Australian school practices and the education experiences of students with a refugee background: a review of the literature

Schools have the potential for significant impact on the lives of Australian students with a refugee background. Many of these young people speak at least one language other than English, have previous histories of interrupted schooling or have experienced trauma during times of displacement and forced migration. Combined with the further challenges of settling within an unfamiliar cultural frame, these students experience a range of circumstances which are not present for many of their Australian-born peers. Australian students with a refugee background have diverse skill and abilities, with many showing independence and resilience. Opportunities for academic learning and development of social capital within the school context can be enhanced with relevant pedagogy and policy which draws upon and highlights the positive individual qualities that these students exhibit. Australian school practices are shaped by both state and federal education policies, which are interpreted and applied by individual schools within their own frameworks. This review considers recent literature on the experiences of Australian students with a refugee background as they participate in schooling, with a focus on the ways in which schools provide either opportunities or barriers to engagement.     

Supporting refugee students in school education in Greater Western Sydney

Rarely do refugee students entering Australian schools possess the multiple forms of social, linguistic and cultural capital that are taken for granted in mainstream classrooms. While refugees of high-school age are assisted initially through Intensive English Centres (IECs), the transition from IECs to mainstream classrooms presents substantial challenges. This paper outlines the perceived impacts of a partnership program known as Refugee Action Support (RAS) that assists secondary school students, predominantly African humanitarian refugees, as they seek to make the transition from IECs to mainstream settings. Implemented by the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, the University of Western Sydney and the NSW Department of Education and Training, the program is based on school-based tutoring centres that use pre-service teachers as tutors. The paper explores the perceived effects on refugee students participating in RAS from the perspectives of teachers who assist in the coordination of the program at the various school sites.     

Inclusive school leadership: Examining the experiences of Canadian school principals in supporting students with special education needs

As school systems strive to support students with special education needs in inclusive schools, there has been a persistent lack of scholarly literature that addresses the ways in which school principals are engaged in this process. This article is a response to this gap and aims to examine the question: What types of experiences do school principals identify as formational in their support of students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools? Based on the analysis of data collected from 285 school principals from six provinces in Canada, four key themes are identified including: relationships, modelling behaviours, communication and principal isolation and lack of preparation. These themes are examined with consideration for how to support principals’ professional leadership in fostering inclusive schools. As a result, this article’s significance is in its examination of the experiences of principals and how these influence their leadership practice for supporting students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools.     

Inclusive education reform in Queensland: implications for policy and practice

In Queensland, Australia, the school system is being reformed to be more ‘inclusive’. However, the enthusiasm for ‘inclusive education’ in Queensland seems to be waning amongst practitioners, and the ‘confusion, frustration, guilt and exhaustion’ that has emerged with teachers and support practitioners in the UK is emerging amongst support practitioners and teachers in Queensland. This paper argues that this is happening because inclusive education reforms that intend to provide an equitable education for all students regardless of cultural, physical, social/emotional and behavioural differences are being introduced, but these policies, procedures and structures continue to label, isolate and segregate students within schools in the way in which segregated special education facilities did in the past. Also, new policies and structures are being introduced without practitioners having the time and support to examine critically the underlying assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion that underpin their practices. These reforms need to be reviewed in terms of their effectiveness in achieving their ‘inclusive’ goals, i.e. in terms of the impacts that these reforms are having on the students themselves, and on the educational practitioners who support the students.     

对小学后进生教育的研究

后进生现象是教学过程中一定会经历的现象,转化后进生是一个永恒的话题,至今仍然为教育工作者广泛研究。特别是对作为基础教育的小学后进生来说,分析这种情况产生的原因并提出切实可行的转化策略尤为重要。文章从小学生自身心理、家庭、学校、社会等方面分析后进生的成因,综合多种因素和多方力量,提出一系列的转化后进生的策略,使后进生自身得到最大程度的积极发展。     

Diversity in intensive English language centres in South Australia: sociocultural approaches to education for students with migrant or refugee backgrounds

While there is a body of research concerning the education of students with migrant or refugee backgrounds, little of this research focuses on primary school-aged children. In order to address this gap, the current paper utilises data gained from an ethnographic study to consider the challenges and opportunities associated with diverse classrooms designed for students learning English, in which students come from a complex range of backgrounds and may have experienced trauma. The paper provides support for sociocultural learning approaches, whereby students’ own cultural and linguistic background are treated as beneficial to education rather than as obstacles to be overcome.     

Inclusive education in accelerated and professional development schools: a case-based study of two school reform efforts in the USA

This case-based study of two school reform efforts in the USA examines how the process of inclusive education works for SEN students and the extent to which these students and their teachers feel as though they are an integral part of school reform. At its heart, this study focuses on three central questions. Do the philosophy, process, practices and organizational structures of these school reform movements promote inclusion for all students? What is the impact of the schools' practices and principles on individual students? What conditions and contexts best promote inclusion, and which ones act as barriers to successful inclusion? The schools in these two school reform movements provide powerful examples of how changes in school organization, climate, curriculum and instructional strategies build on the strengths of students, staff and community to create optimal learning results for all students. In this study, the perception of pedagogical and political ‘gaps’ between school effectiveness reform agendas and inclusive education reveal a narrow, rational-technical view of reform. The hope for the future is that the growing efforts in support of inclusive education within the broader socio-political and constructivist school reform movements, exemplified by the schools in this case study, will become an influential counter-force for social justice and disability-rights' action in schools everywhere.     

Australian experience with co-ordinating agencies for tertiary education

This article reviews Australian experience since the late 1950s with UGC-type co-ordinating agencies for tertiary education. It focuses particularly on factors which have influenced the development and adaptation of co-ordinating agencies, the establishment and transformation over time of the Australian Universities Commission, and recent developments in co-ordinating mechanisms at both Commonwealth and state levels. An attempt is made to evaluate the suitability of current arrangements and to consider likely changes.     

School leadership practices that promote effective whole school behaviour management: a study of Australian primary schools

When considering the management of student behaviour issues, a substantial body of literature, as well as logical common sense, points to the advantages of whole school policy over the individual efforts of teachers. Less is known, however, about the direct or indirect role school leadership plays in the development of well-implemented whole school behaviour management (WSBM) systems and policy in primary schools. This article explores elements of leadership practice likely to promote well-implemented WSBM, using an initial framework developed from related literature and applying it in a study of primary schools. The sample comprised 52 staff members from 31 government and non-government primary schools in 5 states and territories of Australia. Data were obtained from interviews which sought to gather information about how well each school’s WSBM was implemented. Results confirmed the theorised framework of leadership practices that encourage well-implemented WSBM. The article concludes with implications for future research and school leadership.     

High school diversification against educational equality: a critical analysis of neoliberal education reform in South Korea

Recent reforms of high school education in Korea have focused on transforming the uniform and standardized system into a deregulated and diversified system that has an emphasis on school choice and competition. Situating the high school diversification policy in the context of the recent controversy of the neoliberal educational reform, this study argues that school diversification in Korea is deeply impaired and unfulfilled, such as in situations in which the school differentiation and elite high school credentials struggle are reinforced by the peculiar nature of the Korean educational market, namely the hakbul-based society and the development of private educational markets. It suggests that special attention should be drawn to integrate the reform efforts for high school diversification into the ways in which the policy is being configured and delivered within the pursuit of educational equality and social justice.     

Positioning the school in the landscape: exploring Black history with a regional Australian primary school

This paper deals with a project establishing an Indigenous Australian artists-in-residence program at a regional Australian primary school to foreground its Black History. Primary school students worked with Indigenous Australian story tellers, artists, dancers and musicians to explore ways in which they could examine print and non-print texts for a critical appreciation of ways in which their school has been positioned in the physical landscape on the land, and in the historical landscape, where Indigenous Australian roles and contributions have continued to be marginalised. From such critical engagement, the children have created non-print texts of their own: tangible, durable artefacts of acknowledgment of their own school's Black History. Constructed as texts which may be read by all who enter the school, the artefacts produced are visual texts that have formed part of a continuing critical engagement with creators of Indigenous Australian texts, and interpretation by the children of the texts that they have engaged as part of this project.     

Technology education students: e-tutors for school children

E-tutoring refers to individualised learning support mediated by Internet technology. While increased demand for tutors has led to a surge in commercial e-tutoring services, volunteer e-tutoring programs for children are rare. To test the viability of volunteer e-tutoring for elementary school students, 10 undergraduate students enrolled in a technology education (TE) course provided online with instructional support to children in need of tutoring services. Each e-tutor was assigned a specific child, developed a Web Course Tools course and corresponding online activities to improve teacher-identified skill deficiencies, and provided 8 weeks of e-tutoring. Three video conferences complemented online instructional interaction between e-tutor and e-tutee. Children, parents and TE students expressed positive evaluation of the initiative.     

Inclusive instruction and learning for deaf students in postsecondary education

This article explores how students who are deaf and their instructors experience mainstream college classes. Both quantitative and qualitative procedures were used to examine student access to information and their sense of belonging and engagement in learning. Instructors were asked to discuss their approach to teaching and any instructional modifications made to address the needs of deaf learners. Results indicate that deaf students viewed classroom communication and engagement in a similar manner as their hearing peers. Deaf students were more concerned about the pace of instruction and did not feel as much a part of the 'university family' as did their hearing peers. Faculty generally indicated that they made few if any modifications for deaf students and saw support service faculty as responsible for the success or failure of these students. We discuss results of these and additional findings with regard to barriers to equal access and strategies for overcoming these barriers.     

USA: Worldwide school reform movements and students with disabilities

Robert A. Henderson, Professor of Special Education and Educational Administration (Emeritus) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, considers the implications for students with disabilities of school reform movements.     

Fish out of water: refugee and international students in mainstream Australian schools

In this paper, the authors combine Pierre Bourdieu's concept of hysteresis (the ‘fish out of water’ experience) with the discourse historical approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a theoretical and analytical framework through which they examine specific moments in the schooling experiences of one refugee student and one international student, both enrolled in post-compulsory education in Australian mainstream secondary schools. We examine specific moments – as narrated by these students during interviews – in which these students can be described as ‘fish out of water’. As such, this paper takes up the concerns of researchers who call for an examination of the lived geographies and the everyday lives of individual students in mainstream schools. We find that our students' habitus, conditioned by their previous schooling experiences in their home countries, did not match their new Australian schools, resulting in frustration with, and alienation from, their mainstream schools. However, we also note that schools, too, need to adapt and adjust their habitus to the new multicultural world, in which there are international and refugee students among their usual cohort of mainstream students.     

Inclusive arts education in two Scandinavian primary schools: a phenomenological case study

Previous studies indicate that ideas related to special education could influence the way arts education is performed and motivated in schools. Further investigation is therefore required in order to raise awareness of how perspectives on inclusion can serve as a starting point for arts education, and vice versa. This article takes it starting point in an ethnographic double case study of arts education practices. Data were collected during the school year 2013/2014 in two Scandinavian schools (for pupils aged 6–13) with an articulated commitment to the arts. The methods used for data collection were observation and interviews. The material was analysed from a phenomenological point of view, and the analysis showed a predominantly holistic view of inclusion in the two schools. Five dimensions of inclusion were identified through the analysis: providing arts education for all, being connected to something larger, allowing access to different forms of expression and communication, establishing preconditions for holistic inclusion, and developing special arts education. The results indicate that these schools have made considerable progress in developing an inclusive arts learning environment. Results also suggest that a holistic inclusive view of education encourages a functional and vivid arts education for ‘all’, both inside and outside the classroom.     

小议小学语文教学中对学生的审美教育

语文作为小学教学中的基础课程之一,是构建学生知识框架的关键,也是培养学生语言能力的重要课程。因此,在小学语文教学中,教师应该创新教学方法,提高学生对语文课程学习的兴趣。新时期,小学语文教学改革要求教师在教授学生知识的同时,还要注意培养学生的审美能力,使学生在树立健康的审美观念基础上,养成良好的生活习惯,为未来的生活与学习打基础。本文主要针对小学语文教学,探讨学生审美教育的几点教学策略。