How parental and school responses to choice policies reconfigure a rural education market in Victoria,Australia

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature of regional education markets and the choices families make in a rural school market in Australia. Through two school case studies, this article explores the effects of policy shifts on parental choice and student movement within a regional Victorian community. Informed by policy sociology, the article views the policy as a dynamic, often ad hoc process with contradictory effects. It indicates how an ensemble of federal and state funding and conveyancing policies enable some schools to develop marketing practices that reconstruct the local education market to their advantage through the introduction of transport and flexi-boarding policies. It demonstrates that education markets are not confined to urban settings and that while choice is not a new phenomenon in this rural area, federal and state funding and transport policies have reconfigured local markets and intensified the market work undertaken by schools and parents with, in this instance, unequal effects on the provision of schooling in a rural region.     

The impact of collaborative video analysis by practitioners and researchers upon pedagogical thinking and practice: a follow‐up study

The ‘T‐MEDIA’ project analysed and documented how teachers exploit the use of projection technologies – data projectors and interactive whiteboards (IWBs) – to support learning in secondary‐school subject lessons. The research involved collaboration between university researchers and four pairs of UK teachers (of English, mathematics, science and history) in an intensive process of systematically analysing video recordings of classroom activity and other data in depth. Our goals were to assist teachers in articulating the pedagogical rationale underlying their practice, and uniquely, to engage them in theory building about strategic technology use. This paper reports on a follow‐up study carried out one year after the collaborative analyses in order to assess the subsequent impacts of the process of critical reflection. The eight teachers were questioned using a semi‐structured interview technique that allowed us to elicit structured and personalised accounts of impact on pedagogical thinking and practice and the supporting or constraining factors. The findings suggest that for at least some, the sociocultural theory introduced and reformulated during the analyses provided a powerful analytical lens upon emerging practices, including those not incorporating technology. All of the participants reported lasting effects upon their own thinking and, except where external constraints operated, on teaching practices. The approaches developed during T‐MEDIA had additionally been disseminated to and adapted by other subject colleagues. The study illustrates how collaborative analysis of lesson videos can be used to engage teachers in deep reflection, critique and debate. This approach supports the development of an analytical scrutiny of classroom teaching and offers a significant professional development opportunity. In particular, under conditions of sensitive support, teachers will readily accommodate theoretical constructs into specific areas of professional thinking and practice.     

Democratising the curriculum or training the children of the poor: school‐based vocational training in Australia

This article examines the views of staff employed in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) about how those institutions are dealing with the impact of recent UK equality legislation and related European employment directives. Assumptions underlying current approaches to equality in UK HEIs are examined, particularly the notion of meritocracy, which advocates job selection and promotion based on normatively and culturally neutral measures of merit. The article is based on a project funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, using qualitative case studies of six English, Welsh and Scottish HEIs. The project data suggest that equality policies for staff and students are in tension with each other, that staff policies may clash with other institutional policies, for example on research excellence or enhancing the student experience, and that the rhetoric of equality policies is not always matched by the day‐to‐day experience of staff. The article suggests that the case study UK HEIs, with their continued focus on meritocracy and excellence, have not yet adapted to the new climate of employee equality legislation and perhaps need to consider a different approach than the meritocratic one.     

Queer will: hikikomori as willful subjects

This article considers hikikomori as willful subjects. The hikikomori are a portion of the Japanese population who withdraw into their homes. These are mostly young people (between the ages of 15 and 35) and mostly young men. The focus of this article is how hikikomori constitute a challenge to dominant national imaginaries of Japan as a “corporate-family system.” This article analyses popular media and psychiatric representations of hikikomori, particularly from Saitô’s work as exemplifying Ahmed’s notion of “willful subjects.” It is argued that the hikikomori’s apparent willfulness produces them as Queer subjects who are out of place and pace with the dominant heteronormative, masculinist culture of contemporary Japan.     

The special magic of the eighties: Shaping words and shape-shifting words

She has a Master's degree in children's literature and a Ph.D. in Australian literature. One of her particular research interests is in teaching literature to ESL students.