Preventing violent extremism: Resourcing,stakeholder strategies and fostering belonging and connection in Australian schools

Countering violent extremism (CVE) continues to be a topic of national and international concern as well as media interest. In the field of CVE, educational institutions have an important role to play, but precisely how educators and policymakers should best respond to extremism within schools remains unclear. This article draws on interviews with multiple stakeholders implementing a small-scale nationally funded grant in Australian schools to guard against behaviours leading to violent extremism through developing restorative justice (RJ) practices. In foregrounding their accounts, we draw attention to the complexity of negotiating the CVE space by resisting dominant narratives that could be considered ‘exaggerations’ regarding both the manifestations of and motivations behind violent or extreme student behaviour. To conclude, we highlight how—in important ways—the money and resourcing allocated for CVE in local settings simply recycles what are already established to be best practices for fostering belonging and connection in schools, particularly in socio-economically disadvantaged communities.     

SIGNIFICANCE AND DIALOGUE IN LEARNING AND TEACHING

A bstract .  In this essay Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game argue that although the term "dialogue" is commonly used in educational theory, its full significance is diluted if it is seen as a matter of exchange or negotiation of prior positions and identities. As a meeting point, they argue, dialogue suspends the senses of time, space, and ontology on which identities are based. It is therefore not simply metaphorical to say that dialogue changes lives and opens minds. Using empirical material from interviews with Australian students and teachers, Metcalfe and Game draw out the relational qualities of genuine dialogue and the significance they have for how we understand everyday classroom life.     

CACTUS: Command and control training using knowledge‐based simulations*

The CACTUS project was concerned with command and control training of large incidents where public order may be at risk, such as large demonstrations and marches. The training requirements and objectives of the project are first summarized justifying the use of knowledge‐based computer methods to support and extend conventional training techniques. The software designs are based on a world model in which crowd groups and police units are placed on a digitized map and have probabilistic rules that govern their interactive behaviour. The simulation runs as a decision‐making exercise that can include pre‐event logistic planning, incident management, and debriefing evaluation. A key feature is the flexibility of the software, for it provides not only a working simulation but also a methodology and software tools for customizing programs to suit particular circumstances and training needs.     

Professional ethics professional ethics for technology

Conclusion Professional ethics express what a professional society is about. They are an emblem to focus on, to support, to identify with and to advocate for. Our Code expresses who we are, what we do, and shows how our profession functions for the good of all. Our areas of work are related specialties. Those who are unqualified have the potential to do harm. Although ethics is a word with multiple connotations, what professional ethics are about is sociological. Professional ethics are always a matter of work and who is qualified to perform what task for which clients. Professional ethics should ultimately be for the benefit of those who are served by those who labor in professional occupations. Our Code reflects our profession’s relationships with the larger society and, it is anticipated, the present update will be officially adopted by our affiliated professional organizations and state affiliates.     

Enhancing successful outcomes of wiki-based collaborative writing: a state-of-the-art review of facilitation frameworks

This state-of-the-art review research undertook a survey of a variety of studies regarding wiki-based collaborative writing projects and from this body of work extracted the best practices tenets of facilitation. Wiki-based collaborative writing projects are becoming more common in second language (L2) pedagogy. Such projects have multiple aims. These include, among other benefits, L2 acquisition, P2P learning, collaboration and immersion in new technologies that will inform the social and professional lives of the students. By mining a variety of wiki-based collaborative writing projects for the specific meta and secondary facilitation practices, the researchers were able to develop a general framework that will assist instructors of university or advanced high school students who wish to engage their students in such projects. The attributes of good facilitation that the researchers have isolated are by no means exhaustive, nor are they a guarantee of successful outcomes. These attributes do, however, provide a good starting point for any teacher or instructional designer who wants to provide an environment that fosters student satisfaction, motivation and learning.     

Neo-conservatives,Neo-liberals,the New Left and Inclusion: Stirring the pot

Layers of policy often conflict with one another. In this paper, different layers of policy - and more importantly the different intellectual stables from which they emerge are explored in relation to inclusion. There are those of the New Right, with its emphasis on individualism, the free market, tradition and the family; and there are those of the new centre-left, which stresses the importance of community and 'stakeholder welfare'. We argue that there are attempts in much recent policy to fuse both kinds of thinking and that expressions about the need for a plural, tolerant, inclusive education system sometimes sit uneasily with policy which foregrounds the benefits of choice, selection and the comparison of schools on the basis of their pupils' attainment. While proclamations from politicians about benefits of inclusion are to be welcomed, the effects of exhortation will be counteracted by policy whose effects are to promote competition.     

Quality of Toddler-Mother Attachment in Children with Down Syndrome: Limits to Interpretation of Strange Situation Behavior

Researchers studying social-emotional development have argued that primary attachment relationships, established by the end of the first year of life, are important organizing factors that influence the trajectory of development throughout childhood. Central to this argument is a dimension of "attachment security," along which attachments differ. For normally developing infants and toddlers, attachment security is assessed using the Ainsworth Strange Situation. However, it is not clear that this procedure is appropriate for evaluating attachment security in atypical populations. In this report, 3 samples of children with Down Syndrome (total N = 138) were assessed using the Strange Situation. The procedures were scored according to traditional protocols. Although the 3 samples differed with respect to chronological and developmental age, they showed basic similarity with respect to attachment variables. However, developmentally younger children were more difficult to classify using the standard scoring rules. Scores and classifications for the sample were compared to scores from a sample of normally developing children tested at about 12 months of age. Significant differences with respect to the distributions of cases to classification categories and with respect to the interactive scale scores suggest that the Strange Situation may be measuring different aspects of behavior for children with Down Syndrome, even when they are tested at similar developmental age levels.     

Speed Versus Accuracy: Implications of Adolescents' Neurocognitive Developments in a Digital Game to Train Executive Functions

Adolescence is a period of rapid cognitive change, including an initial increase in speed of cognitive processing and a more gradual increase in efficiency of cognitive processing. This study examined how neurophysiological changes associated with adolescent development can inform the design of game‐based executive function (EF) training. Two versions of a digital game designed to train the EF subskill of inhibition were given to adolescents (aged 13–17; N = 96): one focusing on speed, the other on accuracy. Consistent with neurocognitive developments, it was hypothesized that younger adolescents would benefit more from the speed version, and older adolescents more from the accuracy version. A significant age by condition interaction was found: Controlling for pretest, younger adolescents had better outcomes in the speed condition, while older adolescents had better outcomes in the accuracy condition. These findings argue for consideration of adolescents' neurocognitive development when designing games for learning and skill improvement.