Background Compared to the role of classmates on students' academic development, less research has focused on the role of peers in students' motivation and developmental outcomes in school-organized Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs).

Aims
This study examined how perceived acceptance from CCA peers early in the school year (T1) is associated with changes in CCA outcomes at the end of the school year (T2), with T1 and T2 mastery and performance goals serving as a linking factors.

Sample
Participants were 517 Primary-3 to Primary-6 students in Singapore (50.7% female; Mage = 10.58, SDage = 1.08). These students took part in various CCA groups classified into Physical Sports (34%), Visual and Performing Arts (31%), Clubs and Societies (24.2%), and Uniformed Groups (10.8%).

Methods
The same survey was administered at two time points within a school year, with an interval of 24–26 weeks between them.

Results
Perceived CCA peer acceptance early in the school year was significantly related to changes in both academic and non-academic outcomes later in the year, primarily through mastery goals. Mastery goals were positively associated with gains across all developmental outcomes, including school belonging, educational aspirations, classroom engagement, lifelong learning, teamwork disposition, and leadership skills. In contrast, performance goals were linked to gains in leadership but slight declines in teamwork and lifelong learning.

Conclusions
These findings have theoretical implications for researchers studying peer relationships in CCAs and their impact on children's academic and non-academic development, as well as for practitioners optimizing the benefits of school-based CCA involvement.

The native speaker construct (or native-nonnative speaker dichotomy), especially surrounding the English language, is a pervasive ideology that has earned considerable scholarly attention in the realm of sociolinguistics research spanning several decades. This notion represents several untruths, encourages exclusivity, and others other variants of English not accepted as the so-called ‘standard’. Singapore English is one such variety othered by the native speaker construct (Davies, 2003). Singapore is a multicultural society that emphasizes ‘mother tongue’ over the ‘native speaker’ as the country’s language policies are constructed around the languages of major ethnic groups present in the Singaporean demographic. Though the language of administration and officiation has been English for many years, it has yet to be afforded the status of mother tongue. Singaporeans are also statistically highly proficient users of English, leading scholars to argue for English to be officially instated as a mother tongue in Singapore (Wee, 2002, 2013; Tan, 2014) to better suit the growing needs of the nation. This dissertation aims to understand through the lenses of two Singapore English teachers, if they consider themselves native speakers of the English language and the role it plays in their lives. This paper does this by adapting Tan’s (2014) four conditions for a language to be considered a mother tongue – language inheritance, language expertise, language function, and language identification - to answer the research questions of 1) What role does English play in the participants’ linguistic repertoire? What does it mean to be a speaker of English in the Singapore context from the perspective of the participants? 2) Do the participants consider themselves native speakers of English? If yes, why? If no, why? 3) Based on the narratives, how can the concept of a native speaker be reconceptualized in Singapore in a globalization era?

Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data, and a narrative inquiry method was employed for the analysis of the narratives obtained during the interview sessions. Open and In Vivo coding were used to organize data into categories for reconstruction of the participants’ narratives into comprehensible stories. This dissertation finds that both of the participants fulfill the conditions for English to be considered their mother tongue but lack the confidence in calling themselves native speakers due to linguistic insecurity, even though English plays an integral role, both personal and functional, in their lives. A reconfiguration of the ‘native speaker’ is suggested so that it allows for multilingual speakers in a globalizing world to be considered native speakers of multiple languages, including English.

Over the last two decades, educational discourse has observably narrowed around learning as the production of human capital to address economic challenges. This preoccupation with employability prioritised education’s qualification and socialisation functions, marginalising subjectification – which focuses on students’ subjectivities and existence as individuals who lead their lives – as an important educational goal (Biesta, 2009a, 2009b, 2012a). In Singapore, while strides have been attempted towards more student-centred pedagogical approaches and holistic development, instrumentalist sensibilities driving nation-building goals remained entrenched (Gopinathan, 2015) and continue to work against subjectification. Ng (2020) noted that tensions may be produced as students are paradoxically called to attend to both instrumental adaptation and personal development. Students’ experiences of subjectification may thus be shaped by this ‘double bind’ situation (Bateson, 1972).

Despite well-developed theorisations of subjectification, there have been few attempts to synthesise a conceptual framework for subjectification (James, 2013a, 2013b, 2014). This is important to support empirical studies of subjectification, especially since Biesta’s (2010a) conceptualisation of subjectification comprises nuanced philosophical differences from seemingly similar notions, like ‘empowerment’ or ‘self-regulated learning’. Thus, a theoretical literature review was conducted, from which six principles of subjectification were derived: constant equalising, non-egological responsibilising, qualified reconciling, transgressive pluralising, interruptive reconfiguring, and ignorant disidentifying. These were used to examine available accounts of subjectification as well as the data generated from this dissertation.

Given little empirical studies describing students’ subjectification experiences, this dissertation hopes to illuminate the ways subjectification may unfold, particularly in Singapore’s higher education context. Through conducting unstructured interviews with eight undergraduate students in a Singapore university about their interactions with instructors, in-depth stories were generated and analysed to discern overarching narratives. Findings suggest that subjectification unfolded differently for participants, and whether subjectification was fully realised depended not only on instructors, but also the extents to which the participants themselves engaged in the pursuit of self-discovery. For some, subjectification unfolded as a personal quest. For others, subjectification was experienced as a release from competitive and rigid educational norms. For one participant, subjectification was triggered by a norm-deviating experience which developed his “criticality” (Barnett, 2015), the ability to take up a critical stance towards the world, in this case, towards his university education.

Furthermore, the six proposed principles of subjectification seem interconnected: the presence of one potentiates the others. Particularly, findings highlight the importance of instructors’ trust in students’ intellectual capacities and placing students in situations of discomfort, provoking them to challenge their existing worldviews. However, given the overwhelming pull of dominant norms, for subjectification to fully manifest, individuals require courage to do the difficult work of existing as a subject of their own lives, which nobody can do for them (Biesta, 2020b). While these principles evince possible pedagogical moves to foster subjectification, it is crucial not to turn them into technologies of control, which would contradict the concept of subjectification itself (Biesta, 2024).

Translanguaging has become a buzzword in the past decade. The concept of translanguaging has been interpreted from various perspectives, i.e., psycholinguistic (Li, 2018), sociolinguistic (García & Otheguy, 2019) as well as pedagogic (Creese & Blackledge, 2010; García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017). The last perspective is this thesis’s focus. The thesis investigated the contexts where translanguaging was employed as pedagogy and analyzed its potential advantages in an English-learning classroom in China.

As an emerging pedagogy, research regarding translanguaging has been conducted in different multilingual countries and reported a positive reply from many researchers and scholars. However, few studies have been conducted in largely monolingual countries, such as China, where the concept of translanguaging is nascent. In comparison to multilingual societies, bilingual education in China follows a different path in which English is taught as a foreign language and serves as enrichment for students’ career development. Therefore, the effectiveness of this pedagogy, proven in a multilingual environment, is questioned when applied to largely monolingual English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries, especially in middle and high schools, which are highly examoriented in China.

Drawing on the 12-hour data collected through observations in a middle school EFL classroom, this thesis employed qualitative content analysis methods adopted from grounded theory and identified five contexts where translanguaging was used by the participating English teacher. Each context was elaborated with translanguaging examples of the teacher and students’ interactions, followed by discussions of the practices’ potential benefits, as well as the concerns of duplication, if any. In particular, two translanguaging practices designed by the teacher were explained and concluded in steps. The impact of pedagogical translanguaging was concluded by analyzing the teacher and students’ interactional patterns and students’ Mean Length of Utterance (MLU).

Given that there is a relative lack of attention given in the literature to Chinese teachers’ and students’ attitudes regarding translanguaging in EFL contexts, two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teacher, providing an indepth understanding of the teacher’s beliefs on translanguaging and its effectiveness in teaching. Furthermore, questionnaires from all students in the participating teacher’s class and one-on-one interviews with five focal students were collected and utilized to document students’ stances on translanguaging and its impact. Findings from both sides demonstrated complexity regarding teacher’s language use and students’ language use.

This thesis is expected to contribute to the understanding of pedagogical translanguaging in an EFL context. More specifically, this thesis sheds light on the application of translanguaging to leverage the students’ entire linguistic repertoire for maximal learning in satisfying the needs of examinations and real life communication.

In recent years, more students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) have been enrolled in universities. These students may have a dilemma of whether to disclose their diagnosis to their peers. Current literature tends to focus on understanding these students’ experiences of disclosing to their peers or educational institutions in a qualitative manner. However, there has been limited quantitative research on understanding the factors influencing the students’ decision to disclose to their peers. Using a mixed-method design, this study aimed to explore the relationship between the seven independent factors (i.e., four demographic factors – age, gender, type of invisible SEN, and years since receiving the formal diagnosis, and three psychological factors – stigma, social desirability, and culture), and the quantity (i.e., number of peers they disclose their diagnosis to) and quality (i.e., how much detail is shared during their disclosure) of the disclosure of their SEN diagnosis to their peers.

Before conducting the main study, we conducted a pilot study with 30 students with SEN (mean age = 24.17 years, SD = 2.74) to seek feedback on the suitability and readability of specifically this newly developed scale: SEN Self-Disclosure Scale (SENDS). The newly developed SENDS was then edited and used for the main study. The main study was administered as an online survey where participants completed questionnaires related to the quality of disclosure, stigma, social desirability, and culture. Participants were also asked to provide their qualitative responses related to reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure. Sample consisted of 102 students (mean age = 23.02 years, SD = 2.58) who were formally diagnosed with Specific Learning Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder and were enrolled in local autonomous universities in Singapore.

Based on the quantitative responses, the seven predictors were not statistically significant in predicting the number of peers (quantity) to whom the participants disclosed their diagnosis. However, both the demographic predictors, and the psychological predictors (after accounting for the demographic predictors) were statistically significant in predicting the amount of details (quality) that the participants disclosed to their peers. We also found that the type of SEN that the participant was diagnosed with was also an individual predictor that could predict the quality of disclosure.

Based on qualitative responses, we found that themes related to reasons for disclosure of diagnosis included (1) When they trust their peer, (2) For practical reasons, and (3) Part of their identity. Another three themes related to reasons for non-disclosure were (1) Prejudice and Stigma, (2) Don’t see the need to disclose, and (3) Don’t trust their peers. These qualitative responses complemented our quantitative data by providing additional factors or further evidence to the factors we had previously identified.

From the results, several practical implications have been proposed to increase the students’ awareness of the positive outcomes of diagnosis disclosure in higher education setting. By promoting a more inclusive learning environment, students with SEN may feel more comfortable and trusting in their peers, and in turn, may disclose their diagnosis and share their experiences. Possible limitations and future directions for the study were further discussed in this dissertation.

This thesis discusses the development of a framework for a critical public art practice that is informed by aspects of assemblage thinking and making. It examines how developing a text-based audio experience might serve as such a form of critical art practice and be used to assemble and present narratives of minoritised groups such as queer groups, as well as relay notions of queerness and divergence to the public. For my investigation. a critical public art practice is defined as a practice that produces artistic works and encounters in public space that provoke critical reflection and engagement with the spaces one shares and inhabits with other individuals and communities. The term queer here is expanded beyond its use as a sexual orientation identifier to refer to individuals or groups who may orientate differently from heteronormative expectations.

My investigation is situated in Singapore. where considerable governmental efforts and resources have been spent in the last three decades to activate public spaces for artistic encounters that promote the multicultural vibrancy of the city (Daniel. 2018; National Arts Council [NAC]. 2022a). Despite the government's growing interest to support a diverse range of narrative expressions and artistic representations. artworks emplaced in public space tend to exclude artworks that reference minoritised identities and lived experiences—such as that of my own (female. minority race. queer). Given the states repeal of its anti-sodomy law in November 2022. as well as changing attitudes among Singaporeans towards queer individuals and groups (Ipsos. 2022). this thesis broadly asks if it would be possible for current public art guidelines to be augmented with a more critically reflective and inclusive approach. In turn what would a framework for a more critical and inclusive public art practice that includes notions of queerness look like?

My methodology comprised both autoethnography and an artistic case study. Through autoethnography. I provide my perspective of the hierarchical relationships. modes of assessment. and pragmatic decision-making processes that tend to be centred in the production of art for public space. The artistic case study describes the development of a text-based audio artwork developed for solo listening public space. For my theoretical frame. I looked to assemblage thinking. a mode of understanding how systems might work by applying notions of nonhierarchical configurations. multiplicities. fluidities, contingencies. and agencies (Baker & McGuirk. 2017; Deleuze & Guattari. 1987). In particular. I consider how these notions might be present in the practice of making art for public space and enabled through a format such as text-based audio. Responses to my artwork were then reflected upon alongside a contextual review of literature and artworks; data from the conversational interviews that informed the artwork:, and my own intersectionally situated knowledge of public art practice and minoritisation. These were synthesised to conceptualise a framework of key aspects for enacting a critical and more inclusive public art practice. as well as potential implications and challenges of weaving minoritised and dominant narratives together in an artistic encounter. In sum, the thesis seeks to contribute to scholarship in contemporary public art practices as well as to policymalcing involving the production of art for public space.