationships in the Life and Thought of William James to Inform Educators Today
    Analyzing Teacher-Student Relationships in the Life and Thought of William James to Inform Educators Today DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Julia Teal Novakowski, M.Ed, MA Graduate Program in Educational Studies The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee: Bryan Warnick, Advisor Jackie Blount Antoinette Errante Copyrighted by Julia Teal Novakowski 2019 Abstract Enriching teacher-student relationships is timely considering the increase in school violence, the changing demographics in schools, and the fact that educational aims focused on high-stakes testing often ignore relationships. When applying philosophy to teacher-student relationships, we must ask both whose voices are missing from our current conversation and how we can apply their insights to improve education. While philosophers such as John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Nel Noddings have all contributed to that conversation, William James’s philosophy and pedagogy provide a unique perspective on teacher-student relationships that is largely absent within the field of philosophy of education. In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between the philosophy of James, his personality, and the productive relationships he had with students. I suggest that there is a link between his pragmatism, pluralism, and psychology, and the way he interacted with students. His philosophy can be evaluated from its actual effects in the world and by how it changes us as individuals. I suggest that the cash value, or impact in real life, of James’s philosophy in the context of education, plays out in particular forms of relationships of openness, experimentation, curiosity about others, spontaneity, and communication.
    [Show full text]
  • Dialogue on Dialogic Pedagogy
    ISSN: 2325-3290 (online) Dialogue on Dialogic Pedagogy Eugene Matusov Kiyotaka Miyazaki University of Delaware, USA Waseda University, Japan Abstract In September 2011 in Rome at the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research conference, Eugene Matusov (USA), Kiyotaka Miyazaki (Japan), Jayne White (New Zealand), and Olga Dysthe (Norway) organized a symposium on Dialogic Pedagogy. Formally during the symposium and informally after the symposium several heated discussions started among the participants about the nature of dialogic pedagogy. The uniting theme of these discussions was a strong commitment by all four participants to apply the dialogic framework developed by Soviet-Russian philosopher and literary theoretician Bakhtin to education. In this special issue, Eugene Matusov (USA) and Kiyotaka Miyazaki (Japan) have developed only three of the heated issues discussed at the symposium in a form of dialogic exchanges (dialogue-disagreements). We invited our Dialogic Pedagogy colleagues Jayne White (New Zealand) and Olga Dysthe (Norway) to write commentaries on the dialogues. Fortunately, Jayne White kindly accepted the request and wrote her commentary. Unfortunately, Olga Dysthe could not participate due to her prior commitments to other projects. We also invited Ana Marjanovic-Shane (USA), Beth Ferholt (USA), Rupert Wegerif (UK), and Paul Sullivan (UK) to comment on Eugene-Kiyotaka dialogue-disagreement. The first two heated issues were initiated by Eugene Matusov by providing a typology of different conceptual approaches to Dialogic Pedagogy that he had noticed in education. Specifically, the debate with Kiyotaka Miyazaki (and the other two participants) was around three types of Dialogic Pedagogy defined by Eugene Matusov: instrumental, epistemological, and ontological types of Dialogic Pedagogy.
    [Show full text]
  • Contributions of Freire's Theory to Dialogic Education PLEASE SCROLL DOWN for ARTICLE the Terms and Conditions of Use Are
    Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://hse.hipatiapress.com Contributions of Freire’s Theory to Dialogic Education Maria del Mar Ramis1 1) Universitat de Barcelona (España) Date of publication: October 23th, 2018 Edition period: October 2018 - February 2019 To cite this article: Ramis, M.M. (2018). Contributions of Freire’s Theory to Dialogic Education. Social and Education History, 7(3), 277-299. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/hse.2018.3749 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/hse.2018.3749 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL). HSE – Social and Education History Vol. 7 No. 3 October 2018 pp. 277-299 Contribution of Freire’s Theory to Dialogic Education Maria del Mar Ramis Universitat de Barcelona Abstract The present article discusses how Paulo Freire was ahead of his time with his theoretical contributions by reflecting on the author’s groundbreaking insights, particularly those developed in his Pedagogy of the oppressed. To do so, the paper first introduces his Theory of Dialogical Action and the premises that explain how it established the theoretical grounds for some of the most relevant theoretical works in the Social Sciences such as Habermas’ Theory of the Communicative Action developed more than a decade after Freire’s work. The second part of the paper further explores the influence of the premises of the Dialogic Education, by reviewing the theoretical foundations of other major theoretical works and practical experiences that building on Freire’s work and the centrality of dialogue in the educational process continue enabling the creation of future through transformative educational experiences.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Learners' Speaking and Thinking Skills
    Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume.8 Number4 December 2017 Pp 49 -67 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol8no4.4 The Impact of Dialogic Teaching on English Language Learners’ Speaking and Thinking Skills Ishraga Bashir Mohammed Elhassan English and literature Department, Faculty of Arts Al-Neelain University, Sudan Mohammed Idris Adam English Department University of Alfashir, Sudan Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the influence of dialogic teaching on the development of the learners' speaking skills and critical thinking. It is questioning why Sudanese tertiary students are unable to express themselves efficiently and comfortably. This seems crucial and imperative for a college student and it shouldn’t shape any obstacle as a prerequisite for future development. Accordingly, this paper poses a significant issue that every learner of English needs to ponder. To collect data for the study, three tools has been used; a questionnaire, an interview and an observational checklist. The questionnaire was distributed throughout the students of second, third and fourth year university students who had been selected from different Sudanese universities. The collected data is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Data analysis has shown that dialogic teaching enables students to develop the skills of argumentation, questioning and debate which contribute to the d evelopment of their critical thinking and speaking skills. Generally, the findings indicate that authentic dialogic teaching components are effective if students are given enough time to practice its skills. Hence recommendations for exposing learners to a variety of medium of speaking like dialogues, debate, argumentation and questioning are made to facilitate teachers to be more well -informed with dialogic teaching approach.
    [Show full text]
  • 'To Be Is to Respond': Realising a Dialogic Ontology for Deweyan Pragmatism Rupert Higham Faculty of Education, University O
    ‘To be is to respond’: realising a dialogic ontology for Deweyan pragmatism Rupert Higham Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Dr Rupert Higham1, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK Abstract Dewey’s pragmatism rejected ‘truth’ as indicative of an underlying reality, instead ascribing it to valuable connections between aims and ends. His argument mirrors Bishop Berkeley’s Idealism, summarised as ‘esse est percepi’ (to be is to be perceived) (1988/1710, p. 53), whose thinking is shown to be highly pragmatist – but who retained a foundationalist ontology by naming God as the guarantor of all things. I argue that while this position is unsustainable, pragmatism could be strengthened by an ontological foundation. Koopman’s charges of foundationalist ‘givenism’ in Dewey’s work, and in his promotion of the scientific method, are not proven. However, his ‘genealogical pragmatism’ may develop Deweyan educational theory by addressing his dilemmas around curricular study. Koopman’s arguments also point towards a missing ontological piece in Dewey’s theory of knowledge. A dialogic ontology is offered as compatible with pragmatism: it provides an ethical foundation through interrelatedness, and a generative theory of meaning and experience as emergent from the encounter with difference. In this framework, to be is to respond – or be responded to. This is compatible with Biesta’s notion of ‘coming into presence’ through education. The metaphor of ‘realisation’ is offered as capturing the human experience implied by this ontological stance. Introduction John Dewey’s Democracy and Education has profoundly shaped my thinking through its humane vision of the role of education in society, and the scope and power of its analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Technology and Dialogic Space: Lessons from History and from the ‘Argunaut’ and ‘Metafora’ Projects
    CSCL 2011 Proceedings Volume I: Long Papers Technology and Dialogic Space: Lessons from History and from the ‘Argunaut’ and ‘Metafora’ Projects Rupert Wegerif, Yang Yang, University of Exeter, UK Email: [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: In this theory paper we define dialogic space and outline its importance to computer supported collaborative learning. We argue that dialogic space is a complex concept combining transcendental and empirical aspects to account for the situated opening of opportunities for creative understanding in the tension between different perspectives. Despite this complexity dialogic space can be operationalized in concrete designs for learning. Some general principles are developed through a review of the literature on the indirect relationship between communications technologies and dialogic space. The EC funded Argunaut and Metafora projects to design online dialogic education environments are then used to illustrate more specific affordances of online design for a dialogic pedagogy. Introduction An account of dialogic education giving a central role to dialogic space as opposed to socio-cultural accounts that focus on mediation by cognitive tools was put forward by Wegerif in the first issue of the International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (Wegerif, 2006). The concept of dialogic space was then elaborated in a book in the CSCL series, entitled Dialogic Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning (Wegerif, 2007). The notion of dialogic space put forward in these two publications has proved of value for some empirical investigations, in particular several studies of Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in the UK have found the notion of dialogic space useful for theorizing the impact that this technology can have in classrooms (Mercer, Warwick, Kershner, Kleine Staarman, 2010: Scott, Ametller, Mortimer, and Emberton, 2010: Hennessey, S.
    [Show full text]
  • Dialogic Learning Teaching and Instruction
    Dialogic Learning Teaching And Instruction Dermatic and sceptic Bobbie pussyfoot almost retrorsely, though Armand remilitarizing his ethology notarize. Varicose or bristled, Philip never snubbing any chip! Centrist and immobile Donal never skinny-dips his arugula! James Paul Gee to outline a number of principles of games based learning. Ensuring Quality in English Language Teacher Education: Selected Papers from the fifth international Teacher Educator Conference, Hyderabad, India. The inspectional frequency is about holding up an explanation, inspecting it, and then seekingout alternative explanations. The article also presents a continuum of instructional roles beginning with autocratic behaviors at one end and coursing to overly permissive behaviors at the other. It is important to note that this initial analysis generated through close reading of the transcripts and not by imposing predetermined categories on the data. Be sure to assign explicit questions and guidelines and give the groups a time limit to complete the exercise. In South Africa school students who have text phones but no access to the Internet via computers are able to text Dr Math with their homework problems. First, I highlight elements of design features that align with a dialogic teaching stance; second, I highlight dispositional features that align with a dialogic teaching stance. The whole idea of universal moral codes only makes sense from the perspective of writing and especially print. The permutability of turntaking is minimized. Nevertheless, some educators may choose to stand before the classroom and deliver a lengthy monologue. The page for dialogic teaching and to engage in constructing knowledge and learning theory this instruction and dialogic learning.
    [Show full text]
  • The Lighting of a Fire: the Value of Dialogic in the Teaching and Learning of Literature for EF/SL Learners at the University- Level in UAE
    The Lighting of a Fire: The Value of Dialogic in the Teaching and Learning of Literature for EF/SL Learners at the University- level in UAE Submitted by Nayyer Iqbal Ali Chandella To The University of Exeter School of Education & Lifelong Learning For the degree of Doctor of Education in TESOL Submission date August, 2011 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Nayyer iqbal ali chandella Signed: 1 Dedication ‘To my brother, Zahid; for his care, understanding and support…with love and gratitude.’ 2 Acknowledgements Praise and gratitude be to Allah the beneficent, the merciful. Research for me is a travelled path lined with lamp posts, shedding light and showing the way. There are many people I can think of, for being those ‘lamp posts’ of light for me. I thank them all (My teachers and family). This research would not have been possible without the generosity and support of my family, my parents (though not in this world now) who nurtured me with loving care and infused in me the love for learning and humanity. I would especially like to thank my supervisor, Dr Salah Troudi. His articulate feedback and insight, his encouragement and patience has brought out the best in this research.
    [Show full text]