The influence of food literacy on the everyday practicalities of meeting nutrition recommendations

Contemporary nutrition policies and plans call for focussing efforts to improve nutrition through a closer connection with food and the everyday practicalities of how people live and eat. Various words have been used to articulate what this might mean in practice. More recently, the term “food literacy” has emerged to explain this gap between the policy aims the (in)ability of people to know, understand and use food to meet nutrition recommendations. Despite its increasing use, there is no common understanding of this term or its components. Once established, food literacy could be measured in order to examine its association with nutritional outcomes. A Delphi study of 43 Australian food experts from diverse sectors and settings explored their understanding of the term “food literacy”, the likely components and possible relationship with nutrition. The three round Delphi study began with a semi-structured telephone interview and was followed by two online surveys. Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyse data, from which a conceptual model of the relationship between food literacy and nutrition was developed. The model was then tested and refined following a phenomenological study of 37 young people aged 16-25 years who were responsible for feeding themselves. They were interviewed about their food intake, day-to-day food decision making, the knowledge and skills used and their perceptions of someone who is “good with food”. Analysis from the Delphi study identified, eighty components of food literacy and these were grouped into eight domains: 1)access, 2)planning and management, 3)selection, 4)knowing where food comes from, 5)preparation, 6)eating, 7)nutrition and 8)food related language. When these were compared to results of the Young People’s study it was found that while specific components of food literacy were largely contextual, the importance of all eight domains continued to be relevant. The results of these qualitative studies have set the boundaries and scope of meaning of food literacy and will be used to inform the development of measurable variables to be tested in a quantitative cross-sectional study. This prospective study will examine the relationship between food literacy and nutrition. This research is useful in guiding government strategy and investment, and informing the planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions by practitioners.

Linking food literacy to nutrition

“Food literacy” is an emerging term used to describe the relative ability to understand the nature of food and how it is important. It also describes the ability to gather, process, analyse and act upon information about food and to apply it in individual settings. A Delphi study of 43 Australian food experts from diverse sectors and settings in all states and territories explored the meaning of food literacy, its constitutive components and how they relate to nutrition. The three-round Delphi began with a semi-structured telephone interview and was followed by two online surveys. Grounded theory was used to develop a conceptual model of the relationship between food literacy and nutrition. It is proposed that food literacy influences nutrition through three related mechanisms of security, choice and pleasure. These mechanisms will be mediated by the local food supply and individual values. The relative importance of components of food literacy will depend upon these mediators. The level of nutrition outcome being sought (for example, dietary guidelines versus food group serves) will also influence the relative importance of these components. This model will be useful in informing program planning and evaluation and will be tested and refined following a phenomenological study of consumers.

Learning information literacy

Introduction This paper reports on university students' experiences of learning information literacy. Method Phenomenography was selected as the research approach as it describes the experience from the perspective of the study participants, which in this case is a mixture of undergraduate and postgraduate students studying education at an Australian university. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with fifteen students. Analysis The interview transcripts were iteratively reviewed for similarities and differences in students' experiences of learning information literacy. Categories were constructed from an analysis of the distinct features of the experiences that students reported. The categories were grouped into a hierarchical structure that represents students' increasingly sophisticated experiences of learning information literacy. Results The study reveals that students experience learning information literacy in six ways: learning to find information; learning a process to use information; learning to use information to create a product; learning to use information to build a personal knowledge base; learning to use information to advance disciplinary knowledge; and learning to use information to grow as a person and to contribute to others. Conclusions Understanding the complexity of the concept of information literacy, and the collective and diverse range of ways students experience learning information literacy, enables academics and librarians to draw on the range of experiences reported by students to design academic curricula and information literacy education that targets more powerful ways of learning to find and use information.

Small acts of resistance : the role of intergenerational collaborative drawing in early childhood teaching and learning

This chapter focuses on ‘intergenerational collaborative drawing’, a particular process of drawing whereby adults and children draw at the same time on a blank paper space. Such drawings can be produced for a range of purposes, and based on different curriculum or stimulus subjects. Children of all ages, and with a range of physical and intellectual abilities are able to draw with parents, carers and teachers. Intergenerational collaborative drawing is a highly potent method for drawing in early childhood contexts because it brings adults and children together in the process of thinking and theorizing in order to create visual imagery and this exposes in deep ways to adults and children, the ideas and concepts being learned about. For adults, this exposure to a child’s thinking is a far more effective assessment tool than when they are presented with a finished drawing they know little about. This chapter focuses on drawings to examine wider issues of learning independence and how in drawing, preferred schema in the form of hand-out worksheets, the suggestive drawings provided by adults, and visual material seen in everyday life all serve to co-opt a young child into making particular schematic choices. I suggest that intergenerational collaborative drawing therefore serves to work as a small act of resistance to that co-opting, in that it helps adults and children to collectively challenge popular creativity and learning discourses.

Digital Literacy and the Spaces of Academic Discourse

Digital literacy poses a particular challenge to the research-led university. Although these universities are often at the forefront of introducing digital literacy initiatives—such as e-learning platforms, technological infrastructure, and digital repositories—these applications of digital literacy tend to be more instrumental or functional than critical or creative. Certainly, this clash of cultures between the instrumental/functional and the critical/analytical is at the heart of debates over the uses of digital literacy in higher education. However, this simple equation of political forces with instrumentality and the corresponding equation of the university with a tradition of reflective thought that brings criticism to bear on instrumentality elide the fact that this conflict is more deeply rooted within the academy. This essay argues that, in fact, much of the resistance to critical uses of digital literacy comes from within the institution of the university itself. That is, the university is bound up in a scriptural economy that prioritises the printed word and that reinforces its power by way of a normative, political, and spatialised academic discourse. It is this print-based scriptural economy—in which this essay must acknowledge its own complicity—that a critical approach to digital literacy threatens to disrupt or lay bare.

Technique for evaluating photo sharing interfaces with the early prototypes - group simulation

User evaluations using paper prototypes commonly lack social context. The Group simulation technique described in this paper offers a solution to this problem. The study introduces an early-phase participatory design technique targeted for small groups. The proposed technique is used for evaluating an interface, which enables group work in photo collection creation. Three groups of four users, 12 in total, took part in a simulation session where they tested a low-fidelity design concept that included their own personal photo content from an event that their group attended together. The users’ own content was used to evoke natural experiences. Our results indicate that the technique helped users to naturally engage with the prototype in the session. The technique is suggested to be suitable for evaluating other early-phase concepts and to guide design solutions, especially with the concepts that include users’ personal content and enable content sharing.

Reflections from early career graduates of the exceptional teachers for disadvantaged schools project

This paper aims to explore the experiences of newly qualified teachers and their supervising principals who work in schools situated in various high-poverty areas of Queensland, Australia. It is informed by data collected in the context of an Australian teacher education program, Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools (ETDS). Now in its third year, this program was designed to prepare highly skilled pre-service teachers to work in schools that have large numbers of students from disadvantaged or low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. Addressing the oft-stated need to prepare high-quality teachers for low SES schools, high-achieving undergraduate education students were invited to participate in two years of specialised curriculum to prepare them for the schools that need them the most, which are also the schools that are often difficult to staff. Pre-service teachers in this program do all their teaching practicum placements in challenging or complex schools. In 2011, some of this cohort did their practicum teaching in schools with large numbers of Indigenous students and several went on to teach in remote communities after graduation. These graduates and the leaders of the schools they work in are the primary informants for this paper.

Literacy in the Middle Years : Learning from Collaborative Classroom Research

Literacy in the Middle Years: Learning from Collaborative Classroom Research, showcases teachers' innovative literacy work across the curriculum. Classroom practice, teacher thinking and collaborative research are highlighted in ways of working with new curricula and rapidly changing literacy modes and platforms. Connections with place, critical engagement with digital literacies, using polymedia with EAL/D learners, and subject-specific literacies are detailed in teachers' stories of practice. Teacher wellbeing, for a sustainable workforce, underpins the case studies, aimed at equipping 'change ready' teachers with positive examples of literacy approaches and inquiry in practice.

Book Review: "Language, literacy, and pedagogy in postindustrial societies : the case of black academic underachievement"

Mocombe and Tomlin’s Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy in Postindustrial Societies: The Case of Black Academic Underachievement is part of the Routledge Research in Education series. The purpose of the work is to set out a theoretical framework for understanding the black/white academic achievement gap in the age of globalisation and post-industrialism. The authors use each chapter to develop an explanation for the persistent black/white academic achievement gap, by theorising that the gap is an epiphenomenon of global capitalist, post-industrial structures, reinforced by education as an apparatus of the system...

Teachers in early childhood policy

This paper examines teacher accountability and authority in early childhood policy. It reports on data from a study that investigated the influences affecting early childhood teacher decision-making at the preschool level in Victoria, Australia. Using a question raised by Ball ‘Where are the teachers in all this [policy]?’ provided a starting point for the critical discourse analysis into how forms of control, teacher authority, obligation and constraint within policies potentially influenced teachers’ curriculum decisions. The study found that despite no government-mandated curriculum framework at the time, teachers were held accountable for their curricular practice. Yet as professionals, early childhood teachers were denied public acknowledgement of their expertise as they were almost invisible in policy. In the four policies analysed, proprietors of early childhood settings and preschool agencies held authority over curriculum. Subsequently, teachers’ authority as professionals with curricular knowledge was diminished.

A biomechanical analysis of growing rods used in the management of early onset scoliosis (EOS)

The use of dual growing rods is a fusionless surgical approach to the treatment of early onset scoliosis (EOS) which aims to harness potential growth in order to correct spinal deformity. This study compared through in-vitro experiments the biomechanical response of two different rod designs under axial rotation loading. The study showed that a new design of telescoping growing rod preserved the rotational flexibility of the spine in comparison with rigid rods indicating them to be a more physiological way to improve the spinal deformity.

Utilisation of early childhood education and care services in a nationally representative sample of Australian children: A focus on disadvantage

ATTENDANCE IN HIGH -QUALITY early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been shown to have a positive influence on young children’s development and life chances, especially for those children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A number of government policies are in place, both internationally and in Australia, to support these children’s use of ECEC services. But to what extent do Australia’s most vulnerable children use ECEC? Drawing on data from Growing up in Australia: The longitudinal study of Australian children (LSAC) this paper demonstrates that children from a range of disadvantaged groups do use ECEC. However, based on more in-depth analyses using a Disadvantage Index, the paper also shows that children with multiple indicators of disadvantage were more likely to be in exclusive parental care, less likely to be using preschool and using fewer hours of care than their peers. These findings suggest that there may be barriers to ECEC utilisation for children and families for whom ECEC potentially has the most benefit.

Non-formal techniques for early assessment of design ideas for services

Designing systems for multiple stakeholders requires frequent collaboration with multiple stakeholders from the start. In many cases at least some stakeholders lack a professional habit of formal modeling. We report observations from student design teams as well as two case studies, respectively of a prototype for supporting creative communication to design objects, and of stakeholder-involvement in early design. In all observations and case studies we found that non-formal techniques supported strong collaboration resulting in deep understanding of early design ideas, of their value and of the feasibility of solutions.