Distance education environments and the concern for community

Gram, Nicola Prio (1999) Distance education environments and the concern for community. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (11MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to create a case for the concern that aspects of community important to education are missing from or not realisable in distance education environments. First, I establish the existence of such a concern and outline the case that will be made for it. Community is defined. Then, I begin making the case for communities as being important to education, particularly, communities of discourse. Communities are important to education, because, in short, communities of discourse are the ends and means of education. I illustrate a variety of these ends and means through descriptions of three educational discourse communities. I then discuss distance education environments in terms of their effects on the expression of and need for educational discourse. Distance education environments that affect educational discourse affect educational discourse communities, because the form that discourse takes is constitutive of discourse communities. Finally, I discuss the hypothesised effects of distance education environments on educational discourse, and discuss what, if any, of these hypothesized effects should matter to educators. I end with a brief analysis of the philosophical and practical ramifications of this discussion and some suggestions for further study.

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