Reconceptualising equity: Pedagogy for Chinese students in Australian schools

Education Queensland’s New Basics project has extended conceptions of ‘equity’ to incorporate dimensions such as higher order thinking and student control of classroom activity. This requires a critique of the outcomes attained by even high achieving students. It is therefore useful to interrogate professional discourses that shape pedagogies for particular groups of students. In this paper, discourses on ‘the Chinese learner’ are reviewed. The review raises new issues of equity because Chinese students are often high achievers in Australian schools, but are frequently criticised for learning in ways that seem to fit uneasily with the types of pedagogy now valorised in Queensland. The paper concludes with a note of caution about the definition of high quality academic outcomes in the new policy, and the effects of a gap between understandings of equity and professional discourses and practice.     

Reconceptualising academic work as professional practice: implications for academic development

Despite increasing research and scholarship in the area of academic development in recent years, it remains an under-theorised field of endeavour. The paper proposes that academic developers take a view on what constitutes academic work and see it as a form of professional practice. It discusses the features of practice theory that illuminate professional practice and identifies three foci for the application of these ideas within academic development: practice development, fostering learning-conducive work and deliberately locating activity within practice. It also suggests that academic development be viewed as a practice and points to features within its own traditions on which to build.     

Positioning adult educators in discourses of professional development

This article explores the discursive work done by different notions of professional development in adult education. In particular we outline the ways in which the discourses of technical expertise, competence and reflective practice are deployed to mobilise professional practices and identities in particular ways and position certain practices and dispositions as specifically professional. We suggest that these discourses help to shape the negotiations between economies of performance and ecologies of practice within which professionals operate. We argue that much of this work is implicit in the pedagogies and curriculum of programmes for adult educators and that there is a need for detailed empirical research on the pedagogies of professional development and practice in adult education. With moves in Europe to develop professional standards for adult educators we suggest that studying the rhetoric of professional development provides an opportunity to open some existing diverse practices to new forms of scrutiny.     

Seeing epistemic order: construction and transmission of evaluative criteria

This paper focuses on formative assessment in the field of higher education. It examines Bernstein’s work on vertical discourses and knowledge structures with the view to deepening understanding of the concept of assessment for learning. The first part of the paper draws on Vygotsky’s work on concept development and Bernstein’s work on knowledge structures to explain why ‘generalisation’ and ‘hierarchy’ are central in knowledge acquisition. It then explores Bernstein’s claim that, within the vertical discourse, different knowledge structures (hierarchical and horizontal) afford greater or lesser visibility of their epistemic structure, and thus of their evaluation criteria of what counts as a legitimate text. The second part of the paper investigates the ways epistemic expectations are signalled through the practice of evaluation to first‐year university students in a professional education course and proposes that markers do not offer students stuffiest access to recognition rules necessary for producing legitimate texts in the future. Drawing on Maton’s distinction between semantic gravity and semantic density, the paper offers an example of how markers could recast what is present in students’ work to offer students access to key ordering principles in vertical discourses.     

Learning to Be: The Modelling of Art and Design Practice in University Art and Design Teaching

Learning to be an artist or designer is a complex process of becoming. Much of the early phase of ‘learning to be’ occurs during the time emerging artists and designers are students in university art/design programmes, both undergraduate and postgraduate. Recent research reveals that a critical role in assisting students in their maturing identities as artists and designers is played by artist/designer‐academics teaching in university art and design programmes. By maintaining active art/design practices and drawing from these in their teaching, artist/designer‐academics model professional practice to students. Witnessing and interacting with such modelling is part of the process of students learning the shared discourses, views and practices of the art or design worlds to which they aspire to belong. The modelling of professional practice is critical to an artist or designer's ‘learning to be’ experience because it enables students to access the tacit and nuanced behaviours, languages and cultures that constitute contemporary art or design practice. This article outlines findings from a recent Australian study revealing the role of professional practice modelling in university art/design teaching. It highlights the centrality of professional practice modelling to artist/designer‐academics in their beliefs and approaches to teaching their academic disciplines. In critically exploring the research data and findings this article describes the role that modelling of practice plays and how it comprises a core part of the value that artist/designer‐academic participants contribute to the teaching of art/design education.     

On constructs and the construction of teachers’ professional knowledge in a post-Soviet context

This paper examines the understandings (‘constructs’) of teachers’ professional knowledge and its sources that underpin current practice in initial teacher education in Kazakhstan and in particular the way in which pedagogika contributes to these. Drawing on empirical data collected over four years, the paper illustrates the ways in which professional knowledge and professional preparation of teachers in pre-service institutions are constructed within the Kazakh and Soviet pedagogical traditions, albeit with some reference to international scholars. Teachers’ professional knowledge is formed from pedagogic theory mediated by academic staff in what is seen by many from outside and inside the country who are engaged in educational ‘reform’ in Kazakhstan as a largely didactic style with little or no critical engagement or exploration of the implications for practice. This stands in contrast with two recent professional development programmes: the Collaborative Action Research and Center of Excellence, which are focused on interactive learning and teaching, reflective practice, classroom action research, and teachers’ collaboration as sources for teachers’ professional knowledge. This paper highlights this contrast and begins to explore what happens when these two different approaches to the construction of teachers’ professional knowledge encounter each other.     

Expertise,competence and reflection in the rhetoric of professional development

This article explores the rhetorical work done by discourses of professional development in education. In particular it outlines the ways in which the rhetoric of technical expertise, competence and reflective practice are deployed to mobilise professional practices and identities in particular ways and position certain practices and dispositions as specifically professional. The article explores the ways in which audiences are mobilised and the strategies to persuade educators that particular discourses of professionalism are about and for them. This is illustrated through an analysis of a particular discourse of professional development for academics in the UK. The authors argue for and illustrate the illuminating potential of rhetorical analysis to an understanding of different practices of professional development.     

Researcher-led academic development

In this study, members of a higher education department explore their research activity and how it influences their practice as academic developers in a research-led institution. While the research activities of the team members appear diverse, they are all underpinned by a shared set of professional values to provide an anchor for these activities. Research-as-pedagogy and the relationship between the discourses of research and teaching are explored using Bernstein’s knowledge structures. The authors conclude that differences in research focus (horizontal discourse) provide dynamism across a department and that stability is provided through the underpinning core values inherent in the vertical discourse.     

Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers’ perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan

This empirical study investigates secondary science teachers’ perspectives on science education reform in Taiwan and reflects how these teachers have been negotiating constructivist and learner-centered pedagogical approaches in contemporary science education. It also explores the challenges that teachers encounter while shifting their pedagogical focus from traditional approaches to teaching science to an active engagement in students’ learning. Multiple sources of qualitative data were obtained, including individual interviews with science teachers and teachers’ reflective journals about Confucianism in relation to their educational philosophies. Thematic analysis and constant comparative method were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that Confucian traditions play a significant role in shaping educational practices in Taiwan and profoundly influence teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their actual classroom practice. Indeed, science teachers’ perspectives on Confucian learning traditions played a key role in supporting or obstructing their pedagogical commitments to inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. This study draws on the literature concerning teachers’ professional struggles and identity construction during educational reform. Specifically, we explore the ways in which teachers respond to educational changes and negotiate their professional identities. We employed various theories of identity construction to understand teachers’ struggles and challenges while wrestling with competing traditional and reform-based pedagogical approaches. Attending to these struggles and the ways in which they inform the development of a teacher’s professional identity is vital for sustaining current and future educational reform in Taiwan as well as in other Eastern cultures. These findings have important implications for teachers’ professional development programs in East Asian cultures.     

Signifying authenticity in academic practice: a framework for better understanding and harnessing portfolio assessment

Portfolios are an assessment tool that help frame expectations of personal professional learning about teaching in higher education, a key dimension of academic practice. In this paper, we review our experiences in both supporting academic colleagues to develop a teaching portfolio, and in their assessment. We argue that the authenticity of the account offered is key: participants should aspire to render an authentic account of themselves, their context, actions and their professional stance. Likewise, assessors need to verify that an account is authentic. We posit five signifiers of authenticity: biographical/professional context; practice development and experience of practice; integration of core concepts and key ideas from the literature, especially evaluation and conceptions of teaching; purpose and values in continuing professional learning (CPL); coherence of writing, vocabulary used, writing style, etc. These are intended to help course leaders and conveners of CPL activities to articulate what it is that is being sought from participants, and hence clarify expectations for both participants doing the learning and for disciplinary colleagues assisting with the assessment.     

On becoming a doctoral student: Chinese doctoral students’ socialization of capital and habitus in academia

Abstract

This study examines Chinese international doctoral students’ academic socialization into TESOL discourses and communities. Rooted in the academic discourse socialization theory, complemented by the notions of Lave and Wenger’s community of practice, and Bourdieu’s capital, habitus, and field, this longitudinal multiple-case study suggest the focal participants’ academic discourse socialization is mediated by their participation in communities of practice, different forms of capital, and habitus in exerting agency. The participants are socialized into academic discourses and communities through their interactions with more experienced colleagues. By participating in the communities of practice, the focal students gain different forms of capital and experience different degrees of competence and memberships. However, due to the inequitable power relations in the TESOL doctoral program field, each participant is socialized to varying levels of central, peripheral, and marginal participation. This study concludes by providing suggestions for action to be taken by university advisors, instructors, and administrators.     

‘The voice inside herself’: transforming gendered academic identities in educational administration

This paper traces the academic identity formation(s) of 10 Canadian female academics whose disciplinary knowledge is in the field of educational administration. We trace the ways in which discourses of gender, institutional power, and other cultural and social influences shaped their sense of themselves as academics in the highly patriarchal domain of the academy as an institution as well as within the discourse(s) of educational administration in faculties of education. In doing so, we discuss the ways in which these women's entry into academia transformed identity possibilities for themselves and others. We conclude that these women share a commitment to rigorous scholarship and to the values of equity and social justice. The way in which they engage with those values in their work and lives has been taken up in the particular institutional and personal circumstances of their academic lives and has been shaped by the effects of normative discourses of gender. The result, individually and cumulatively, has been transformative on the individuals, within the institutions in which they have worked, and on the scholarship of Canadian educational administration.     

Globalisation and its Consequences for Scholarship in Philosophy of Education

A manifestation of globalisation as an economic imperative has occurred at the national level in Australia.This manifestation is in the form of political policies, administrative practices and funding distribution ostensibly aimed at creating a more competitive national economy.Philosophy of Education, as a practice and product of some employees in the higher education industry in Australia, is being influenced by this manifestation of globalisation.Reflection on ways in which established concepts are being reshaped to suit the agenda of globalising political policies may assist those engaged in philosophising about education to enhance their practice in ways they desire.It is argued here that such reflection should lead many academics in Australian universities to the conclusion that they should not undertake research and that research should not be part of the job specification for most academics employed in Australian universities.
The argument in this paper is based on a set of epistemological assumptions about the nature of academic practices or traditions (cf.Toulmin, 1972).Philosophy of Education is one such academic tradition or practice.A university may be conceived of as a community of academics engaged in a range of traditions or practices.A university may also be conceived of as a quasi-governmental administrative entity employing workers to value-add to customers intending to maximise personal economic rewards from future engagement in a more competitive national economy.     

Corresponding values and colonising discourses: situating ‘Hindu children’ and their values in relation to hegemonic Norwegian discourses about religious education☆

This article discusses the relationship between values expressed by ‘Hindu children’ in Norway and hegemonic ‘Norwegian values’. The discussion is based on interviews with children from the Indian Punjabi and the Sri Lankan Tamil traditions and on observations in religious education (RE) lessons. The children emphasise the culture of their parents’ country of origin. When asked what the most significant part of their identity was, being Indian and Tamil turned out to be very important to the children. They also value other religions and talk about the divine in ways that are different from traditional Norwegian conceptions and attitudes, expressing tolerance, respect and openness towards other traditions. This article discusses how ‘Hindu values’ relate to ‘Norwegian discourses’ about RE, exploring the ways the children’s values both correspond to and differ from the values we find in hegemonic Norwegian discourses. Will the children have to adapt to hegemonic discourses in RE, or is it possible to learn from and integrate their values?     

How accurate can A Level English Literature marking be?

This article considers in a wide perspective the crisis in the assessment of examinations in A‐level English Literature and current attempts to address the problems. Examining the implications of a survey of recent reports initiated by the regulator, it argues that trying to ensure reliability merely through technological advances and changes in examining practice obscures the need for English teachers’ communal understanding of academic standards to be developed through their professional experience. It proposes ways in which this should be achieved, for example by developing current and potential professional networks and communities of practice.     

Trained for isolation: The impact of departmental cultures on student teachers' views and practices of collaboration

Today, isolated practice is regarded by most educators, administrators and policymakers as an inadequate way of performing teachers' work. Most teachers and teacher educators embrace the current dominant discourse on the virtues of teacher collaboration, but these beliefs do not always materialize in the way programs of initial teacher education are organized and in the way student teachers experience their practice training. This paper examines this contradiction by analyzing the network structure and contents of teachers' professional interactions with student teachers and among themselves in two secondary-school English departments. The data show that despite the formal arrangements and the discourses favoring collaborative practice, the student teachers within the two departments were socialized into professional cultures that framed their views of themselves and of teaching in essentially isolated ways. The paper discusses implications of these results for studies of collaborative cultures in teaching and for the training of beginning teachers.     

Disabling discourses and some implications for parent leadership in special education policy and practice

The paper aims to explore ways in which mothers of children with cerebral palsy (CP) attempt to voice their concerns about current discourses and power imbalances enshrined in special education policy and provision. Mothers’ narratives are important in making transparent the multiple forms of ‘disablism’ experienced by them in their attempts to negotiate and counteract on behalf of their children deficit-based and discriminatory discourses and professional practices that violate their children’s rights, notwithstanding international and national legal mandates promoting a rights-based approach to disability. Their narrated subjugated agency in disability politics highlights the imperative to introduce new forms of advocacy through parent leadership in order to enable parents to have a more active and strategic role in challenging disabling discourses and practices that undermine their children’s rights and entitlements.     

Supervisors' conceptions of research and the implications for supervisor development

Teaching reform in higher education has frequently been informed by investigations into conceptions of learning held by students and by teachers. Such work has been extended into research education, with the study of experienced researchers' conceptions of research providing a basis for enquiry into the way research is experienced by the various participants in research education. This paper reports research designed to investigate research supervisors' conceptions of research as they were produced in focus group conversations. Using techniques of membership categorisation analysis, discourses are identified that privileged university‐based research and researchers over other forms of research and other ways of knowing, in particular over the interests of professional/practitioner researchers and over the legitimacy of research conducted in workplaces outside the university. It is argued that such discourses have the potential to be problematic for professional and industry‐based practitioner researchers as they seek to construct authoritative researcher identities. Further interrogation of the categorisation work that sustains these discourses offers the opportunity to make their assumptions explicit, which has implications for supervisors' reflective practice and professional development.     

Women and professional development in higher education: A search for understanding

Abstract

Participation in professional development related to teaching is higher for female academics than for male academics at the University of Canberra. There is some evidence that this trend is widespread although variable across different universities and professional development activities. Various explanations are suggested as to why this occurs, including: that more teaching in universities is done by women than men; that women are naturally more committed to teaching than men; that structural inequities cause women to be more concentrated in the lower academic ranks and, therefore, more involved in teaching‐related activities; that women more than men believe professional development is important to enhance their teaching practice; that they are less confident in their academic role than men; that they feel more alienated and isolated in their work environment; and, that they are seeking role models and mentors. The paper explores these various explanations and suggests that a combination of factors probably causes the observed differential participation by women in professional development activities. What is more important than a search for explanations is an acknowledgment of the need to value and reward such behaviour. The paper concludes with an argument for valuing women's emphasis on teaching and their continued involvement in professional development related to teaching.