Building Relationships through Communities of Practice: Museums and Indigenous People

Abstract This paper explores the theory of “communities of practice” and how the ideas contained in it could be applied to museums, by demonstrating how a key stakeholder group, Indigenous people, have been involved with and engaged in the work of the Australian Museum, Sydney, over the past 30 years. It is suggested that the processes museums have developed in building relationships with Indigenous people, particularly at the practitioner level, could form a template for how museums make themselves relevant to broader communities through active engagement with multiple communities of practice.     

Averting a Recruitment Crisis in Educational Psychology Services: An investigation of psychology undergraduate perspectives on the profession

This paper describes a survey of psychology undergraduates' perceptions of educational psychology, and the factors most likely to motivate or deter them from joining the profession. Results suggest that interest in educational psychology as a career option is at its lowest level for thirty years or more. The paper presents evidence that the current recruitment crisis within the profession needs to be addressed at a number of levels, including: the promotion within first degree programmes of improved understanding of educational psychology as a discipline and a profession, and of the links between basic research and its applicability to educational psychology in practice; the further development of the role which educational psychologists (EPs) fulfil, and the accurate dissemination of information about the profession; stream-lining and rationalising post-graduate training routes for psychology graduates, in order to offer a more accessible career route, and maximising its direct relevance in supporting the acquisition of core professional skills; and attenting to pay and conditions within the profession, so that it competes on more equal terms with other career destinations considered by undergraduates.     

Who Am I? Compositions of the self: an autoethnographic,rhizotextual analysis of two poetic texts

This article employs an autoethnographic, rhizotextual approach to analyse the compositional processes involved in the construction of two poems by the same author. What the analysis reveals is not only the internal thinking of the author in the process of composition but how the socio‐cultural standpoint of the author is implicated in the texts. It is posited that, in addition to the author's own lived experience informing composition, rhizotextual analysis enables us to extend beyond the self to interrogate the ‘secondary worlds’ of others and to form an empathic relationship to the ‘Other’. The findings of this article have implications for teachers’ knowledge of the socio‐cultural contexts of written composition. An authoethnographic, rhizotextual approach allows personal insights into the self, both as a writer and a person. This approach has implications for classroom practice, particularly for writing around issues of identity located in social class, gender, ‘race’, disability and sexual orientation, as well as the growing body of work on the teacher as a writer.     

Issues Confronting American Higher Education

The American system of higher education — massive, decentralized, and diverse —faces a number of critical issues in the years immediate ahead. This paper considers four of those issues — the impact of demographic change; the long-term implications for higher education of the national movement to reform secondary education; the growing interest in the character and quality of undergraduate education; and the role of universities, especially research universities, in economic development — and suggests a few of the directions American higher education may take in response to them.     

Understanding Instructor Immediacy,Credibility, and Facework Strategies Through a Qualitative Analysis of Written Instructor Feedback

Written feedback is an important but often overlooked aspect of an instructor’s training and responsibilities, even though it is central to student learning. We analyzed 3,071 written instructor comments on a single assignment from 95 sections to understand how immediacy, credibility, and facework are reflected in written feedback. In taking a heuristic approach to data analysis, we found two overarching themes: fostering goodwill and using context-specific feedback. These overlapping themes demonstrated various strategies of instructor immediacy, credibility, and facework that negotiated the instructor–student relationship in conjunction with course content and policies. Examining these themes allowed us to identify strengths and weaknesses in methods of instructor feedback that would not have been visible using traditional quantitative methods of assessment and have practical implications for the administration of our course.     

Weight factor selection in double exponential smoothing enrollment forecasts

The merits of double exponential smoothing are discussed relative to other types of pattern-based enrollment forecasting methods. The basic assumptions and formulas for its use are outlined. The difficulties associated with selecting an appropriate weight factor are discussed, and the potential effect on prediction results is illustrated. Two methods for objectively selecting the best weight factor are described and analyzed, and evidence is presented suggesting that they may be used effectively in the enrollment-forecasting process.Presented at the Twentieth Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Atlanta, April 1980.     

BBC Radio Ulster: Public Service Radio in Northern Ireland’s Divided Society

BBC radio has been broadcast in Northern Ireland since shortly after the establishment of the country in the early 1920s. Throughout this period it has been faced by the challenge of how to deliver public service radio in a divided society, one that has for many years experienced violent conflict. Today as BBC Radio Ulster, the station has the highest audience reach of any BBC network radio service or those nations services in Scotland and Wales. This article outlines how BBC policy serves to deliver this performance, by examining a BBC Trust Service Review in relation to culture and diversity.