Languages discourses in Australian middle-class schools: parent and student perspectives

Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class schools in Australia to demonstrate how a complex amalgam of elite, cultural identity and/or trade language discourses came into play to explain the choice (or not) to study a language and the choice of specific languages. For many of the parents languages provided a limited form of ‘civic multiculturalism’, as a means of better understanding and respecting the ‘other’. We argue that the value attributed to high status languages via this discourse, means their continued presence in schools hoping to attract middle-class parents, but their relative absence in schools with largely working-class populations, where more ‘practical’ concerns dominate.     

Located in the thin of it: Young children’s use of thin moral concepts

One important socio-cultural medium through which young children’s moral understanding is cultivated is parent/child discourse. Of particular interest to us was young children’s use of basic (‘thin’) evaluative concepts (good, bad, right and wrong), which are ubiquitous in everyday discourse and serve as a potential bridge from the non-moral to the moral domain. We investigated 14 2–5-year-old children’s (and their parents’) use of thin evaluative concepts and found that while they frequently used good and bad to morally evaluate other people’s and their own psychological/dispositional states and behaviors—as well as, less frequently, to highlight relevant standards, expectations and rules—they did not use right and wrong. In contrast, a sample of US written and spoken public conversation revealed that adults did. Reasons for this are discussed, along with the frequency of different types of moral evaluations, differences between children and their parents, and age-related trends.     

Perceptions of Parents and Self Among College Students Reporting Learning Disabilities

Of 1773 college students who completed self‐administered questionnaires, 80 indicated they had been diagnosed as having a learning disability (LD). Those students were then compared on measures of self concept and recalled family stress, and reported personal problems with those who indicated no LD. It was found that the LD participants, in comparison with their non‐LD peers, tended to view themselves and their parents more negatively, recall more family stress during childhood and adolescence and report more drug abuse problems, delinquency and suicidal thoughts.     

“Being Healthy”: The discursive construction of health in New Zealand children's responses to the National Education Monitoring Project

In this paper we examine the discursive resources that year 4 and year 8 students draw on to construct meanings for health. Drawing on students' responses to tasks in the New Zealand National Monitoring Project (Crooks & Flockton, Health & Physical Education, University of Otago Educational Assessment Research Unit, 1999) we examine what students have to say about health, and speculate on where these responses have come from and on the implications of these for health education pedagogy. The students' responses indicate that they are well versed in “healthism” discourses that link practices like eating, exercise, smoking, drinking and taking drugs with “health”. The students' responses also point to the construction of health knowledge as certain and static. Relatively little attention is paid to the social, cultural, economic or political contexts of people's lives. Indeed, the “typical” responses clearly point to the dominance of white, middle class values about health and fitness promoted in New Zealand society. We conclude by posing several questions generated for educators.