Authors:Jonathan Bullen; Lynne Roberts; Julie Hoffman Pages: 71 - 87 Abstract: Australian undergraduate programs are implementing curriculum aimed at better preparing graduates to work in culturally diverse settings, but there remains uncertainty over the role of extant student attitudes towards Indigenous Australians. To begin to address this, we obtained baseline data on student attitudes upon entry to tertiary education. 1175 health science first-year students (275 males, 897 females) completed an anonymous in-class paper questionnaire. On average, students reported positive attitudes towards Indigenous Australians, with female students reporting more positive attitudes than male and domestic students more positive than international. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that after controlling for demographic variables, interactional diversity experiences and attitudes accounted for significant variance in a range of measures of preparedness to work in Indigenous health contexts. The knowledge gained will inform the development of, and alignment between, curriculum and pedagogical approaches, leading to an improved facilitation model for educators in the Indigenous Studies context. PubDate: 2017-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0230-2 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 1 (2017)
Authors:Lisa O’Keeffe; Kay L. O’Halloran; Peter Wignell; Sabine Tan Abstract: In 2015, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was tasked with developing literacy and numeracy skills testing for pre-service teachers. All undergraduate and postgraduate trainee teachers are now required to pass these literacy and numeracy tests at some stage on their journey to becoming a teacher; for commencing students from 2017 in all states (except New South Wales), successfully passing these tests is a requirement for graduation. Following this announcement, ACER released a number of sample test items for both literacy and numeracy. This study used multimodal analysis to study the nature of the language, symbolic notation and visual representations in the sample test items for numeracy, with a focus on the linguistic complexity of the questions. The findings suggest that the types of linguistic constructions found in the assessment questions create significant challenges in terms of reading and comprehension which could impact on how the students engage with the numeracy assessment items. PubDate: 2017-06-20 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0238-7
Authors:Mariona Llopart; Moisès Esteban-Guitart Abstract: This article aims to describe and illustrate how the curriculum can be contextualised through different educational experiences based on the funds of knowledge approach. Educational contextualisation is understood to be the linking of curricular content (literacy, science, mathematics, social sciences) with students’ lives, including prior learning experiences from their homes and communities. The literature review began by surveying 59 articles retrieved from the ERIC database after entering the search terms “funds of knowledge” and “teaching methods”. Out of these, 22 peer reviewed papers were selected based on the following criteria: the paper should illustrate how artefacts produced by students (photographs, texts, artistic productions, digital stories) can be put to pedagogical use by turning them into resources to mobilise knowledge and experiences inside and outside school. The results are discussed in light of the CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy, as well as the notion of funds of identity, which has been proposed recently within the context of the funds of knowledge approach. PubDate: 2017-06-03 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0237-8
Authors:Jennifer Gore; Sally Patfield; Leanne Fray; Kathryn Holmes; Maree Gruppetta; Adam Lloyd; Maxwell Smith; Treesa Heath Abstract: While access to higher education has increased for Indigenous Australians, participation and completion rates remain lower than those of non-Indigenous Australians. A sound evidence base is needed to ground equity initiatives if they are to address the specific needs of Indigenous students. This paper presents the results of a scoping review of empirical research focusing on the participation of Indigenous students in higher education. The purpose of the scoping review was to synthesise empirical research on aspirations for, and barriers and enablers to, higher education that were published between 2000 and 2016 (n = 57), and identify areas where further research is needed. Despite a recent increase in research on this topic, relatively little attention has been paid to Indigenous students’ aspirations while they are at school. We argue that future research should take account of school students’ aspirations for higher education, including primary school students; the similitude of barriers and enablers across the student life cycle; differences within Indigenous community and among Indigenous students; and, the insights emerging from Indigenous methodologies and scholarship. PubDate: 2017-05-29 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0236-9
Authors:Mark Rahimi; Christine Halse; Jill Blackmore Abstract: s Schools and school education systems within nations are vying to increase international student enrolments in secondary schools. This analysis of the change over a decade in the enrolment of international secondary students in Victoria, Australia, indicates how the processes of internationalisation and commercialisation of education have affected both public and private school sectors. Four factors have impacted on international senior student enrolments over a decade: global economic fluctuations; the growth of international schools globally targeting home country students; the emergence of overseas campuses for elite private schools and policies encouraging internationalisation. We propose that these forces, among others, are working in concert to reshape the nature of international student populations and international schooling in both home and host countries. These factors, together with an overarching instrumentalist policy approach underpinning the engagement of Australian schools with the international education market, provide new opportunities for less socio-economically advantaged schools to enter the international education market. It argues that the common idea of international students attending only elite schools no longer captures the phenomenon and raises questions as to how we understand what it means to be an ‘international’ school or student. PubDate: 2017-03-27 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0235-x
Authors:Altay Eren Abstract: Exploring the direct and indirect effects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility on their professional aspirations through affective (i.e., career choice satisfaction) and cognitive (i.e., time perspectives) variables may enable teacher educators and policy makers to better describe the factors influencing teacher development in an era of teacher accountability. Indeed, current teacher accountability movements rather neglect the ‘teacher’ as a person who has professional aspirations, a sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction and time perspectives within which these professional aspirations are contextualized and/or interpreted/reinterpreted. This indicates that it is important to consider pre-service teachers’ professional intentions together with their sense of responsibility, professional satisfaction, and time perspectives in order to inform current accountability movements more comprehensively. Thus, the current study examined whether pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, time perspectives, and career choice satisfaction were significantly related to their professional aspirations, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of their time perspectives and career choice satisfaction. A total of 511 pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the study. Correlation, multiple regression, and structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to analyze the data in a comprehensive manner. The results showed that aspects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility were significantly and positively related to their professional aspirations, career choice satisfaction, and future time perspective. The results also showed that career choice satisfaction and future time perspective played significant mediating roles in the relationships between personal responsibility and professional aspirations. Notably, the mediating role of career choice satisfaction was stronger than that of the mediating role of future time perspective. Overall, the results of the study reveal that the correlational patterns, derived from the links between pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction, future time perspective, and professional aspirations, have clear potential to inform teacher educators and policy makers regarding the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ engagement with the teaching profession and professional development aspirations. PubDate: 2017-03-27 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0234-y
Authors:Levon Ellen Blue; Laura Elizabeth Pinto Abstract: Financial literacy education (FLE) continues to gain momentum on a global scale. FLE is often described as essential learning for all citizens, despite the bulk of initiatives outside the compulsory school classrooms focussed on educating economically disadvantaged individuals. Informed by Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing a critical discourse analysis of FLE facilitators resources used in train-the-trainer workshops in/for a Canadian Aboriginal community was conducted to identify dominant discourses. An uncomfortable space was uncovered as the ubiquitous focus on individual wealth accumulation contradicted Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, underscoring the challenges of embedding Indigenous epistemologies in highly institutionalised charitable organisations’ attempts to help Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) peoples in poverty. Although this research is based on a Canadian program, the explosion of FLE as a “solution” to collective problems such as poverty lends itself to other—including Australian—contexts. PubDate: 2017-02-15 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0226-y
Authors:Melitta Hogarth Abstract: The educational attainment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is often presented within a deficit view. The need for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers to challenge the societal norms is necessary to contribute to the struggle for self-determination. This paper presents a theoretical and methodological approach that has enabled one researcher to speak back to the deficit discourses. Exemplification of how Indigenous Critical Discourse Analysis (in: Hogarth, Addressing the rights of Indigenous peoples’ in education: A critical analysis of Indigenous education policy, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 2016) identifies the power of language to maintain the inequitable positioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within Australian society is provided. Particular focus is placed on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan 2010–2014 (in: MCEECDYA, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan (2010–2014), 2011) and how policy discourses ignore the historical, political, cultural and social factors that influence the engagement and participation of Indigenous peoples in education today. The paper argues for the need to personalise methodological approaches to present the standpoint of the researcher and, in turn, deepens their advocacy for addressing the phenomenon. In turn, the paper presents the need to build on existing Indigenous research frameworks to continue advocating for the position of Indigenous research methodologies within the Western institution. PubDate: 2017-02-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0228-9
Authors:Kevin Lowe Abstract: The conundrum of Indigenous education in Australia is that there are multiple, highly contested and polarising narratives that vie to inform both public and policy debate about how to construct effective schooling of Aboriginal students. Two of these contested discourses, which are seen to drive much of this debate, highlight the complexity of concerns—one which is essentially aspirational in its intent but unperceptive to the realities of Aboriginal student achievement and a second data focused discourse that is managerial and evaluative in its focus to disclose policy and pedagogic failures on student outcomes. The first has posed the politically more palatable proposition that there has been a slow, sometimes faltering but inexorable improvement in Aboriginal education, while the second highlights a mounting body of qualitative data that document an overall failure by school systems to lift Aboriginal student education achievement. The author recognises the complex and historical nature of the multilayered ‘issues’ that sit at the heart of Aboriginal underachievement. He argues that one of those underpinning issues that has plagued Aboriginal education centres on the depth of the socio-cultural disconnect between Aboriginal students and their communities, and teachers. He also argues that, too often, teachers are appointed to schools with limited social, political and professional knowledge about the particular needs and aspirations of Aboriginal students such that it impacts on their capacity to establish authentic connections to students. The research on which this article is based sets out to provide an understanding of both the nature and dynamics of community and school engagement in sites with high proportions of Aboriginal students. The study aimed to investigate teachers’ capacity to develop authentic pedagogic practices that are responsive to the educational, cultural and aspirational needs of Aboriginal students. In particular, the research highlights how the relational dynamics between schools and Aboriginal people have been deeply affected by colonial histories of exclusion and systemic disadvantage, pervasive school discourses of marginalisation and in particular an ignorance about holistic needs of Aboriginal students at school and the resultant negative relational interactions between schools and Aboriginal families. This multisite ethnographic study was undertaken with Aboriginal community members, teachers and school principals in 2012 as doctoral research. It was conducted within a relational landscape characterised by an enduring socio-cultural dissonance between schools and their Aboriginal communities. The study focused on examples of authentic collaboration and purposeful interactions between Aboriginal communities and schools that were shown to support teachers in building deeper understanding that enhanced their cognisance of the wider needs of Aboriginal students. The findings in this article highlight that when authentic engagement between Aboriginal people and schools occurred, it appeared to positively impact the teachers’ professional knowledge and created a consequent interest within these communities to engage with their schools. The research further identified that in each site the Aboriginal participants articulated an interest in developing authentic school collaborations that would enhance student outcomes. These findings suggested that teachers need to honour, understand and actively reflect on community history, contexts and aspirations to develop the skills and knowledge to address the particular socio-cultural and educational needs of Aboriginal students. PubDate: 2017-02-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0229-8
Authors:Myra Singh; Jae Major Abstract: Walking simultaneously in two worlds as an Indigenous researcher, navigating Indigenous and Western epistemologies/methodologies can have its challenges. Indigenous methodologies have become an important element of qualitative research and have been increasingly taken up by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. Indigenous methodologies seek to ensure that the research is culturally safe and culturally respectful through recognition of Indigenous worldviews, respect, and accountability. It is no longer research on or about Indigenous people, rather it is becoming research for and with Indigenous people. In this paper, we reflect on the experiences of an Indigenous researcher working with a non-Indigenous supervisor within an overarching Western theoretical framework of poststructuralism while also using Indigenous methodologies. We discuss the tensions and points of connection that emerged in the research design process. We suggest that Indigenous and Western epistemologies/methodologies do not have to be used to the exclusion of each other; they can be used effectively to complement and support each other. PubDate: 2017-02-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0233-z
Authors:Karen L. Martin Abstract: Whilst early childhood education is regarded as important for young Indigenous Australians and it has been a feature of policy since the 1960s, it does not receive the same attention as compulsory schooling for Indigenous Australian students. A serious lack of large-scale research contributes to the devaluing of early childhood education for young Indigenous Australians by some stakeholders such as governments, academics and research, but not for the main stakeholders, namely young Indigenous Australian children and their parents. This paper aims to address this by drawing on large-scale qualitative and quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. First, it will analyse data pertaining to the experiences of Indigenous Australian children to uncover what they believe to be special about their early childhood education. Second, it will analyse data pertaining to the specific choices made by their parents regarding their early childhood education. The paper concludes by discussing the role of research in strengthening areas within Indigenous Australian early childhood education and identifying areas where it is valued to the same level as compulsory schooling. PubDate: 2017-02-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0231-1
Authors:Marnee Shay; Judi Wickes Abstract: From Aboriginal Australian perspectives and experiences, Aunty Judi Wickes and Marnee Shay bring a cross-generational, critical race analysis of Aboriginal identities and how they are implicated in the schooling experiences of Aboriginal young people. Using autoethnography, Aunty Judi and Marnee discuss their educational experiences in the Australian education systems from primary schooling experiences to university settings. These narratives bring forth the dominant discourses that continue to subjugate and subordinate Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal Australian identities in Education settings. The paper distinguishes the narratives of two Aboriginal women and how on-going colonial and racialised constructions of Aboriginal identity continue to impact upon the educational experiences of Aboriginal peoples and consequently the engagement of Aboriginal young people in school settings. Moreover, we will use the process of critical self-reflection to re-imagine educational approaches to reconstruct our own experiences and consider what changes might improve the outcomes of Indigenous young people for future generations. PubDate: 2017-02-14 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-017-0232-0
Authors:Marianne Fenech; David P. Wilkins Abstract: While an increasing body of Australian and international research has explored the relationship between media and education, few studies have examined this relationship in the context of early childhood education. This paper contributes to this research gap by reporting on a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how childcare is represented in 801 newspaper texts from six Australian newspapers. As a foundational paper of a broader study investigating public and political influences on parents’ childcare choices, the paper details the use and utility of corpus linguistic tools for exploring the discourse construction of childcare in a large corpus of media texts. It also highlights the value of analysing media corpora via media ownership, focusing on the two dominant Australian media organisations, Fairfax and News Corp. Analyses reveal similarities but also key differences in the representation of childcare in Fairfax and News Corp newspapers. In Australia, print media still sets the daily media agenda and reflects the dominant discourse constructions surrounding major public issues. Accordingly, the beliefs, practices and decision-making of current and potential parent users of formal childcare may be differentially influenced depending not just on their (direct or indirect) access to print media, but by the format (tabloid or broadsheet) and thus ownership (Fairfax or News Corp). PubDate: 2017-02-02 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0225-4
Authors:Debra Hayes; Catherine Doherty Abstract: Research in education draws upon a wide range of epistemological traditions due in part to the wide range of problems that are investigated. While this diversity might be considered a strength of the field, it also makes researchers who work within it vulnerable to being divided into those worth listening to and those who should be ignored by ‘end-users’. These people and groups who are interested in the outcomes of educational research, such as policy makers and system providers, increasingly expect research findings to be accessible, and to inform questions of the ‘what works’ variety. Under this imperative, research processes that elaborate the complexity of educational problems, and the provisional, partial and contingent nature of solutions, tend to be dismissed as unnecessarily complex and inaccessible. Epistemological diversity in educational research also presents challenges for inducting teacher education students into the profession. We outline some of these challenges in a discussion of epistemological diversity in research in education. We also describe differences in how research traditions construct educational problems. We argue that crossing epistemic boundaries is a necessary condition of the educational practices of teachers and of those preparing to join their ranks. We compare and contrast knowledge-producing processes in education and identify the repertoires of capabilities and habits of mind associated with different epistemologies or ‘angles’. We suggest that the impact of educational research, including its contribution to teacher education programs, policy and public debate about issues in education, might be enhanced through a heuristic suite of four angles that are each understood to be necessary but not sufficient on their own. We provide a brief worked example of how such a heuristic might be applied to make sense of the diverse bodies of research regarding student engagement in school. PubDate: 2017-01-27 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0224-5
Authors:Mary Ann Powell; Anne Graham Abstract: National concern regarding the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people is now strongly reflected in a wide range of Australian policy initiatives. A considerable number of these target schools and point firmly to the role education is perceived to play in promoting student wellbeing. Given that wellbeing can be difficult to define and complex to measure, closer attention needs to be paid to whether and how the current wellbeing policy environment provides conceptual clarity and intelligible implementation pathways. This article explores some of the current policy ambiguity by drawing on findings from a large-scale, mixed methods study exploring student wellbeing at school. These findings emerged from an extensive analysis of wellbeing-related policy, together with policy-related data from in-depth interviews with teachers and principals. They suggest that approaches to supporting student wellbeing are constrained by an ad hoc policy environment characterised by competing discourses and a consequential lack of clarity regarding how wellbeing is understood and best facilitated within the context of schools. The implications of these findings are discussed with particular attention to the interface between policy and practice with regard to student wellbeing in schools in Australia. PubDate: 2017-01-27 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0222-7
Authors:Gary N. Marks Abstract: This paper demonstrates that the emphasis on students’ socioeconomic status (SES) in research and policy circles in Australia is unwarranted. The bivariate relationships between SES and educational outcomes are only moderate and the effects of SES are quite small when taking into account cognitive ability or prior achievement. These two influences have much stronger relationships with students’ outcomes than SES and their effects cannot be attributed to the influence of SES at earlier points of time. The theoretical explanations for socioeconomic inequalities in education (e.g. schools and cultural factors) are problematic and are not supported by empirical work. The much weaker than assumed effects of SES has implications for research and policy. PubDate: 2016-12-10 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0219-2
Authors:Robyn Lonergan; Therese M. Cumming Abstract: Conducting classroom-based research can be difficult, often fraught with challenges, analogous to riding a canoe down the rapids. The dynamics of classroom-based research often require flexibility on the parts of both the researcher and school personnel. Classroom-based research is viewed here through a framework of problem-based methodology as developed by Robinson and adapted to real-world research in the classroom. A simple and adaptable model of the nature of schools as organisations is discussed, and problem-based methodology is used to explore how such complex and dynamic institutions maintain the ability to function effectively. Problem-based methodology is then applied to the development of a theoretical framework to clarify the processes of recruiting participant schools and of conducting the research. The framework is operationalised through a brief account of one researcher’s experiences. PubDate: 2016-12-08 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0223-6
Authors:Amanda J. Parnis; Peter Petocz Abstract: International and national testing of numerical and language skills has become a regular part of educational systems in many countries. In Australia, the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) has been used since 2008 to carry out regular tests of literacy and numeracy amongst school students nationally. Since the numeracy components of this program are based on work carried out in school mathematics classes, it seems reasonable that tests represent an evaluation of mathematical ability, albeit at the simpler and introductory levels. However, there has been little investigation of students’ ideas about numeracy, and the role that their attitudes towards numeracy may have on their results on the numeracy components of NAPLAN tests. This study carries out an empirical investigation of ideas about and attitudes towards numeracy, and their relation to NAPLAN scores for a sample of 735 lower secondary students from two schools in New South Wales, Australia. Attitudes are measured using a modified form of the Students’ Attitudes Towards Statistics, (SATS-36) test (Schau in Survey of attitudes towards statistics, http://www.evaluationandstatistics.com, 2003), and conceptions of numeracy are obtained from phenomenographic analysis of an open-ended response item. The overall conclusion, that students’ understanding of the concept of numeracy and their attitudes towards numeracy are related to their performance in numeracy tests, represents a potentially important result both for students and their teachers. PubDate: 2016-10-07 DOI: 10.1007/s13384-016-0218-3
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