Sites unseen: Ethnographic research in a textual community

Recent writing on the subject of ethnography has sought to examine the field not only as a place where research is carried out, but also as a methodological construction. While this writing emphasizes the extent to which people's experiences of community and culture can no longer be necessarily understood in relation to geographically based locations, it often continues to assert the "legacy of the field" (Clifford, 1997, p. 88) and its accompanying expectations and practices. In this article, I draw on my experience of doing ethnographic research in the textual community of 'zines in order to challenge the assumption that ethnographic fieldwork is necessarily dependent on physical displacement, and face-to-face encounters with our research participants. Specific attention is paid to the epistemological and ethical issues that emerge when one chooses to carry out research in textual communities. Intentionally foregrounding the parallels between the textual community of 'zines and the virtual communities associated with the Internet, this article also raises important questions for ethnographers carrying out research in networked environments.     

Phonological skills and comprehension failure: A test of the phonological processing deficit hypothesis

Shankweiler and colleagues argue that text comprehensionproblems in young children arise from phonological processingdifficulties. Their work has focused on children with poor wordreading ability. We investigated this hypothesis for children whoexperience comprehension difficulties in the presence of age-appropriate word reading skills. We found that good and poorcomprehenders performed comparably on various measures ofphonological processing and differed on a task that made greaterdemands on working memory, Bradley and Bryant's odd-word-outtask. In a final study, hierarchical regression analyses supportedthis distinction: the odd-word-out task was a strong predictor ofreading comprehension performance even after IQ, vocabulary and single word reading had been controlled for, but a lessmemory-dependent phonological task was not. These studiessupport previous work which indicates that poor comprehenders'problems arise from higher-level processing difficulties.     

Navigating the discursive tensions of the public university: the case of a South African student

As public universities seek to be locally responsive and compete internationally, tensions arise between expansion and equity, and between discourses of neoliberalism and social justice. This article focuses on how students navigate these tensions, and the implications for how they can act, interact and be. Norman Fairclough’s three-level view of the social and language, and his method of critical discourse analysis are used to analyse longitudinal interviews with an undergraduate science student. This student is, on account of his home and schooling, considered ‘historically marginalised’ at an historically-white, English-medium South African university. The results show how the student navigates multiple positionings that draw on notions of class, language, independence, progress, choice, care, and so on. It is argued that while universities should support students to navigate some of these tensions, there is a need to re-imagine structuring discourses related to the ‘normal’, ‘independent’ university student.     

Seeing Merit as a Vehicle for Opportunity and Equity: Youth Respond to School Choice Policy

The Urban Review - School choice policy is ubiquitous in urban school districts. Evidence suggests that it has not fully delivered on its proponents’ promises of equitable educational...     

Gender and Management in HEIs: Changing organisational and management structures

This paper reports on the second phase of a multi-country study examining cross cultural perspectives of gender and management in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It examines the broader labour market context and legislative frameworks for higher education in each country and then analyses the literature on women in university management. The paper presents the findings of research with male and female senior managers about their perceptions of women as HEI managers within changing organisational and management structures. It concludes that although HEI’s are now largely aware of barriers to women getting into and on in senior management, they have not addressed the organisational structures and cultures that perpetuate this inequity.

     

Searching for the public: school funding and shifting meanings of ‘the public’ in Australian education

School funding is a principal site of policy reform and contestation in the context of broad global shifts towards private- and market-based funding models. These shifts are transforming not only how schools are funded but also the meanings and practices of public education: that is, shifts in what is ‘public’ about schooling. In this paper, we examine the ways in which different articulations of ‘the public’ are brought to bear in contemporary debates surrounding school funding. Taking the Australian Review of Funding for Schooling (the Gonski Report) as our case, we analyse the policy report and its subsequent media coverage to consider what meanings are made concerning the ‘publicness’ of schooling. Our analysis reveals three broad themes of debate in the report and related media coverage: (1) the primacy of ‘procedural politics’ (i.e. the political imperatives and processes associated with public policy negotiations in the Australian federation); (2) changing relations between what is considered public and private; and (3) a connection of government schooling to concerns surrounding equity and a ‘public in need’. We suggest these three themes contour the debates and understandings that surround the ‘publicness’ of education generally, and school funding more specifically.     

Social Constructivism and Asynchronous Text-Based Discussion: A Case Study with Trainee Teachers

The paper reports a case study using asynchronous text-based discussion. It considers the role of the tutor and discusses the extent to which online discussions can facilitate social constructivist approaches to instruction and the creation of knowledge. Participants were 17 trainee teachers studying on a post graduate teaching course. The asynchronous text-based discussion (using e-blackboard) focused on planning for progression in children's learning in history and culminated in the trainee teachers writing individual assignments on the topic. The paper analyses the different types of contributions made and reports on the trainees' evaluations of the benefits and limitations of using e-blackboard. It concludes with recommendations and areas for further research.     

Improving sexual health for young people: making sexuality education a priority

How well do young people understand their developing sexuality and what this means? This paper reports on findings from the Our Lives: Culture, Context and Risk project, which investigated sexual behaviour and decision-making in the context of the everyday life experience and aspirations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people (16–25 years) in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and in South Australia. Using qualitative data, this paper focuses on what participating young people thought was necessary to improve the quality of sexuality education. Participants suggest that current forms of sexuality education are too clinical, didactic and unengaging, and are missing in relevant content. Young people requested more information on relationships, first sexual experiences and negotiating condom use. These requests indicate that young people realise that they need more knowledge in order to have healthy relationships, which conflicts with the popular belief that providing young people with open, honest information around sex will encourage them to have sex or increase sexual risk taking. Making sexuality education more of a priority and listening to the needs of young people could be a positive step towards improving sexual health and well-being.     

Designing STEAM Education: Fostering Relationality through Design‐Led Disruption

A significant contention underpinning the commentary around STEM / STEAM is the evidence of discipline hierarchies, and inherent binary perspectives and/or biases that lend themselves to privileging one or more disciplines over another in an interdisciplinary education context. The current focus on increasing engagement with STEM in Australian schools provides opportunities to explore how the creative and liberal arts, and arts‐based approaches to teaching and learning are being adopted to significantly enhance teaching and learning outcomes in and for STEM education. This article examines how design for a STEAM education programme evolves and is adopted in an Australian context. Tasmania represents one of the most vibrant creative communities in Australia. At the same time it has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment. Entrenched teaching habits and disciplinary hierarchies often create significant barriers to the implementation of STEAM despite genuine goodwill and enthusiasm for STEAM among teachers and within schools. This article argues that, despite the contrasting dynamics extant in the Tasmanian educational context, it is here that some of the nation’s most curious and exciting examples of STEAM teaching and learning have emerged. It offers an example of an innovative learning project and proposes the means by which these disciplinary strands have been effectively entwined.