A Bourdieusian analysis of cultural reproduction: socialisation and the ‘hidden curriculum’ in professional football

This article draws on the theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu to provide an explanatory account of how socialisation and the hidden curriculum within coaching practice contribute toward the formation of social identities and powerful schemes of internalised dispositions. Drawing on a 10 month ethnography within professional football, the research found that day-to-day practice was ideologically laden and served the production, reproduction and incorporation of socialised agents into the prevailing ‘legitimate’ culture. The legitimacies embodied included respect for authority, hierarchical awareness, control, obedience, collectivity, work ethic and winning.     

Eliciting Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Children's Transgression Disclosures: Narrative Practice Rapport Building and a Putative Confession

This study tested the effects of narrative practice rapport building (asking open‐ended questions about a neutral event) and a putative confession (telling the child an adult “told me everything that happened and he wants you to tell the truth”) on 4‐ to 9‐year‐old maltreated and nonmaltreated children's reports of an interaction with a stranger who asked them to keep toy breakage a secret (n = 264). Only one third of children who received no interview manipulations disclosed breakage; in response to a putative confession, one half disclosed. Narrative practice rapport building did not affect the likelihood of disclosure. Maltreated children and nonmaltreated children responded similarly to the manipulations. Neither narrative practice rapport building nor a putative confession increased false reports.     

Multiple Service Use: The impact of consistency in service quality for vulnerable youth

Little is known about the way in which variations in service quality influence outcomes when youth are clients of more than one service system. This article reports on a study of 1,210 adolescents (aged 13–17 years), half were concurrent clients of two or more services and half were not involved in two or more services. Youth completed a self-report questionnaire administered by a trained interviewer. It was hypothesized that youth reporting two positive service experiences would report lower risks, higher resilience, and better outcomes than youth reporting inconsistent or two negative service experiences and that their resilience, risks, and outcomes would be similar to those of youth not involved in two or more services. MANCOVA was used to determine the relationship among service quality and resilience, risk, and outcomes with four covariates that assessed family and neighborhood environments, history of abuse and neglect, and chronic need. Results indicate that service quality had an effect on resilience, risks, and outcomes. These relationships were mediated quite strongly by the influence of the risks youth faced in their neighborhoods and to a lesser extent by the other three covariates. Of the three dependent variables, risk appeared to be the most consistently influenced by all the covariates, and it also differentiated service experience groups. Results point to the importance of services developing strategies to effectively address risks confronted by youth and also to ensure that when more than one service is involved with youth, consistency in service delivery is achieved.     

Exploring the limits of spatial memory in rats,using very large mazes

In Experiment 1, rats foraged for food in six successive phases with 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, and 48 arms attached in random locations to a large radial maze. The percentage of novel choices appeared to be determined more by spatial proximity than by number of arms. In Experiment 2, rats foraged for food in four successive phases with 8, 16, 24, and 48 arms attached to the maze in spread-out or tight configurations. Performance was poor in the tight configurations regardless of the number of arms. Performance was excellent in the 8-arm spread-out condition but declined as 16 and, then again, 24 arms were added. Thus, spatial separation, not number of locations, was the chief determinant of performance in the first two experiments. In Experiment 3, in successive phases, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 16, and 8 food towers were set in a circle on the floor, with the spatial separation between adjacent towers held constant at 33 cm. The percentage of novel choices declined as 8 towers became 16 and did not change again with 24, 32, 40, or 48 towers in place but then increased again as 16 towers became 8. In Experiment 4, in successive phases, 8, 16, 24, and 32 food towers were set in a circle, with the spatial separation between adjacent towers held constant at 66 cm. The percentage of novel choices declined as 8 towers became 16 and again as 16 towers became 24 but did not decline further. These data were discussed in terms of the fundamental problems posed by variations in the number of food locations in the pursuit of the limit of spatial memory in rats.     

Negotiating meanings and scaffolding learning: writing support for non‐English speaking background postgraduate students

Language and learning advisers and non‐English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate students negotiate complex territory when working together to improve students’ texts. However, the individual writing consultation is sometimes conceptualised one‐dimensionally by faculty as a form of editing. The writing consultation with NESB postgraduate students has also received only sporadic attention in the higher education literature. This paper provides a contextual, discourse analytical account of one writing consultation between a faculty‐based language adviser and a Master of Public Health NESB student. The findings show that the consultation was a dynamic exchange druing which a range of meanings were negotiated. The findings also show that the adviser scaffolded the student’s academic writing and learning in a number of ways. More research is needed in different teaching contexts and at various stages of students’ writing in order to provide a greater understanding of the writing support consultation to inform guidelines for providing individual language support to NESB postgraduate students.     

Employment Outcomes of Science Graduates in Australia: Implications for Choice and Diversity in the Curriculum

In this paper, we compare employment outcomes of science graduates in Australia with information about survey respondents' courses of study to determine the nature and extent of employment-curriculum match (or mismatch). Outcomes of student preferences are also explored to see which course structures – specifically generalist or specialist – are more successful than others. Six different measures of employment-curriculum matching are used to argue that mismatching is likely to be minimal. The paper suggests implications for the structure of undergraduate science degrees.     

Peer Assessment of Student Constructed Posters: Assessment Alternatives in Preservice Mathematics Education

In this article I discuss a four-year action research project that involved the development of effective assessment tools for preservice mathematics teachers. The focus of the article is on peer assessment in which students reviewed posters created by their peers. The article discusses the strategies that were used and the implications that arose from the project. I argue that peer assessment is an effective tool for assessment in preservice mathematics teacher education but must not be seen as an alternative to teacher-based assessment due to the variability in marks between and within student cohorts. The value of peer assessment is its potential as a learning tool. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Committed to learn: student engagement and care in higher education

Efforts to evaluate and improve student engagement have been pervasive in higher education over recent years. Critics argue, however, that troubling affinities are evident between student engagement efforts and a neoliberal agenda which emphasises accountability through performativity. Neoliberalism manifests in policies that focus on the economic benefit to individuals of higher education, rather than the broader social or intrinsic benefits. In this conceptual article, we draw on the work of Martin Heidegger and Nel Noddings in arguing that efforts aimed at promoting engagement and commitment to learn by students should include developing a capacity to care about others and things. Through the lens of care, our aim is to extend current notions of what engagement of students in their learning might look like. Challenging and supporting students entail encouraging them to take a stand on what they are learning and who they are becoming. This enriched conceptualisation has the potential to re-orient student engagement away from a narrow neoliberal agenda, while enabling students to realise the full benefits a higher education can provide.     

Looking at the Next 20 Years of Multiliteracies: A Discussion with Allan Luke

In this discussion with literacies researcher Allan Luke, the New London Group Member reflects on the role of multiliteracies in shaping literacies research and the continuing changes to technology, capitalism, and learning. Focused on looking toward future advances in literacies research, Luke reflects on the role of multiliteracies in contemporary educational policy and how this work is shaping literacy scholarship and practice today. Luke looks pragmatically at the current political landscape and emphasizes how colonial practices of technology over the past twenty years bend literacies research away from the initial optimism expressed by the New London Group. At the same time, Luke grounds contemporary literacies interpretations of technology and learning in foundational critical theorist like Freire, Illich, and Dewey. By focusing on how technology has changed schooling, power, and literacies, Luke considers what challenges loom for the theory and practice of powerful, equitable literacies in the next two decades.