Implications of the My School Website for Disadvantaged Communities: A Bourdieuian Analysis

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical constructs of Pierre Bourdieu, this article explores implications of the Australian My School website for schools located in disadvantaged communities. These implications flow from the legitimisation of certain cultural practices through the hidden linkages between scholastic aptitude and cultural heritage and the resulting reproduction of social and cultural inequalities. Seeing transformative potential rather than determinism in Bourdieu’s theoretical constructs, the article also suggests ways forward for improving the educational outcomes of students in disadvantaged communities. A transformation of the ‘field’ is central to this.     

美国的学校与社区的关系

文章介绍了美国学校与社区关系紧密的两个理由,即发展学校的特征以及争取获得对于学校的公共支持.文章还论述了学校与社区紧密关系的目的,即:改善学生学习与成长的质量;提出社区的目标以改善社区的生活质量;增进公众对学校的社区项目的理解和支持.     

多民族社区中民族关系的调适

多民族社区是现代化、城市化的产物,并不仅仅指民族与社区的简单相加。试图从社区工作的角度,对多民族社区中民族关系的重要性以及影响民族关系的诸因素进行阐述,从而进一步提出多民族社区中民族关系的调适。     

Creating a school that matters: networking for school-community development

This study of the creation of a new upper secondary school in Iceland focuses on the way in which networking and collaboration across school boundaries contributed to a new form for school practice. The aim is to understand the value of school–community interaction and how the collaboration has expanded both the activities of the school and the local community. A cultural-historical approach is used to analyse how contradictions in practice act as catalysts for development. Data were generated over a three-year period mainly through ethnographic methods. The expansive learning theory provided methods for identifying contradictions and the way in which they were being addressed in developing the school. The interplay of conceptual and material tools was fundamental in dealing with the contradictions. The principal’s clear conceptual vision on the role of education for individuals and society supported by the ideology of the national curriculum facilitated the process. Digital applications and the Internet served as material tools for implementing and coordinating the new school. Networking across traditional boundaries widened the object of school learning and made school practice responsive to societal changes. To conclude: Transcending traditional boundaries through school-community collaboration have promoted a qualitative transformation in school learning.     

Can supportive parenting protect against school delay amongst violence-exposed adolescents in South Africa?

Exposure to multiple forms of violence is common amongst adolescents from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in South Africa. Adolescents’ exposure to violence at home, in school and in their communities can lead to detrimental outcomes in education. In particular, adolescents who are more frequently exposed to multiple forms of violence are at risk of school delay. This paper investigates the potential for supportive parenting to protect against adolescents’ school delay in this context. With this aim, this paper applies structural equation modelling to a sample of 503 adolescents exposed to multiple forms of violence from 40 socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Adolescents’ self-report data on child abuse in the family, school and community, and adolescents’ perceptions of positive parenting, consistent discipline, good monitoring, parental involvement and social support were analyzed. Results showed that perceptions of more positive parenting and consistent discipline moderated the relationship between more frequent exposure to multiple forms of violence and school delay. Our findings suggest that supportive parenting has the potential to protect against school delay for poly-victimized adolescents in South Africa.     

Learning to talk: community support and views of parents from socially disadvantaged families

Part of a multimethod ethnographic study that aimed to explore the knowledge of local parents concerning children learning to talk is described. The study was carried out with parents from several different ethnic and language groups in a socially disadvantaged part of Sheffield, a large city in the northeast of England.
In the phase of the study reported here, parents (either English, Urdu/Punjabi and Arabic speakers) took part in interviews, as well as contributing to the validation of the project. This study found that parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds living in this socially disadvantaged area, believed learning to talk to be very important and that family, community, including faith community, and professionals, have roles in promoting learning to talk. They indicated that local community groups, including faith communities, could play a positive role in supporting and developing their knowledge.
This paper will be of interest to those seeking innovative ways to support parents in socially excluded communities, particularly parents of children learning to talk, and so contribute to better outcomes for children, families and communities. It also contributes to our understanding of the development of parental knowledge about learning to talk in socially disadvantaged communities.     

Lessons learned from a community engagement initiative within Irish higher education

This paper focuses on a community–university partnership built around a programme of study co-created by residents of a disadvantaged community and situated, for the most part, within that community. The aim of this paper is to share lessons learned from this community engagement initiative, as identified through a research study which ran concurrent to the programme. The study involved 41 interviews (18 individual interviews and 23 focus groups) over a two-year period with 28 participants. Participants included students, lecturers and community and university stakeholders. The finding section focuses on the characteristics of the initiative which allowed it to positively impact those involved. The data indicated that (i) the authenticity of the partnership between the community and university, (ii) the suitability of the lecturers and (iii) the ability of the lecturers and management to adapt the programme to identified needs were all key to the success of the programme. The paper concludes with a discussion, incorporating relevant literature, regarding what can be learned from this programme for those interested in enacting truly engaged practice in Irish higher education.     

“英国学派”与爱德华·卡尔国际关系思想：共性与差异

英国学派与爱德华·卡尔的国际关系思想存在相同之处.他们都重视不同理论之间的综合,都强调传统研究方法.但是在对待西方价值观和理性主义的态度上,两者差异显著.此外,不同的研究宗旨也决定了两者在理论标志特征和主要研究目标方面的不同.     

‘Students that just hate school wouldn’t go’: educationally disengaged and disadvantaged young people’s talk about university education

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on widening university participation and brings a focus on the classed and embodied nature of young people’s imagination to existing discussions. We interviewed 250 young people living in disadvantaged communities across five Australian states who had experienced disengagement from compulsory primary and secondary schooling. We asked them about their education and their educational futures, specifically how they imagined universities and university participation. For these young people, universities were imagined as ‘big’, ‘massive’ alienating schools. The paper explores how the elements of schooling from which these young people disengaged became tangible barriers to imagining and pursuing participation in university education. The primary barrier they described was their relationships with school teachers. Our analysis shows how relationships with teachers can impact the imagined improbability/probability of university participation. We offer suggestions for how barriers to university created by poor relationships with teachers may be overcome.     

Love’s labor lost: emotional agency in a school worker’s story of family advocacy

This study reports on the dilemmas of practice experienced by a parent–school facilitator, Melanie, within a large urban school district. Melanie struggled to reconcile her commitment to families in her school with the demands placed on her by an administrative ideology that viewed families as adversaries. Her attempts to manage the conflicts induced by this situation remained trapped in a polarizing discourse of families as marginalized within an insensitive school system. Using a theoretical framework that intertwines dialogism with the role of emotion in socially just education, I analyze Melanie’s narrative to uncover the ways in which she enacted her ideological commitments while constructing the position of her school administration as indefensible. I deploy such analysis to animate the links between emotional labor within challenging schooling contexts and an equally politicized stance of engagement to accomplish the ends of social justice.     

Engaged outreach: using community engagement to facilitate access to higher education for people from low socio‐economic backgrounds

Despite ongoing equity initiatives, there is still a clear discrepancy in regards to access to higher education for potential students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper reports on an action research initiative that has developed a model of engaged outreach as an alternative approach to traditional university outreach. Engaged outreach uses the principles of higher education community engagement to develop stronger relationships between universities and their local communities for the purposes of increasing aspiration and access to higher education. The project was designed using a reflective, collaborative process with local Pacific Island immigrant communities living in an area of high social deprivation in southeast Queensland, Australia. Research progressed in three key stages, which together form the basis of the proposed model of engaged outreach. While it is acknowledged that the success of engaged outreach will depend on its implementation as a long‐term strategy, preliminary results from this pilot project suggest that it demonstrates real potential to address this important but seemingly entrenched issue in Australian higher education.     

Ambivalent relations: the ‘tricky footwork’ of parental involvement in school communities

Parental involvement in schools, generally seen to be a good thing, is now closely linked through policy to the educational achievement of their children. In this Victorian case study, teacher and parent responses to policies advocating parental involvement are examined. It explores the intersections of gender and class in the context of changing home/school relationships characterised by policies and processes of institutionalisation, familialisation and individualisation that are shaping parental involvement. It suggests that the current discursive construction of parent/school relationships around partnerships for student learning fail to recognise the complexity of parent/teacher relations and its gendered nature. Feminist critical policy analysis framed by the sociology of the family inform our understandings of the ways changing discourses and practices currently are informing parental involvement in a culturally and socio‐economically diverse school.     

对中国企业“办社会“的利弊分析

企业办社会是我国计划经济体制的遗留物,有利有弊,但在目前,我国企业应该提升自身竞争力,在生存的前提下,营造双赢的企业办社会.     

美国LODI学区学校系统中家长/社区参与的分析及启示

通过对美国某学区家长催区参与的项目实践的讨论,本文分析了其家长催区参与的模式和特点：涉及管理、课程和教学实践三个层面,努力营造合作共赢的家长/社区／学校关系。这样的关系有助于学校形成良性压力,有助于“校外变革基础”的建立,是学校教育对社会的道德责任的实现。