Equity and marketisation: emerging policies and practices in Australian education

The conjunction of equity and market logics in contemporary education has created new and different conditions of possibility for equity, both as conceived in policy discourses and as a related set of educational practices. In this editorial introduction, we examine how equity is being drawn into new policy assemblages and how, in the context of marketisation, equity is evolving and being enacted in new ways across education sectors. Different conceptions of equity are considered, including the increasingly influential human capital perspective promoted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). We argue that, separate from critiques of neoliberalism and its deleterious effects on equity in education, it is necessary to analyse carefully the increasing rationalisation of equity agendas in economic terms, the associated effects on education governance and policy-making, as well as on the work of educational institutions and educators. Providing an overview of the contributions to this Special Issue, we direct particular attention to the multiple, complex and often contradictory effects of the current education reform agenda in Australia, which has prioritised equity objectives and intensified performance measurement, comparison and accountability as means to drive educational improvement and reduce disadvantage.     

Our Language: (Re)Imagining Communities in Ukrainian Language Classrooms

Drawing upon video recordings from two fifth-grade Ukrainian classrooms and interviews with children four years later, this paper examines these classrooms as sites for socializing learners into an imagined community of Ukrainian speakers, the extent to which children took up identities as members of this community, and the potential effect of this identification on willingness to learn and use Ukrainian. Microanalysis of classroom interaction illustrates how teachers drew upon prevailing discourses of language and nation in ways that both presupposed and sought to create children’s membership in an imagined national community whose core practices included affiliation with Ukrainian as “our language.” However, interview data reveal that while children readily aligned with this imagined community and voiced its language ideologies, they positioned themselves as peripheral members or alternatively reimagined an alternative, multilingual Ukrainian community.     

Developing a Multi-Dimensional Early Elementary Mathematics Screener and Diagnostic Tool: The Primary Mathematics Assessment

There is a critical need to identify primary level students experiencing difficulties in mathematics to provide immediate and targeted instruction that remediates their deficits. However, most early math screening instruments focus only on the concept of number, resulting in inadequate and incomplete information for teachers to design intervention efforts. We propose a mathematics assessment that screens and provides diagnostic information in six domains that are important to building a strong foundation in mathematics. This article describes the conceptual framework and psychometric qualities of a web-based assessment tool, the Primary Math Assessment (PMA). The PMA includes a screener to identify students at risk for poor math outcomes and a diagnostic tool to provide a more in-depth profile of children’s specific strengths and weaknesses in mathematics. The PMA allows teachers and school personnel to make better instructional decisions by providing more targeted analyses.     

Conversations about sexuality on a public university campus: perspectives from campus ministry students and leaders

Little is known about university campus religious organisations’ influence on students’ sexuality-related attitudes and behaviours. This study sought to better understand sexuality-related communication within the context of campus ministries by exploring students’ and campus ministry leaders’ conversational experiences at a public university in the south-east USA. Data sources included an online survey of undergraduates participating in student religious organisations (n = 57), focus groups with campus ministry students (n = 36), and individual interviews with campus ministry leaders (n = 19). Findings indicated student satisfaction with the focus and frequency of conversations about romantic relationships and sexual health within the context of campus ministries. However, both campus ministry students and leaders indicated discomfort in discussions of sexuality. Leaders acknowledged their need for better strategies to engage students; students focused on how to integrate religious messages about sexuality with messages from other sources. These findings suggest campus ministry leaders may benefit from focused training and support to communicate more effectively with college students about sexuality.     

Study Skills at a Distance—ten years on

How to Study Effectively was probably the first distance learning course in the UK to help students to acquire learning skills. It has consistently attracted large numbers of students. Sam Rouse has tutored the course for the whole of its life and this paper reports the result of an evaluation he recently carried out. Samples of three student groups, all enrolled in 1972, were asked for their views on the course after a ten year gap. A group of'normal'enrollers is compared with two more special groups, one of TUC sponsored students and one of intending ordinands in the Church of England. Why did they enrol? How many assignments did they complete? What did they think of the course? What differences if any has it made to their lives? The paper concludes with three case studies of students, one from each group. The full report, And Having Studied Effectively , is published by the National Extension College.     

Testing Alternative Hypotheses Regarding the Association Between Behavioral Inhibition and Language Development in Toddlerhood

Studies have reported an inverse association between language development and behavioral inhibition or shyness across childhood, but the direction of this association remains unclear. This study tested alternative hypotheses regarding this association in a large sample of toddlers. Data on behavioral inhibition and expressive and receptive language abilities were collected from 816 twins at ages 14, 20, and 24 months. Growth and regression models were fit to the data to assess the longitudinal associations between behavioral inhibition and language development from 14 to 24 months. Overall, there were significant associations between behavioral inhibition and expressive language, and minimal associations with receptive language, indicating that the association is better explained by reticence to respond rather than deficient language development.     

Maternal language to prelinguistic infants: syntactic aspects

Maternal speech to children has been shown to vary by age and language ability of the children. Previous studies have usually involved children over 1 year of age. In this study maternal speech to male and female 4-, 6-, and 8-month-old infants was recorded in the laboratory. Mothers used shorter utterances to 8-month-olds than to 4- or 6-month-olds, presumably in response to the infant's changing level of comprehension. Mothers used more sentences with subjects, verbs, or objects deleted to 8-month-olds and more complex sentences to 4-month-olds.     

Framing gender identity and sexual orientation: media influence on young men who have sex with men’s health

Sex education takes place in a wide range of contexts including through the media. Media use among young men who have sex with men is high and gender identity and sexual orientation are topics often integrated into today’s media. Little is known about young men who have sex with men’s perceptions of how the media frames messages about gender identity and sexual orientation and the implications these messages have on HIV prevention. A greater understanding of young men who have sex with men’s perceptions of media framing about gender identity and sexual orientation is needed to ensure prevention efforts reach those most impacted by HIV. Focus groups were conducted with forty-two African American men who have sex with men, aged 18–21, living in the Southeastern USA. Thematic analysis revealed that participants reported using the Internet and television to access gender identity and sexual orientation information. Participants felt that the media’s framing of gender identity and sexual orientation only worsened HIV-related stigma and discrimination. Findings illustrate the important role that media can play in educating about gender identity and sexual orientation and the implications this framing has for HIV prevention.     

Children''s Representations of the Pattern of Daily Activities

An important part of humans' knowledge of time depends on forming mental representations of recurrent temporal patterns. This study was an attempt to characterize the representations of one such pattern--the relative times of occurrence of daily activities such as waking, lunch, dinner, and going to bed in 4-9-year-old children. The results of 3 experiments showed that by 5 years of age children can judge the backward order of daily activities, judge the forward order from multiple reference points within the day, and evaluate the lengths of intervals separating daily activities. By about 7 years, children can also judge backward order from multiple reference points. These findings impose constraints on the types of representational models that can explain young children's knowledge of this pattern. The results also show that certain operations can be performed on this content about 6 years earlier than on 2 other temporal contents--the patterns of days of the week and months.     

Wikipedia and the University,a case study

This article discusses the use of Wikipedia by academics and students for learning and teaching activities at Liverpool Hope University. Hope has distinctive aspects but we consider the findings to be indicative of Wikipedia use at other British universities. First we discuss general issues of Wikipedia use within the university. Second, we examine existing research on Wikipedia use amongst students and academics. Based upon a sample of 133 academics and 1222 students, our principal findings were: (1) 75% of academics and students use Wikipedia; (2) student use is typically confined to the initial stages of assessments; (3) a quarter of academics provide guidance on how to use Wikipedia and (4) 70% of academics use Wikipedia for background information for teaching purposes, something that it is not influenced by whether student use is tolerated or not. Our conclusion is that whilst Wikipedia is now unofficially integrated into universities, it is not ‘the’ information resource as feared by many and that an enlightened minority of academics have attempted to assimilate it into their teaching.