The current deficiencies of extension interventions in aquaculture in Bangladesh, in particular, in the North-west have been examined. The importance of the inclusion of a social dimension in development interventions has been reviewed. Aquaculture, extension, social development and poverty are defined in the context of the study and a model of their interactions is proposed and used to elucidate the role of aquaculture in poverty reduction. Research questions were generated to examine the contention that ‘Aquaculture Extension Approaches that fail to substantially address social development will lead to no more than a superficial reduction of poverty’. The study approach chosen was comparative case study (the first use of its' kind in this context). Within the study, communities representing four different aquaculture extension approaches and a, null-case, control were selected and then engaged in the research process. The findings that emerged from the study were matched and linked to the proposed model to establish patterns and linkages between aquaculture and poverty; extension and aquaculture; aquaculture and social development; social development and poverty; extension and poverty. The study suggests that all these aspects go hand in hand within communities, and that it is the degree of marginalisation that defines the success of any intervention as much as the intervention approach itself. The study indicates that aquaculture could be an entry point for a poverty alleviation strategy but the inclusion of a social dimension, together with the chosen technical intervention, is essential in achieving higher impacts on a sustainable basis. A number of recommendations for greater poverty impact through aquaculture intervention as an entry point are put forward, including the targeting of women as well as men, emphasise a learning approach, and the building of networks through forming community producers groups, fish clubs, Fry Traders and fingerling producers groups.

As a stratified social space Higher Education’s linguistic ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1991) or ‘everyday use’ of literacy valorises and legitimates essayist literacy and its monologic addressivity, a discursive arena where, “it is the tutor’s voice that predominates, determining what the task is and how it should be done” (Lillis 2001, p.75) with an emphasis upon evaluation of text as finished product. Writing within dialogic practices of addressivity, where tutor and student writers, “engage in the construction of text as meaning making in progress” (Lillis 2001, p.44) illustrates the fabrication of literacies and of reflective stories where teacher identity may be seen “as a gradual ‘coming to know’” (Winter 2003, p.120) dependent in part upon social assembly and conversations.Such infidelity to monologicism demands a dynamic dialogic forum such as that supported by an electronic portfolio as a strategic act of interruption of essayist norms. The eportfolio system, pebblePAD, was piloted with a group of 15 PGCE (PCE) students in 2004-5. The system was used for teaching, learning and assessment and as a data collection tool. The data was generated from individual and shared artefacts: audits, journals, critical incident sharing, online questionnaires and from summative reflective assignments. The reflective writing within the emergent community of practice provide evidence of Lave and Wenger’s (1991, p.53) model which urges us to remember that, “learning involves the construction of identities” and that the conceptual bridge that peripheral participation in a community offers has the potential to allow us to take “a decentred view of master-apprenticeship relations.” The nurturing and enabling of such a community of practice within a professional course such as the PGCE has the potential to create politicised and engaged reflective writers and practitioners who view risk and uncertainty as positive factors who “take a decentred view of the master-apprentice…(leading) to an understanding that mastery resides not in the master but in the organization of the community of practice of which the master is part” (Lave & Wenger 1991, p.94)

The “University” is under pressure to address both local and general requirements from society towards a phenomenon called globalisation. In Brazil, the Ministry of Education has tried, without success, to promote institutional change. Confronted by this situation a process initiated by an internal change agent and based upon the introduction of Action Research was itself the subject of this AR Study by the change agent. This thesis draws upon the findings of that AR and uses it to critically examine the potential to foster change within the higher education context in Brazil using AR. The research was designed in two synchronous processes taking place at two different levels. The first is the facilitation of the uptake of Action Research by a group of academic staff, and the second is the research into that process as a piece of Action Research in its own right by the change agent/facilitator. Facilitation of change has been described as taking place in three phases: a) Mobilization; b) Implementation; and c) Continuation. Throughout such phases in this case data were systematically gathered by the use of five instruments of data collection: 1) Observation; 2) Diary; 3) Questionnaires; 4) Interviews; and 5) Sociogram. Results show my personal learning in facilitating this process of change and two main contributions to knowledge. The first is one which, though local and specific, may nevertheless speak to the challenges faced by other practitioners. Exemplified in this study by the critical exploration of the ‘Daisy Model’ of introducing AR that led to its modification into the ‘Flower Model’. The second is that new knowledge which appears to be more generalisable and for which a case can be made for its wider applicability. Again exemplified in the continuous and disruptive process of change that unfolded to reveal a suitable framework for the use of Action Research as a vehicle of change in a rural university in Brazil where all actions were based on four central principles that emerged from the research: neutrality, voluntary participation, time and motivation. The future success and sustainability of the change processes begun are contingent upon the reaction of the current management of the institution. Five scenarios are examined and a second phase for this AR project is suggested that attempts to address the issues raised.