‘It's like being in a zoo.’ Researching with people with intellectual disability

This paper introduces key debates in the contemporary practice of disability research and examines how these apply to conceptualising, designing and conducting research with people with intellectual disability. Specifically, it describes a collaborative action‐oriented reflexive approach to researching the lived experience of people with intellectual disability in self‐advocacy, offering a ‘reflective reprocessing’ of the methodological traditions, decisions, complexities and inadequacies of approaches to researching with such people. Emphasis on mutuality and the co‐construction of research agendas, interpretative frames and meanings is a method that has rarely been seen in research practice in intellectual disability. The approach described enables a merging of the skills of the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’ to create a process of integrated inquiry and reflection. It promises the possibility of new forms of co‐produced social knowledge about intellectual disability and self‐advocacy, with explicitly emancipatory values and assumptions.     

Foregrounding Women in the Doctoral Classroom: Mainstreaming and Single-Sex Approaches to Graduate Education

An increasing number of published studies have drawn attention to gender disparities in various dimensions of Christian higher education. Although the majority of students on the campuses of member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) are women, and the percentage of women holding faculty and administrative roles has increased, the male-normed environment of the academy continues to be evident in various ways, particularly in these Christian institutions. At the same time, higher education—and doctoral education in particular—is an important pathway to prepare future leaders and professors for Christian organizations. One potential way to begin to shift toward a more welcoming climate that benefits both men and women on CCCU campuses is to “foreground,” or make central, women's issues and concerns as part of regular classroom teaching. Such foregrounding can help counter the historic tendency to treat men's experience and concerns as normative for the human race. In the discipline of missiology, women make up the bulk of the practitioners yet are underrepresented as scholars, making it a pertinent field to challenge the neglect of women's voices and concerns in the academy. This article describes how a missiology classroom has been used to create a climate where women have opportunities to be central and where women's perspectives are treated as equally important as men's perspectives. To do this, I used three key practices: intentionally addressing gendered topics in mixed classes, offering selected single-sex education opportunities for women, and focusing on gender-related topics for research and publication. Using the discipline of missiology as a case study in relation to the importance of giving women's contributions to the field both recognition and voice may also offer transferable insights for doctoral faculty in other disciplines.     

Integration models for indigenous public health curricula

All graduates of Master of Public Health (MPH) programmes in Australia are expected to achieve a core set of Indigenous public health competencies designed to train ‘judgement safe practitioners’. A curriculum framework document was developed alongside the competencies to assist programme providers to integrate appropriate Indigenous content, but it does not describe the intended integration model. A review of MPH programmes was undertaken to determine the extent of integration, identify examples of best practice and explore how integration can be improved. Data from the consolidated review findings were analysed using a staged approach. Several models of curricula integration were identified, building on known models, and definitions developed that differentiate features according to the extent of integration achieved. The model recommended in the literature as best practice, known to promote deep learning, was found in only one of the reviewed programmes. This combination model supports development of reflexive practitioners who can operate across different disciplines and ways of knowing. Enablers and barriers were explored to explain why some integration models were more commonly found. Implications for curriculum reform are outlined with strategies to assist implementation of a combined integration model, a necessary learning approach to enhance student cultural competence.     

Looking for leadership: the potential of dialogic reflexivity with rural early-career teachers

Many early-career teachers (ECTs) begin their teaching careers in rural and remote schools in Australia, and do not stay long, with consequences for their own lives, and for their students, schools and communities. By understanding how first-year ECTs navigate personal (subjective) and contextual (objective) conditions, opportunities to disrupt patterns of ECT attrition may be found. This paper explores the online longitudinal reflections from two rural ECTs. Margaret Archer’s three dimensions of reflexivity were used to analyse what personal, structural and cultural resources were activated by ECTs as they discerned and deliberated the costs of being a rural ECT. The potential for school leaders and mentors to support rural ECTs through dialogic reflexivity, that is the opportunity to discern and deliberate priorities with others, is identified as a role that is significant for ECT support but not straightforward. Prompts for dialogic reflexivity are proposed.     

Sexting and institutional discourses of child protection: The views of young people and providers of relationship and sex education

This article focuses on discourses of child safety and protection of stakeholder organisations (SOs) and school pastoral care co-ordinators (PCCs) on educating young people about sexting. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with the representatives of four organisations who assist schools in the delivery of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE); and with three PCCs in three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland to ascertain how their school educates and responds to sexting. Focus groups were also conducted with 17 (10 girls and 7 boys) 16–17-year-olds to explore their views on sexting. The results of this study reveal that the predominant discourse in RSE is child safety and protection, and abstention from sexting. The three main groups (young people, SOs and PCCs) vary, however, in how they view sexting behaviour: the stakeholders are largely cautious and counsel against sending sexual pictures, while the young people regard it as normal behaviour. RSE provided by the schools is inadequate and unrealistic, and does not represent what actually goes on in young people’s sexual lives. Young people want to be consulted on the content of RSE lessons and resources; and RSE content should desist from telling them not to sext and enable them to explore appropriate relationship behaviours, including sexting. Teachers should feel confident in teaching such material and should have access to appropriate training.     

‘Beating the Odds,’ and Making Their Way in University: The Case of Three Females of Immigrant Parents

This article explores the experiences, perceptions, and aspirations of three marginalized female university students. Their admission was facilitated by an access program designed to support the participation of young people who, while meeting entrance requirements, would otherwise not be able to attend university because of their social and financial circumstances. We explore how gender, race, and generational/ immigrant status function in the educational experiences of these students and how they negotiated the structural barriers that stood in the way of their educational aspirations. The stories of the three students reflect the complex relationship between their optimism, conviction, and sense of accomplishment, and their doubts, fears, and struggles as related to institutional demands and parental expectations. Aware of the opportunity structures that exist within the society, and seemingly committed to meritocratic ideals, they remain hopeful that those structures will facilitate them achieving the rewards they believe postsecondary education can make possible.     

‘The Trouble with Normal’: (re)imagining sexuality education with young people

What do young people believe sexuality education ought to be about? It is within the absence of a sustained and critical consideration of the possibilities and politics of engaging in research with rather than for young people in the reimagining of sexuality education that this paper is positioned. Data were generated as part of an 18-month Youth Participatory Action Research study in one co-educational secondary school with 43 student co-researchers (15–17 years). The findings presented are not intended to provide conclusive statements about future directions for sexuality education, but rather provide a platform on which to discuss how young people’s ideas align with or diverge from current practice and debates surrounding what sexuality education should, could or ought to be about.     

Curriculum development for quantitative skills in degree programs: a cross-institutional study situated in the life sciences

Higher education policies are increasingly focused on graduate learning outcomes, which infer an emphasis on, and deep understanding of, curriculum development across degree programs. As disciplinary influences are known to shape teaching and learning activities, research situated in disciplinary contexts is useful to further an understanding of curriculum development. In the life sciences, several graduate learning outcomes are underpinned by quantitative skills or an ability to apply mathematical and statistical thinking and reasoning. Drawing on data from a national teaching project in Australia that explored quantitative skills in the implemented curricula of 13 life sciences degree programs, this article presents four program-level curricular models that emerged from the analysis. The findings are interpreted through the lens of discipline-specific research and general curriculum design theories to further our understanding of curriculum development for graduate learning outcomes. Implications for future research and to guide curriculum development practices in higher education are discussed.     

Models of interuniversity collaboration in higher education — How do their features act as barriers and enablers to sustainability?

Tertiary Education and Management - This study combines conceptual and empirical review of the literature around interuniversity collaborations to identify known models and applications, and...