Abstract: Abstract Research methods that prioritise student experiences give students a voice and can provide new insights into how teachers’ efforts are experienced by those who receive them—their students. Grounded theory methods can be used to create theory with students to project their voices through a research process that is explained and exemplified in this paper. The process described in this paper was applied to generate grounded theory about secondary school students’ experiences with their teachers’ achievement expectations in the classroom including the data collection, analysis and synthesis methods that draw on classic grounded theory. A substantive group of secondary school students was shadowed across their classes, then interviewed after the observations about their interactions with their teachers that communicated expectations. The main findings of students’ desire to experience trust from their educators are outlined in this article. The research process used provides a model for researchers who want to construct grounded theory with students to create new understandings together. Despite entanglement with issues surrounding power and authenticity, the development of methods for conveying student voice has many benefits, including improving student educational outcomes and fulfilling their human rights. PubDate: 2020-10-07
Abstract: Abstract This article takes up the challenge offered to educators, researchers and policy-makers in the Ngaga-dji report, to reflect on the ways in which services and institutions need to change to better support and work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and their families and communities. Ngaga-dji, which means ‘hear me/hear us’ in the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people, was launched by the Koorie Youth Council in August 2018 and reports on the experiences of 42 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people from across Victoria who have had contact with the criminal justice system. With a focus on education, the article engages with the Ngaga-dji report to examine how educators and those involved in education might seek to change their practices. The solutions put forward in the report are also connected to international research on education and youth justice. PubDate: 2020-09-24
Abstract: Abstract The concept “graduate capability” has been created to respond to the trend that tertiary education graduates routinely encounter uncertainty and complexity. Adopting a multiple-site action research design, this study explored ways to address graduate capability across five disciplines in a New Zealand vocational education institution. Participants were 215 students and 21 teaching staff. Data collection included interviews, team meetings, and a variety of pedagogical documentation. Ethnographic content analysis was used for data analysis which generated five discipline-specific approaches to graduate capability intervention. Each approach included five dimensions: selection of focus capability items (FCIs) for intervention, composition of FCIs, strategies to address FCIs, impact of the intervention, and relationship between the intervention and the academic programme. This study not only helps the sampled programmes address graduate capability in an intentional and systematic way, but also offers an operational framework for designing capability intervention programmes in similar settings. PubDate: 2020-09-07
Abstract: In the original publication of the article, Table 6 was incorrectly published online. The correct Table 6 is given below. The original article has been corrected. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Intercultural Understanding and Personal and Social Capability are two General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum. However, the level of engagement anticipated by students in addressing these general capabilities across the learning continua provided in the curriculum differs significantly both in terms of the cognitive level expected of this engagement (as measured by Bloom’s Taxonomy), and of the level of interaction expected between students in meeting the capabilities’ learning objectives. Using the work of Bernstein and Fairclough, this paper argues that the Intercultural Understanding general capability requires less intellectual and inter-social engagement than the Personal and Social capability due to underlying assumptions that operate so as to distance the cultural Other, placing them on the periphery of Australian society, despite cultural diversity being, in fact, the lived experience of virtually all Australians. The learning continua, once scrutinised through a linguistic analysis and the lens of Bernstein, point to the absences of deep engagement in Intercultural Understanding capability, particularly when compared with that expected for the Personal and Social capability and begs the question of how Intercultural Understanding can become imagined, sustained or respectful within pedagogical encounters across the Australian Curriculum. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract In 2017, it was excitedly pronounced across major newspapers in Australia that public schools’ share of student enrolment had increased, marking a “determined end to a 40-year decline”. The claims were bolstered by numerical data, and an accompanied media release, issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These bold claims immediately caught my attention, first for the assertion they were making and the implications for public schools; but second, for the way in which they potentially elided complex and variable units of analysis, to simplify and stabilise the numbers into a depoliticised narrative. Education reform relies on measurements, quantification and statistics to inform policy, but also to inform public opinion. Drawing on Petty’s notion of political arithmetic and Gorur’s “sociology of measurement”, this paper explores and critiques the role of counting in relation to national school enrolment shares, as divided between public and private schools in Australia. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Young people often are asked what they want to be when they grow up. How do their aspirations change as students move through childhood and adolescence' To investigate the formation of career aspirations, we analysed 6308 questionnaires from 4213 students aged 8 to 18 years arranged in an accelerated longitudinal design. Using a person-centred analytic approach, a latent class mixture model identified four discrete change trajectories in the prestige levels of career aspirations over ten schooling years. In line with Gottfredson’s (J Counsel Psychol 28(6):545–579, 1981) theory, significant factors included student gender, education aspirations, prior achievement, knowledge of educational pathways to occupations, and the sex composition of occupations. High aspiring students with low education aspirations and poor achievement had more volatile trajectories than other students, regardless of socioeconomic status. The results demonstrate complexity in the formation of aspirations and challenge conventional notions about the ‘types’ of students who have ‘high’ and ‘low’ aspirations. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Recent learning environments research conducted in Australasia reports positive correlations between innovative learning environments (ILEs) and students’ deep learning. Yet, understandings about how ILEs may support teachers’ professional practice and students’ learning activities are limited, with little research having been conducted into how different spatial affordances may—or may not—enhance opportunities for effective teaching and learning. This study investigated the affordance for learning perceptions of educators and architects with respect to the action possibilities for deep learning in both ILEs and more traditional classrooms. The study identified a taxonomy of affordances found to enhance opportunities for varied pedagogical approaches. In addition, differences were found between educators’ and architects’ perceptions of affordances for learning, revealing a need to better understand how both groups might learn to recognise and subsequently take advantage of action possibilities for deep learning. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Motivated by my attendance at the 2017 AARE conference and Jane Kenway’s 2017 AARE Honorary Life Membership Award, and framed through the case of an event staged by students, this paper seeks to contribute to a ‘grassroots’ challenging of predominant bureaucratic managerialism in discourses of educational leadership, teaching and school excellence. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s notion of spectrality, a prevailing discourse of generalised excellence and performance standards is interrupted by a (re)turn to moral purpose in and through an engagement with educational research that recognises the affordances of diverse outputs and approaches. I argue that educational knowledge cannot be justly understood and implemented through such neoliberal ideological artefacts as excellence frameworks and codified lists of universal performance standards because of aporias knowingly overlooked in claims as to the efficacy of such measures. Critically reflecting on my own work and being as a principal, through a hauntological reading of relevant documents, I advocate for a halt to an abyssal slide into standardised instrumentalism, which extends in NSW to the limiting restrictions of an ‘evidence hierarchy’ that has been designed to rank educational research and govern teachers’ engagements with it. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract This paper extends existing Bourdieusian theorisations of the educational involvement of working-class parents by adding the less-examined axes of rural origin and migration status with an intersectional approach. It focusses on the ‘labourer’ families involved in internal rural–urban migration in China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Beijing and Shanghai with 32 migrant parents, teachers and head teachers. It examines how the intersection of rural origin, migration status and working-class identities shapes the parents’ habitus and their exertion of capital in the urban education field. The findings show that the intersection of two aspects of their habitus—one, resulting from their rural background, leads them not to treat themselves as academic educators, and a second, arising from their migrant working-class status, the necessity to ‘strive for survival’. Since the parents’ actions do not match with the teachers’ expectations of home-school cooperation, they are identified as ‘incompetent’. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract The decision to continue with science in school has a critical impact on the supply of the scientific skills necessary for a prosperous modern society. Low participation rates in post-compulsory school science have been a persistent problem and the decision process employed by students in choosing science is poorly understood. In this study, 10 focus groups were conducted with 50 students from four schools. Students were asked how they selected their subjects and their opinions on choosing science. Students described their subject selection as a two-stage process. First, they chose and rejected subjects based on enjoyment, interest and need. Second, they sought information and advice to fulfil their subject quota. Compared to other subjects, the sciences were considered more difficult and useful only for stereotypical scientific careers. It is suggested that science may be ‘overpriced’ and ‘undervalued’ by students and that these perceptions can be addressed at subject-selection time. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Undergraduate research engagement is critically important across disciplines. In education, however, pre-service teachers often report disengaging from research activities. To address this problem, we drew on the affordances of online learning: building and implementing a self-paced online program of multimodal resources called ResearchEd. We evaluated the program across three years. First, 120 students took part in a quantitative survey measuring research engagement. Those with program access were significantly more likely to enjoy research and consider postgraduate study. Next, 52 students compared the program to a traditional paper-based report-writing guide. The majority agreed that the program had improved their research understanding (90.4%) and confidence (84.7%). Finally, 15 students participated in a focus group interview; nominating the flexibility and self-directed nature of the program as key benefits. We concluded that the affordances of the online program enabled successful research scaffolding. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Teacher educators continue to debate the most effective strategies to assist teachers to become confident educators of Aboriginal students, and Aboriginal content and perspectives. Recently, pre-service teachers have begun to be taught cultural responsiveness with varying degrees of success. The paper is created from (1) data gathered from ethnographic research; (2) the existing literature; (3) my lived experience of being an Aboriginal teacher educator; and (4) my own experiences with racism and oppression. The therapy narrative technique of externalising conversations is used in this paper to facilitate a conversation with the identified problem of racism. The resulting script is a dialogue between an Aboriginal teacher educator and the Master Storyteller Racism, with the ‘audience’ consisting of pre-service teachers. The paper seeks to bring together, in one location, a number of socio-cultural and socio-historical events and narratives regarding Aboriginal peoples and their cultures. It is argued that if the many guises of racism that continue to perpetuate a system that works towards under-educating Aboriginal students are not revealed and disrupted, then a counterstory of Aboriginal education success will remain silent. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract Theoretically, teacher efficacy beliefs (TEBs) are influenced by the analysis of the teaching task and its context (hereafter, teaching analysis). However, there is a lack of empirical study on the relationships between them. This qualitative exploratory study investigated how teachers related their TEBs to their teaching analysis. Interviews were conducted with ten science teachers in Singapore, who were adopting learner-centred pedagogy in their teaching. Six themes emerged: (a) familiarity with the task; (b) improvability of the task; (c) complexity of the task; (d) compatibility of the task with students; (e) collegiality and (f) structural supports. Findings also reveal the dynamic nature and the contingent aspect of TEBs. Implications for school leaders and educators are suggested. PubDate: 2020-09-01
Abstract: Abstract This article maps current senior secondary certification arrangements in Australia, drawing on data on school completion rates, certificate attainment and post-school destinations, as well as policy documents within and across jurisdictions. It argues that irrespective of the jurisdiction, numerous changes over nearly 50 years to the rules governing the senior certificates have been principally responses to the original and continuing need to prepare young people for university and the more recent need to cater for near universal participation in the senior secondary years. It argues there is no consistent and shared view of the purpose of the senior secondary certificates, no consistent approaches to dealing with disadvantage, and continuing difficulties in meeting the needs of the full range of young people in the senior years, particularly those from regional and remote areas, Indigenous communities and low socio-economic status students. There is also considerable variability in retention rates and rates of attainment of the senior secondary certificates as well as the calculation of the Australian Admissions Tertiary Rank (ATAR) score which was primarily designed for university selection purposes. The certificates also have limited emphasis on capabilities in their design and considerable variation in the manner in which literacy and numeracy minimum standards are defined, set and assessed. Furthermore, there is no consistent approach regarding compulsory subjects or a core curriculum, the design and implementation of VET courses and the evolving role of the ATAR. PubDate: 2020-08-19
Abstract: Abstract For teacher educators, one challenge is how to prepare pre-service teachers to engage more deeply with students in high-poverty communities, some of whom they will ultimately teach. Addressing community engagement requires an institutionally embedded strategy to involve Indigenous, refugee, poor, and other historically vulnerable communities in central, rather than tokenistic, ways. This paper reports on the first conceptual stages of a framework for an Australian community-engaged pathway into teaching based on research into how teachers can work for and alongside under-represented families from high-poverty communities. PubDate: 2020-08-19
Abstract: Abstract In an era where higher education institutions appear increasingly committed to what Sara Ahmed calls ‘speech acts’ whereby declared goodwill, through stated commitments to diversity, equity, and increasing Indigenous student enrolment and completion have been made; it is undeniable that Indigenous academics are in high demand. With fewer than 430 Indigenous academics currently employed here on the continent now commonly referred to as ‘Australia’, and 69% of that cohort identifying as female, what does it look like to experience this demand as an Indigenous academic woman' Drawing on data collected from a Nation-wide study in 2019 of 17 one-on-one, face-to-face interviews with Indigenous academic women, using Indigenous research methodologies and poetic transcription, this paper explores the experiences and relational aspects of Indigenous academic women’s roles in Australian higher education. PubDate: 2020-08-07
Abstract: Abstract For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples in the country now known as Australia have had a very successful education system in place, from place. Currently, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experience systemic harm in Australia's public and private schooling systems at unacceptable levels and are consistently positioned as deficient in both the practices and outcomes of formal schooling in Australia. Under the pretense of ‘getting a good education’, many Indigenous students feel coerced into compliance, with schools used as vehicles of institutionalisation, indoctrination and assimilation. As a Gamilaroi woman, I find issue with this and am concerned about the intergenerational consequences if Indigenous students remain in this system. Yet, there are few education options available outside the dominant Western, compulsory schooling model. This paper proposes an envisioning of Indigenous education sovereignty, grounded in Aboriginal axiologies, ontologies and epistemologies as an education option for all students. PubDate: 2020-08-05
Abstract: Abstract A preventative approach to classroom management is associated with increases in student engagement and improved teacher well-being. However, research indicates that many teachers use predominantly reactive practices, aimed at controlling student behaviour. Queensland state secondary school teachers (N = 587) were surveyed about the classroom management practices they most often used to prevent and respond to unproductive student behaviours in their classrooms. Findings indicated that teachers mainly relied on practices to establish expectations, practices from the Essential Skills for Classroom Management professional development resource, and practices which sanction students for behavioural infractions. There were, however, also encouraging indications that teachers try to prevent unproductive behaviour by fostering student engagement in learning activities while addressing misbehaviour in low-key ways. Implications for pre-service teacher preparation and ongoing professional development are discussed. PubDate: 2020-07-09
Abstract: Abstract While many remote places in Queensland, Australia have access to schools, very few have provision for preschool education. Recent efforts to change this have included the development of a kindergarten program delivered through the local school. An impact assessment undertaken in 2017 involved visiting 30 remote sites offering the program. Analysis of interview data indicated the importance of sense of place in the delivery of this program. Educators and family members were overwhelmingly supportive of the option of a kindergarten program in their sites, regarding it as an equity and social justice imperative to provide access to programs that seem to be taken-for-granted for children and families in urban and regional locations. The potential for the program to enhance social interactions and educational outcomes was highlighted, even when educators noted a range of challenges in the implementation of the program. Sense of place and the positioning of educators and families are explored in the paper. PubDate: 2020-07-03
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