Globalization,networks, and governance: Researching global ICT programs

Global ICT programs are defined as new and universal modes of organizing mediated by technology and enacted through a novel mix of policy instruments, international institutions, business interests, and techno/managerial concepts. Largely unexplored in the various fields studying innovation and digital technologies, such programs are of interest, not least because of their projected ability to promote innovation and help achieve new mechanisms of governance at local, national, and global scale. Based on relevant information systems research, this paper argues that we need a new theoretical understanding for the study of such programs and in order to explore their potential as a means of technology transfer and innovation in the developed and developing world.     

‘The conference was awesome’: social justice and a mathematics teacher conference

Professional development comes in many forms, some of which are deemed more useful than others. However, when groups of teachers are excluded, or exclude themselves, from professional development opportunities, then there is an issue of social justice. This article examines the experiences of a group of teachers from a Māori-medium school who attended a mathematics teacher conference. By analysing the teachers’ sense of belonging through their ideas about engagement, alignment and imagination, we are able to describe how different kinds of relationships influence the inclusion/exclusion process. This leads to a discussion about what can be done by the teachers as well as conference organisers to increase these teachers’ likelihood of attending further conferences in the future.     

Entering the field: beginning teachers’ positioning experiences of the staffroom

Little is known about beginning teachers’ political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers’ positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. From an Australian context, we present beginning (or emerging) teachers’ stories from one rural general staffroom and one urban departmental staffroom. Using the narratives we reflect upon how their positioning in the politics of the staffroom as beginning teachers presented significant challenges including negotiating the professional micropolitics, negotiating capital and negotiating opportunities and risks for reflection and change in contrasting social spaces.     

Predictions and preferences for teacher education in Queensland in the year 2000

A questionnaire constructed by a restricted Delphi technique was completed in 1991 by 136 teacher educators in Queensland. Respondents rated the likelihood that 33 specific changes in teacher education would occur by the year 2000, and also indicated whether they supported such changes. The predictions represented some directions that had been recommended in government reports during the 1980s. Although respondents supported many of these changes, there was opposition to several trends likely to change the work roles and conditions of employment of teacher educators.     

Illuminating English: how explicit language teaching improved public examination results in a comprehensive school

The project described here is based on a linguistic analysis of the language of GCSE textbooks, coursework and examinations across the curriculum. It was hypothesised that explicit teaching of the linguistic features which distinguish these genres would produce an improvement in performance across the curriculum. A 3‐year course was developed and taught over a period of 8 years to Years 7‐9 in a comprehensive school. The methodology adopted was that of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and the course was administered by teachers without special training. The project was monitored at every stage. The hypothesis was found to be correct, when the number of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSEs at Grades A‐C was dramatically increased among those pupils who had followed the course, compared with other schools in the Borough and the national average.