End of an era: the collapse of the ‘buffer’ approach to the governance of Australian tertiary education

For almost thirty years Australian tertiary education was administered by independent statutory commissions of one sort or another. They were based on the buffer principle of having an intermediate organisation between governments and institutions; a format that owed its origins to the British UGC model. The most recent of the commissions - the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) - was established in 1977 and made responsible for all sectors of post-secondary education. For the first eight years or so of its existence CTEC functioned as a relatively self-contained entity in the commonwealth bureaucratic arena and enjoyed a very high degree of authority over the development of the nation's colleges and universities. It earned an impressive reputation for stability, coherence and high standards in policy-making. During the mid-1980s, however, policies introduced by the newly elected Hawke Labor government to counter a rapidly deteriorating economic climate had a significant impact on tertiary education as a whole and on CTEC in particular. Under Labor, tertiary education came to be viewed as a vital infrastructure resource for industrial development. Federal government departments, which had previously taken little interest in tertiary education, became actively involved in the affairs of universities and colleges. This involvement eventually undermined the viability of CTEC's role. First, a variety of demands were imposed upon the Commission which it found impossible to meet. As a consequence it was depicted as unresponsive and incompetent. Second, a number of agencies developed new policy initiatives in the tertiary education sphere over which CTEC had no control. The outcome was a fragmented and confused policy environment. Third, initiatives introduced by departments provided fresh sources of external funds for institutions. The sudden availability of this finance created divisions within the tertiary education community which seriously compro-mised the Commission's planning procedures. By mid-1987 the combined influence of these developments had substantially attenuated CTEC's effectiveness as a policy-making body. At the end of 1987, as part of a wide-ranging series of reforms, the government decided to disband the Commission and transfer most of its functions to a newly created super department. The presiding minister now possesses direct control over the activities of universities and colleges. This situation amounts to a significant change in the style of policy formulation and implementation in Australian tertiary education.     

Len Barton,critical education and the problem of ‘decentered unities’

In the process of discussing the significant contributions that Len Barton has made to the sociology of education and to disability studies, I argue that a good deal of critical analyses of power and inequality in education are impoverished by some of their essentialist and reductive tendencies. I use an example taken from disability rights to show how parts of these tendencies can be overcome. I suggest that disability rights movements provide powerful possibilities for the interruption of capitalist ideological forms and their attendant ways of organising and controlling labour. They do this by challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions that underpin capitalist economies and ways of life. By strongly resisting the ways in which paid work and paid workers are treated, new relations are made possible. I connect this example to some of the insightful analyses of the place of affective equality in the struggle for social justice in both a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition. Building on these arguments, I then argue for a broadened conception of critical research and critical action. I describe nine tasks in which the critical scholar/activists should engage if they are to be true to an enlarged conception of the ‘public intellectual’ and ‘public sociologist’.     

Geoffrey Sherington and the history of Australian education: ‘ideas of use to a needy world’

This paper provides an overview of the contribution of Professor Geoffrey Sherington to the study of the history of Australian education and immigration. His academic and leadership roles are summarised and the main themes of his work are briefly discussed. These themes comprise: Australia as an immigrant nation, British colonial values and meritocracy, public, private, and corporate schooling, and the interconnectedness of educational institutions. These themes recur in the discussion below and are aimed at providing a context for the analyses and assessments of his major scholarly projects.     

Countering and exceeding ‘capital’: a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach to re-imagining community

This article discusses how the ‘funds of knowledge’ approach (FoK) offers a socially just alternative to the logics of capital, by drawing on knowledge assets from students’ family and community lifeworlds to build engaging and rigorous learning, supporting school–community interactions that build capacities. We explain how we applied FoK in an action research project – Redesigning Pedagogies in the North (RPiN) – to design curriculum and pedagogy in schools of a high-poverty region. With reference to RPiN, we also observe how high-poverty regions, and their schools, appear to be undergoing complex unsettlements, as effects of globalisation, which raise problematic questions about who/what is ‘the local community’. We argue that this calls for new thinking, both sociological and ethical, which can refine the FoK approach to take fuller account of the diverse and complex spaces of social-historical life in new times. We conclude by considering a pedagogical approach through which learners in such regions can re-imagine hopeful forms of community.     

‘Finding Foucault’: orders of discourse and cultures of the self

The idea of finding Foucault first looks at the many influences on Foucault, including his Nietzschean acclamations. It examines Foucault’s critical history of thought, his work on the orders of discourse with his emphasis on being a pluralist: the problem he says that he has set himself is that of the individualization of discourses. Finally, it addresses his work on the culture of the self which became a philosophical and historical question for Foucault later in his life as he investigated the historical form of relations between subjectivity and truth in Western philosophy since Antiquity and how philosophy as an activity taught about the care of the self. The conclusion suggests some ways that students might approach his work as they proceed in finding Foucault and their own selves.     

‘Hard’ decisions and ‘tough’ choices: the business approach to university decline

This paper critically examines the solutions to university decline that emphasize selective cutbacks, in which certain areas are phased out to protect others. The experiences of two Canadian universities show that these kinds of hard decisions generate a considerable amount of political conflict. While the business perspective recommends decisive action, it provides little advice about how these actions can be implemented. It may even intensify conflict and worsen an already difficult situation. The paper argues that we need to learn about the management of both conflict and collegiality, as well as the conditions which make tough choices necessary, before we can successfully tackle decline.     

Distorted representations of the ‘capability approach’ in Australian school education

Recently, curriculum developments in Australia have seen the incorporation of functionalist ‘general capabilities’ as essential markers of schooling, meaning that any pedagogical expression of classroom-based practice, including subsequent instruction, should entail the identification and development of operational general capabilities. The paper questions and critiques recent curriculum developments in Australia that characterises capabilities purely in functionalist terms, something that the broader capabilities literature eschews. The analysis is informed by aspects of the theoretical frameworks of Martin Heidegger and Pierre Bourdieu. It examines the notion of ‘general capabilities’ in the Australian Curriculum. The paper argues that there is an inherent contradiction in Australian education policy, namely a vocationally oriented national school curriculum with implied functionings that cannot fulfil designated purposes. The paper finds that the curriculum's connection to increased individual and national economic prosperity, one championing ‘jobs and careers of the twenty-first century’, is evident, although current populous forms and categories of employment seem to suggest otherwise.     

Language teachers’ responses to educational research: addressing the ‘crisis’ of representation

ABSTRACT

While teachers are being called upon to turn to educational research and find evidence of ‘what works’, critics argue that research often suffers from a crisis of representation. They contend that research reports fail to sufficiently capture the lived experiences of research participants. In this article, I present insights gleaned from 12 in-service teachers who read and responded to a research-based article published in a peer-reviewed journal. Data were collected from the participants’ threaded discussions on a wiki discussion board and individual in-depth interviews. The analysis of data suggests that the participants viewed the research article as both a means of representation and a potential obstacle to it. Contrary to the crisis rhetoric, the majority of participants were not too concerned about the issue of representation. They interpreted the theoretical knowledge presented in the article in light of their past experiences and socio-material contexts of work. I use the concept of recognition to illustrate their interpretive readings of the research article. I conclude the article with a discussion of how a recognitive approach to representation may help us re-conceptualize the dissemination and utilization of educational research in the current climate of evidence-based practice.     

Between ‘enrichment’ and ‘endangerment’: ‘cultural diversity’ and the politics of belonging in the Berlin school choice discourse

Even though choice is not officially a feature in the German primary school system, some parents intervene in determining which school their child attends. Especially in urban contexts, the informal school market is growing. This demand is based on promises with respect to a certain quality of education as well as on issues that prevail in certain inner city schools. In looking at Berlin, as a global city, this article shows how contrary school choice practices gain traction in the face of ‘cultural differences’ that those practices produce discursively. Cultural semantics are activated with regard to the composition of the student body, when parents chose schools with a bilingual profile, but also when parents engage in the practice of ‘group enrolment’ into schools in inner city hotspots perceived as problematic. Our research shows how school choice practices may become acceptable despite being a public taboo, if parents argue by appeal to ‘cultural differences’.     

Democratic education and the ‘strategy of material obstacles’: a pedagogical approach to the enforcement of traffic rules in a Greek town

This paper is about people's relationship to laws, rules and regulations in a Greek town. The aim is to describe specific traffic policies, point out the underlying pedagogical assumptions and assess their potential effect in relation to the goals of a democratic education. The study springs from the author's experience as a non-native inhabitant of Greece. It is the result of daily, 15-year-long participant observation. Faced with drivers who disregard most rules of the Highway Code, especially concerning parking, the authorities in a Greek town have screwed traffic devices to the ground. Functioning like obstacles, such devices are designed to make violations materially impossible. I argue that this policy eventually teaches people not to respect traffic regulations and rules in general, thus being in conflict with the goals of a democratic education.     

‘You’re actually the problem’: manifestations of populist masculinist anxieties in Australian higher education

In 2016 the world witnessed a consolidation of a western brand of political ‘populist authoritarianism’ that is anti-globalisationalist and creates ‘shared objects of loathing’ in the popular imagination. This article engages with the implications of this affective and masculinist ‘post-truth’ era for higher education and analyses the narratives of teacher educators who teach compulsory classes based on inclusion and diversity. The article uses the work of feminist, Indigenous and queer theorists to explore gendered responses to pedagogical encounters recounted in the data. We offer a reading of these experiences that links white male objections, particularly around the teaching of gender and race, to the growth of neoconservatism that precipitated the contemporary rise of populist authoritarianism. The pedagogical encounters we explore reflect the notion that the Australian white male is a figure who is brought undone by allowing the subaltern to speak.     

It's a knuckleball: a critical case study of a collaborative between a university and the ‘real world’ of school leadership

This is a look at the political games within games that are enmeshed in a high-profile, heavily funded, politically charged collaborative focused on preparing new school leaders between a large prestigious university and a circle of school leaders and policymakers. This case specifically considers how power and money corrupt the original vision and mission of a collaborative, in terms of its consideration of school and its purpose in society.     

‘You're not able to breathe’: conceptualizing the intersectionality of early career,gender and crisis

Drawing on data from nine focus groups in four countries, I argue for the need to develop a research agenda around the intersectionality of early career, gender and crisis. I first give a brief explanation of the background, methodology and limitations of the study. Second, I lay out some key conceptualizations and their own limitations and then trace some important theoretical intersections that will frame the discussion. Third, to bring this intersectionality to life, I employ participant examples from the focus groups. In the first section of the analysis of the participant responses, I examine how crisis affects the identities of early-career academics. In the second section of the analysis, I connect these questions of identities with early-career academics' relationship with higher education (HE) pedagogies, most likely well known by the reader as a marginalized aspect of academics' work in HE institutions. Finally, I conclude with some responses to these dilemmas.     

Stories of Hope: a response to the ‘psychology of despair’

This paper begins by considering some of the dilemmas and complexities of living in post‐modern times and the particular problems that this poses for those teaching about environmental and global issues. It then identifies the crucial importance of hope in periods of turbulent change and describes a research project designed to investigate the sources of hope and inspiration that such educators draw on. In this the natural environment emerges both as a cause for concern and also as one of many vital sources of hope. Finally, comments are made on some of the implications of this research for teaching and learning and the need for educators themselves to identify a pedagogy of hope.