Spaces of Mediation: Excavating Art's Boundaries

Ideas of social responsibility and exploring art's place in society are widespread and prevalent. Access, community, participation, empowerment are words that appear with increasing frequency within disparate discourses. From Glasgow's successful bid to be UK City of Architecture and Design 1999, [1] to lottery guidelines [2] and policy research [3], there appears to be a preoccupation with such terminology. However, does this demonstrate a true desire to find a point of mediation between discourses, between one place or one group and another? Do projects establish sustainability in the relationships that are built up between apparently disparate elements or are these terms linked mainly to high profile events that intervene, then move on, leaving people with little more than a memory of the encounter? This paper proposes that in order to shift the topography of art practice – the where, how and on whose terms it occurs – spaces and forms of mediation have to reconstruct the very sub structure on which they are founded.     

Positioning young refugees in Australia: media discourse and social exclusion

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article was to examine how media attention affects the social exclusion of young refugees negotiating their way towards settlement in Australia. Emerging stereotypes and prejudices against young male refugees require new ways of understanding the impact of global, national and local issues on their social exclusion. The article brings together the impact of (a) the global politicisation and backlash against refugees, (b) Australians negative perception of refugees and (c) the increased reporting of young African-Australian and Pasifika-Australians as the perpetrators of youth violence. The article recognises the overlapping dimensions of social exclusion for young refugees and considers their ‘spatial’, ‘relational’ and ‘socio-political’ exclusion. The examination of media reporting of a landmark legal case of discrimination and racial profiling reveals a discourse of media attention that has perpetuated the social exclusion of a group of young African-Australian refugees living on a Melbourne public housing estate. The sensationalist and prejudicial media connection of the landmark legal case, youth violence and young African-Australians living on the Flemington Estate demonstrates the challenges young male refugees face in negotiating their settlement in Australia. This article makes a contribution to understanding the multi-dimensional nature of youth exclusion in contemporary times.     

Recommendations of school students with autism spectrum disorder and their parents in regard to bullying and cyberbullying prevention and intervention

Accumulating evidence suggests that the prevalence of bullying is significantly higher for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) than for typically developing students. Additionally, the prominence and growth of social networking and resultant focus on cyberbullying in the last 10 years has added a new dimension to the traditional definitions, environments and experiences of bullying. This paper describes current anti-bullying strategies and the legal climate in regard to bullying in Australia. It then reports on interviews with 10 students with ASD and their parents, and discusses recommendations based on their perceptions for dealing with bullying in schools. Data analysis indicated that both students and parents made a range of recommendations to increase awareness of bullying; improve policies and procedures that can be more clearly communicated to students, teachers and parents; and support programmes that develop communication and relationship building within families and in schools to both prevent bullying and provide coping strategies to deal with bullying if it occurs. Parents also called for schools to give harsher penalties for offenders, particularly repeat offenders. These student and parent recommendations may contribute to the development of school and government policy and practice to help reduce the incidence of all forms of bullying in schools.     

Making death,compassion and partnership ‘part of life’ in school communities

Death can be considered a social taboo, a common source of fear and public avoidance. School communities are not immune to this, as the topic of death is constantly avoided. It is vital to understand how we can socially and culturally cultivate a positive regard for death, dying and bereavement in our school communities. Community members need to discuss these difficult issues and use strategies to enhance compassion, connectedness and support. In this literature review we reason that death is specifically not ‘part of life’ in school communities. Due to the dearth of school community-based literature on this issue and the progressive literature residing in palliative care, we aim to coalesce palliative care and school-based research, evaluate it and highlight compassion and partnership as a way forward for school communities. Essentially, our societal attitudes about death and dying have been profoundly altered and our community ownership of these normal life events has largely disappeared. This is demonstrated for example, by palliative care moving from the social grass roots ‘modern hospice movement’ formed in the 1960s and being reintegrated into the mainstream health care system by the end of the 1990s, resulting in an overall medicalised morphing of death, dying and bereavement issues. Therefore, we recommend that further research be conducted in how to develop compassionate schools to inform us how death may be continually made ‘part of life’ in school communities, for the benefit of students, teachers and families alike.     

Improving marking reliability of scientific writing with the Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning programme

The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was developed with the dual aims of improving both the quality and consistency of feedback students receive and the students’ ability to use that feedback to improve. DUAL comprises a range of processes (including marking rubrics, sample reports, moderation discussions and peer-review activities) which support explicit knowledge exchange between staff, and between staff and students and the development of tacit knowledge of standards in all participants. This paper describes the study which quantified the extent to which the DUAL programme improved reliability and efficiency of marking of first year biology reports by a large team of laboratory demonstrators. Marker reliability increased after participation in DUAL, with demonstrators marking laboratory reports significantly closer to the marks awarded by an expert marker of the discipline. Efficiency was also improved since time taken to mark the reports did not increase significantly, despite the fact that demonstrators were adapting to a new system of marking. Demonstrators valued the programme and nominated the marking rubric, feedback code and moderation discussion as the most useful elements. The community of practice built through joint participation in the DUAL programme created a supportive working environment for demonstrators and strengthened the collaboration between the discipline and academic language and learning lecturers.     

Mapping a complex system: what influences teacher learning during initial teacher education?

Despite a growing body of knowledge about what content, processes and arrangements for learning may result in more effective initial teacher education, there remains a problem with the variability of outcomes from teacher education programmes. This paper reports on a multi-perspective exploration of what influences learning to teach in valued ways during initial teacher education. Framed by complexity theory, which emphasises the non-linear nature of social phenomena, the paper presents an analysis of 76 maps of influences on learning to teach (made by teacher candidates, teacher educators, mentor teachers and policy makers), looking for differences and patterns that might point the way to explanations about teacher candidates’ varying ability to enact practice that improves outcomes for all learners.     

Exploring the nature and implications of student teacher engagement with development education initiatives

In this article, the authors outline and discuss the findings of a research study, which explored student teacher engagement with development education (DE) interventions implemented within Professional Master of Education (PME) programmes across eight Irish Higher Education Institutions. Interpretivist methods were employed incorporating questionnaires administered to 536 student teachers pre and post the DE intervention and 6 focus group discussions conducted with 26 student teachers. Findings indicate that the capacity of PME students to engage with development issues and integrate DE into their teaching has strengthened considerably because of their participation in the intervention. However, in order to build upon this more must be done with respect to: strengthening student teachers’ knowledge of development issues; embedding DE further across PME programmes; enhancing practical engagement with DE on School Placement and prioritising DE-related research and reflection. Findings align with a conceptual understanding of DE as a complex system.