Kairos and the time of gender equity policy in Australian schooling

ABSTRACT

Almost 20 years ago the Australian government released Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools (1997). It was adopted by all states but almost immediately disappeared from sight after a conservative change of government. This was followed by the dismantling of gender equity units in each state, and a turn to boys’ education that eclipsed the more complex strategies and theoretical underpinnings of the Framework. This paper takes up the Gender Equity Framework (1997) as a case of policy emergence, mutation and dissipation. In particular, it attends to feminist temporality, and its affective force, to begin to trouble conventional accounts of these policy shifts. Close readings of sections of the policy document and of interviews with policy actors working at that time are analysed through the notion of kairos – timeliness, or political actions that open opportunities, breaks and ruptures – in order to provide new insights into the policy moment of gender equity in Australian schooling.     

Obscenity and fabrication in equity and widening participation methodologies

Equity and widening participation (EWP) initiatives in Australia are increasingly reimagined in policy as sites where participants are constructed as competitor-individuals, with education considered only in terms of employability, social mobility and nation-state market competition. In the context of EWP outreach, and with school students in particular, this can transpire into demands for narrow forms of ‘legitimate’ aspirations. Goffman defines obscenity as when (1) the very intimate is forced into the public sphere, while (2) the humanising dimensions or contexts are stripped away, with an example being pornography—where intimate encounters are reproduced as de-contextualised acts while being made public. This article argues that dominant approaches to practicing and evaluating EWP risk obscene consequences if they force community members to present static future-oriented valuations of intimate, fluid aspirations and experiences of education against a backdrop of increasingly individuated, competitive and standardised educational institutions. In this article, firstly we detail the context to establish a foundation for theorising consequences of particular socio-educational discursive practices. Secondly, we engage with notions of frame, keying and fabrication as a toolbox to reveal some of the unintended (obscene) dynamics risked via certain approaches to programmatic practice and evaluation. Thirdly, we review the diversity of approaches to evaluation (and their attendant debates), highlighting the importance of these debates and diversities, making a case against methodological imperialism.     

Longitudinal development of educational theory: democracy and the classroom

The problem of making education policy documents more explicit is addressed in this paper. As a vehicle for discussion the paper examines a contemporary policy that has major shortcomings in the explicitness of its language: Australia's ‘Participation and Equity Program’, a policy directed at increasing access to education by post‐compulsory level students. Problems in making policies explicit are discussed. Policies are seen as complex messages whose meanings routinely become scrambled for implementers remote from the language community of policy framers. The paper suggests the use of a sociology of policy language in education to assist in policy design and dissemination. Its concluding sections recommend the kinds of applied work that might be undertaken to improve the explicitness of policy language generally.     

How does a STEM Access module prepare adult learners to succeed in undergraduate science?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the impact of a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Access module on the progression of students to undergraduate Science. Drawing on the Widening Participation (WP) literature, this research investigated the experience of adult learners from disadvantaged backgrounds taking their first steps into higher education (HE). A mixed methods institutional case study was conducted, drawing on extensive survey data and interviews with students and tutors. Key findings included: enhanced student understanding of how to use tutor support; improvement in the skills and confidence of students in relation to maths, as a result of an embedded interdisciplinary curriculum; and an uplift in student study skills. This study was undertaken in a distance learning context, addressing issues in entry-level STEM, but the conclusions are applicable to other HE settings.     

A Study of Ways and Means of Reorganizing and Improving Instruction in Reading

Abstract

The study was a follow-up investigation of research previously reported in this journal. In the original analysis" an examination was made of relations between the family environments and cognitive performance of 11 year old Australian children from different ethnic groups. Those data were used in the present study to examine correlates of the educational and occupational aspirations of the children when they were 16 years old. The adolescents also provided information on the perceptions they had of their parents’ aspirations for them, the encouragement they had received from their parents, and the interest they considered their parents had in their education. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that adolescents, aspirations were related strongly to a set of family environment measures, but that there were ethnic group differences in the relationships. The results suggested that if teachers are concerned about constructing school contexts that will assist in the formation of adolescents, aspirations, then they will need to take into account the strong parental influences on aspirations.     

Democratising higher education in Ghana and Tanzania: Opportunity structures and social inequalities

This article is based on an ESRC/DFID funded research project on Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/wideningparticipation). There are questions about whether widening participation in higher education is a force for democratisation or differentiation. While participation rates are increasing globally, there has been scant research or socio-cultural theorisation of how different structures of inequality intersect in the developing world. Questions also need to be posed about how higher education relates to policy discourses of poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals. The article explores participation in higher education, utilising statistical data and life history interviews with students in two public and two private universities. It focuses on how gender and socio-economic status intersect and constrain or facilitate participation in higher education. Findings to date suggest that opportunity structures reflect social inequalities.     

Disruptions and bridges in rural Australia: higher education aspiration to expectation of participation

ABSTRACT

Widening higher education participation can deliver benefits to individuals, societies and economies but rural populations experience factors which inhibit their aspiration for and participation in higher education. When designing outreach programs, universities need to consider this landscape of factors, many of which are socio-cultural. This article reports evaluation results from a project that trialled three university outreach programs designed to align with rural contexts with the aim of identifying aspects which were effective in addressing factors of rurality, revealing obscured future options and showing higher education pathways as attainable. Universities can work effectively with rural communities to inform people’s higher education aspirations through ‘disruptions’, interventions that inform educational aspiration, and ‘bridges’ which support higher education participation through facilitating access to information, physical, financial, academic and social resources. A model including both ‘disruptions’ and ‘bridges’, jointly resourced and drawing on social capital resources of communities and higher education institutions is presented.     

Materialising effects of difference in sex education: the ‘absurd’ banana penis

ABSTRACT

This article scrutinises pedagogical practices undergone in sexuality education as recorded with two intergenerational groups of former Australian schoolgirls. It discusses the surprising widespread use of the plastic, white, circumcised banana penis in sexuality education experienced by the younger group. The normalisation of the white, circumcised, plastic, banana penis (without reference to the vulva and/or vagina) is telling about what bodies matter and how sex materialises. The banana penis, as uncritically modelled in sexuality education, effectively materialises difference as both sexist and racist. This paper considers diffractive thinking in classroom with these practices, with students, and ways pedagogical practice may bring about a renormalisation that moves from reiterating racist heteronormative hierarchies to a creative opening up of ways students (as sexed, gendered and raced) can come to safely and affirmatively negotiate differences.     

Looking “outward and onward” in the outback: Regional Australian students’ aspirations and expectations for their future as framed by dominant discourses of further education and training

This paper investigates regional Australian students’ aspirations and expectations for their future and, more specifically, the manner in which these are formulated around a view to move outward — that is, away from regional, remote and rural communities — and onward — that is, to make something of their lives. Drawing upon interview data, the paper highlights the ways in which rural students from across Australia expressed high-level aspirations, most of which centred on future careers. It explores features of student talk which demonstrates that many of them had thought about their futures in detailed ways and had accumulated knowledge and “street savvy” that would assist them in steering their futures. The paper also examines the ways in which student talk about the changing context of the world of work and the inescapability of further education emerge as a naturalised discourse in justifying their future plans. Finally, the paper explores the implications of such research findings for career advisers and teachers working in regional areas of Australia.     

Masculinity,subjectivity and neoliberalism in men’s accounts of migration and higher educational participation

In this article, I explore men’s educational experiences and aspirations in the context of UK policy discourses of widening participation and migration. Critiquing discourses that oversimplify gendered access to higher education, I develop an analysis of the impact of masculine subjectivities on processes of subjective construction in relation to be(com)ing a university student. Neoliberalism and self‐regulation emerge as significant themes by which the men make sense of their educational experiences and aspirations. Widening participation policy discursively constructs the subject as ‘disadvantaged’, ‘with potential’ and responsible for self‐improvement through participation in (alternative forms of) higher education (HE). The concept of diaspora illuminates the complex ways the men reconstruct their traumatic experiences in terms of hope and possibility, across different cultural spaces and expectations. A key question is how do the men construct and make sense of their masculine subjectivities in relation to diasporic experiences and aspirations to become HE students?     

Hows and whys of parental involvement in a national ‘neoliberal laboratory’: aspirations,values and beliefs in relation to children’s education among Chilean urban lower-middle-class parents

Abstract

This paper sought to shed light on the beliefs, aspirations and values in relation to education that shape parental ways of involvement among Chilean urban lower-middle-class parents. Using the capability approach as the main theoretical framework and a critical epistemology, the discussion focuses on the way in which the pre-eminence of instrumental and positional dimensions of education arguably places limitations on how education is understood and valued; sets boundaries for parental involvement and overloads families. This situation ultimately diminishes the power of education to disrupt intergenerational cycles of disadvantage among Chilean urban lower-middle-class families.     

Raised parental expectations towards higher education and the double bind

This paper is concerned with the participation of students from low socio-economic status (SES) families and communities in Australian higher education. One means of achieving this, as purported by the Australian Government and various universities, is through the raising of family aspirations or expectations. In this paper, I explore the localised effects of raised family aspirations as they are understood within the lived experiences of some students from a low SES context. Based on the interactions in four focus groups of eight participants and five follow-up individual interviews run in a low SES school in Western Sydney, I draw broadly on the method advanced by Giorgi [1985. Phenomenology and psychological research. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press] to attend to how certain forms of high expectations communicated by parents may have a deleterious effect on student aspiration and attainment insofar as it positions the latter in a ‘double bind’. Such a situation can be inferred to significantly reduce the incentives for higher education participation.     

‘It didn’t really change my opinion’: exploring what works,what doesn’t and why in a school science,technology, engineering and mathematics careers intervention

Background: It is widely agreed that more needs to be done to improve participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Despite considerable investment in interventions, it has been difficult to discern their effectiveness and/or impact on participation.

Purpose: This paper discusses findings from a six-week pilot STEM careers intervention that was designed and overseen by a teacher from one London girls’ school. We reflect on the challenges for those attempting such interventions and the problems associated with evaluating them.

Sample: Data were collected from Year 9 students (girls aged 13–14 years) at the school.

Design and methods: Pre- and post-intervention surveys of 68 students, classroom observations of intervention activities, three post-intervention discussion groups (five or six girls per group) and a post-intervention interview with the lead teacher were conducted.

Results: Although the intervention did not significantly change students’ aspirations or views of science, it did appear to have a positive effect on broadening students’ understanding of the range of jobs that science can lead to or be useful for.

Conclusions: Student aspirations may be extremely resistant to change and intervention, but students’ understanding of ‘where science can lead’ may be more amenable to intervention. Implications are discussed, including the need to promote the message that science is useful for careers in and beyond science, at degree and technical levels.     

A New Kind of School Examination

Abstract

This paper explores the individual and contextual effects of schools on the educational aspirations of a national sample of older adolescents. With individual student traits held constant, school-level contextual variables contributed little to the explanation of postsecondary school plans to graduate from college (R² increase = .012). However, with individual-level student ethnicity, family background, and academic achievement held constant, a measure of classroom morale was positively and significantly associated with educational aspiration. This extends the well-documented link between class environment and learning to educational aspirations.     

The Relationship Between IQ,Homework, Aspirations and Academic Achievement for Chinese,Vietnamese and Anglo-Celtic Australian School Children

Flynn (1991) proposed that students from Asian cultural backgrounds typically achieve at higher levels than non-Asian students with the same IQs. This study investigated relationships between IQ, study time, educational and occupational aspirations, and academic achievement among Australian school children ( n = 160) from Chinese, Vietnamese and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds. Mathematics grades for Chinese and Vietnamese Australian children were higher. They spent more time studying and were more likely to desire an occupation requiring tertiary qualifications than Anglo-Celtic Australian peers. Consistent with Flynn's hypothesis, students from Asian backgrounds obtained higher mathematics grades than their Anglo-Celtic Australian peers with the same IQ. However, study and occupational aspirations formed only part of a more complex socio-cultural package that contributed to group achievement differences. Parents' support for studying and aspirations may interact with these factors to produce high achievement.     

Crossing borders: Learning and teaching primary science in the pre-service to in-service transition

This paper reports on a 4-year longitudinal case study of two Australian primary science teachers during their transition from pre-service to in-service teaching. An analytic framework suggested by Aikenhead (1996) was used to interpret teachers' change and professional growth as instances of sub-cultural border crossing. The same framework provides an opportunity for reflexivity on the part of the researchers in coming to understand their own role in the construction of the borders crossed by beginning teachers. The study examines the hazards encountered by teachers as they cross borders and proposes ways of assisting teachers to manage border crossing into the sub-culture of science teaching.     

Connections teachers make between creativity and arts learning

Background: Creativity is often cited as one of the capacities that needs to be actively encouraged in all aspects of schooling. However, what creativity is and how it may be promoted through formal teaching and learning approaches remain contested. There are also differences between educators in terms of how they understand, discuss and conceptualise this complex concept.

Purpose: This paper focuses on the difficulties associated with talking about creativity in education. It considers the ways in which schoolteachers who are involved in the area of arts education understand, describe and discuss the concept of creativity and how it interacts with their classroom practice.

Sample: Twenty-three educators who taught Arts (either as generalist primary classroom teachers or as specialist teachers), and the leadership team from a Kindergarten to Year 9 (pupil ages 5–15) school in the suburbs of a city in the Australian state of Victoria participated in the project.

Design and methods: In this phenomenological study, data were gathered from participants through questionnaires, discussion groups, email prompts and reflective journals. The material was analysed qualitatively.

Findings: By examining the teachers’ dialogic and discursive responses about creativity, it was possible to capture some broad ways in which the participants spoke about creativity. Data were analysed thematically and grouped into categories that represented the connected ‘creative orientations’: thinking orientations, action orientations, emotion orientations and skill/outcome orientations.

Conclusion: There is a need for educators in and across a range of discipline areas to share, map and think about creativity. The approach adopted in this exploratory study offers a way that could be used to focus discussions and help facilitate educators’ talk about creativity.     

In the shadow of Sputnik: a transnational approach to Menzies support for science education in Australia, 1957–1964

Abstract

This paper examines prime minister Robert Menzies decision to support science education in Australian schools in 1963. This was a landmark shift in policy for the federal government, but in many ways mirrors the decision of Eisenhower who brought down the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958. The paper uses a transnational approach to offer a new way of looking at the 1963 decision by focusing on the need for science education and the environment which supported science advocacy rather than the traditional interpretation of political expediency to court the Catholic vote.     

Perspectives of another: Conceiving of ourselves in critical times.

Abstract

This article takes as its focus newspaper articles chosen from a Melbourne newspaper published annually on a particular day, between 1988 and 2003. The resultant bricolage provides a backdrop through which contemporary conversations about race and ethnic relations in Australian contexts can be examined. Australian educational institutions, particularly those in major cities such as Melbourne and Sydney have long been implicated in the provision of immigrant education. Over the last decade Australia follows the United States and Britain as major suppliers of international education. Under examination here are the changed ways that race and ethnic relations can be understood and the implications of these changes for the ways that these new directions in education can be spoken about.     

Leadership and social capital: engaging small Australian communities in development and implementation of learning plans

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the processes by which two Australian rural communities established Community Learning Plans (CLPs). It acknowledges the role of CLPs as contributors to social and economic change through influencing employment rates, income equity, social cohesion and reduction in poverty. In addressing the research question: What factors contribute to the effective development and implementation of a CLP in a small rural community? The paper reveals the importance of evidence and clarity of vision such as improved social and economic outcomes as core rationales for triggering the development of CLPs. The analysis of leadership and social capital resources drawn upon from trigger for a CLP through initiation, development and reflection to sustainable embedding in community, reveals the interplay between formal community leadership structures such as Council, community members, education, business, training and social services, and external actors as a predicator of communities’ ability to enact CLPs. Maturity of social capital resources and leadership processes and resources influence the development and implementation of plans in alignment with community needs and aspirations. The paper advocates for reward and recognition frameworks to help connect, engage and sustain stakeholder groups into community learning initiatives through providing relevance to their business or activity.