https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/74832 2026-04-14T22:19:40Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/77070 Title: A comparative critical discourse analysis of cultural policy documents in the United Kingdom and Malta between the mid-1990s and 2010 Abstract: This research volume consists of a qualitative comparative enquiry into the discourses that characterise cultural policy documents of the last fifteen years in Malta, a small state on the margins of Western culture, and the United Kingdom, a prominent and influential Western state. This comparative enquiry is defined by two interrelated aspects, namely, the critical analytical approach and the historical contextualisation of the analysis. The critical analytical approach assists the author to go beyond the superficial interpretation of text and language. This aspect is built on a strong body of literature and uses critical discourse analysis to assist the author to deconstruct, unmask and analyse discourses. The historical context, on the other hand, assists the author to put the results of the analysis in their proper historical context and interpret them accordingly. The study of the historical context consists of two main aspects. The first one is the historical origins of Western states’ interests in culture. The second focuses on the politico-economic contexts in which the cultural policy documents of both states were produced. This research underlines and takes into account the unprecedented structural changes that market the public and economic sectors of both the UK and Mala in the last twenty to thirty years. Although the changes in the two states followed different paths and patterns, both were characterized by a growing political openness towards free-market reforms and the privatisation of public spheres. This research seeks to understand, through a discourse analysis of culture policy documents, whether these changes are reflected in contemporary cultural policy. It has been established by various authors that United Kingdom’s culture policy carries overbearing neo-liberal discourses. One of main research questions of the dissertation is to see whether this is the case with Malta’ cultural policy. The following are two of the questions asked in this dissertation : do discourses reflect such neo-liberal structural changes in the public and economic sector, and if yes, how do these compare with discourses found in the UK’s cultural policy? Finally, this dissertation seeks to contribute to cultural policy-making in Malta by offering an alternative perspective, the cr4itical perspective. Rather than simply approaching the policy-making process on strictly technocratic lines, this perspective highlights the importance and role of value questions in the policy-making process. Description: M.A.COMP.EURO MED.ED.STUD. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/77067 Title: Testing the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Malta : 15-year-olds' achievement in reading literacy and the comparability of Maltese tests to PISA Abstract: International student assessments in general, and the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in particular, are becoming ever more influential tools in the formulation of the new, globalized educational discourse. The present quantitative study focused on only one domain tested by PISA, that of reading literacy. A test paper was produced using a number of assessment items that were released by PISA, and a Maltese language version of this test was constructed. These test items were attempted by 498 students attending twelve schools coming from three different sectors of the Maltese Secondary schools sector. The results achieved by the Maltese student sample show that, in line with other countries, Maltese girls perform significantly better than boys in English language reading proficiency tasks and that the results that students achieve is closely tied to the schools that they attend. Academically high achieving students did better in the Englishlanguage version of the test while low achievers did better in the Malteselanguage PISA test. Although significant correlations were registered when the PISA test scores were compared to the scores achieved by the same students in the two tests employed in the study these correlations were generally low, especially in the whole sample. When this was partitioned in terms of individual schools the correlation, in a number of cases, ranged from medium to high. The results also suggest that Maltese students are not familiar with the type of assessment items that make up the PISA test. It is argued that student selection, as was practiced in Maltese schools up to recently, works against low-achieving students catching up with their peers and that current attempts to remove this selection from the Maltese educational system are to be lauded. Description: M.A.COMP.EURO MED.ED.STUD. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/74890 Title: Students' perceptions of 'purpose' and 'quality' in higher education Abstract: This research project will present and discuss some of the perceptions of a group of 58 undergraduate students from the University of Malta, with regards to the notions of 'purpose' and 'quality' of higher education. I started developing an interest In 'quality' while enrolled in University reading for my undergraduate degree in education between 2002 and 2006. At the time I was actively involved in the reinstatement and administration of the University Student Teacher /Association (USTA), was elected as Education Commissioner on the University Students' Council (KSU) and later served as student representative on the University's Senate. At that time, the signing of the Bologna Declaration and the initiation of the Lisbon Agenda were continuously referred to, both by University administrators and by politicians. These two European inter-governmental processes, particularly the former, initiated the institutionalization of Quality Assurance in academia (Kauko, 2006). The Maltese Education Minister at the time, the Hon. Dr. Louis Galea, along with thirty other European Ministers of Education, or their delegates, committed themselves to establishing the European Higher Education Area by 2010 (Bologna Declaration, 1999). Among other things, this Declaration encourages European co-operation in quality assurance of higher education with a view to developing comparable criteria to help in the materialisation of the EHEA (Bologna Declaration, 1999). Description: M.A.COMP.EURO MED.ED.STUD. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z