‘It's the end of the university as we know it (and I feel fine)’: the Generation Y student in higher education discourse

This paper examines discussions of Generation Y within higher education discourse, arguing the sector’s use of the term to describe students is misguided for three reasons. First, portraying students as belonging to Generation Y homogenises people undertaking higher education as young, middle-class and technologically literate. Second, speaking of Generation Y students allows constructivism to be reinvented as a ‘new’ learning and teaching philosophy. Third, the Generation Y university student has become a central figure in concerns about technology’s role in learning and teaching. While the notion of the ‘Generation Y student’ creates the illusion that higher education institutions understand their constituents, ultimately, it is of little value in explaining young adults’ educational experiences.

Understanding evaluation of learning support in mathematics and statistics

With rapid and continuing growth of learning support initiatives in mathematics and statistics found in many parts of the world, and with the likelihood that this trend will continue, there is a need to ensure that robust and coherent measures are in place to evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives. The nature of learning support brings challenges for measurement and analysis of its effects. After briefly reviewing the purpose, rationale for, and extent of current provision, this article provides a framework for those working in learning support to think about how their efforts can be evaluated. It provides references and specific examples of how workers in this field are collecting, analysing and reporting their findings. The framework is used to structure evaluation in terms of usage of facilities, resources and services provided, and also in terms of improvements in performance of the students and staff who engage with them. Very recent developments have started to address the effects of learning support on the development of deeper approaches to learning, the affective domain and the development of communities of practice of both learners and teachers. This article intends to be a stimulus to those who work in mathematics and statistics support to gather even richer, more valuable, forms of data. It provides a 'toolkit' for those interested in evaluation of learning support and closes by referring to an on-line resource being developed to archive the growing body of evidence. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

Understanding graphicacy : students’ making sense of graphics in mathematics assessment tasks

The ability to decode graphics is an increasingly important component of mathematics assessment and curricula. This study examined 50, 9- to 10-year-old students (23 male, 27 female), as they solved items from six distinct graphical languages (e.g., maps) that are commonly used to convey mathematical information. The results of the study revealed: 1) factors which contribute to success or hinder performance on tasks with various graphical representations; and 2) how the literacy and graphical demands of tasks influence the mathematical sense making of students. The outcomes of this study highlight the changing nature of assessment in school mathematics and identify the function and influence of graphics in the design of assessment tasks.

Social defence and international reconstructon : illustrating the governance of post-war criminological discourse

This article examines the technocratic priorities of criminological discourse following the Second World War. In doing so, it charts the role and influence of the United Nations and the doctrine of social defence, and traces those shifts and events that have forged a nexus between criminological endeavour and processes of governance. This article aims to illustrate that social defence and international reconstruction provide a useful framework for understanding the links between power/knowledge and the pragmatic orientations of criminological scholarship.

Mathematics funds of knowledge : sotmaute and sermaute fish in a Torres Strait Islander community

The purpose of this article is to describe a project with one Torres Strait Islander Community. It provides some insights into parents’ funds of knowledge that are mathematical in nature, such as sorting shells and giving fish. The idea of funds of knowledge is based on the premise that people are competent and have knowledge that has been historically and culturally accumulated into a body of knowledge and skills essential for their functioning and well-being. This knowledge is then practised throughout their lives and passed onto the next generation of children. Through adopting a community research approach, funds of knowledge that can be used to validate the community’s identities as knowledgeable people, can also be used as foundations for future learnings for teachers, parents and children in the early years of school. They can be the bridge that joins a community’s funds of knowledge with schools validating that knowledge.

'Rebellion in the backland': discourse, truth and power

This article sets out to interpret the construction of truth discourse in the War of Canudos, through the classic 'Rebellion in the backland' by Euclides da Cunha. To enrich the research, the articles wrote by Cunha, while he was a war correspondent for the Estado de São Paulo newspaper, will be analyzed, too. Along with the text, the expression “truth-effects” designed by French philosopher Michel Foucault is being used. “Effects of truth” is an expression in reference to the idea of discourses being neither true nor false. In Os sertões, the effects of truth emerge from strategic power disputes amongst the Church, landowners, politicians and a seaside ruling elite that ignores the reality of the poor and forsaken hinterlands. Keywords: discourse, power, truth.

Pre-sentence Report, Magisterial Discourse and Agency in Youth Courts in England

This article draws on interviews with Youth Court magistrates to examine if and how discourses, strategies and technologies of risk governance have affected Youth Court magistrates in England and Wales. The aim of the article is to detail the complex relationship between magisterial agency in decision making and youth justice policies which focus on risk control and management. The article demonstrates that, contrary to what might be assumed from the youth and risk governance theoretical literature, Youth Offending Team risk assessments form only one part of the information used by magistrates to explain young people’s presence in courts. This article concludes that magisterial decision making is framed not by formal, expert assessments of risk, but by magistrates’ claims that they are ‘knowing outsiders’, who through judicious use of information presented to them and their own life experiences are able to make objective judgements about both the risk assessments authored by Youth Offending Teams and the young lawbreakers before them.

Negotiating the meaning of achievement standards in the Australian curriculum

Planning for assessment using the achievement standards in the implementation of the Australian Curriculum presents a challenge for teachers. The achievement standards differ in appearance and function from current assessment practices. This research inquiry used qualitative focus group discussions to investigate how Year 6 teachers from three Queensland schools negotiated the meaning of the English and Mathematics achievement standards for their assessment practice. A sociocultural theoretical perspective was used to analyse the data. Three significant influences on the teachers’ understanding of the achievement standards were their understanding of the achievement standard text, their beliefs about learning and assessment, and the assessment culture of the school. The opportunity to learn through supported professional conversations with peers, and the need for a shared assessment discourse were identified as necessities to support teachers as they seek to implement the new practices inherent in the achievement standards in the Australian Curriculum.

Review : "A criminological imagination : essays on justice, punishment and discourse by Part Carlen"

There are four contributors to this review symposium. David Brown's review focuses on the questions of abolitionism that cut across much of Carlen's scholarship on punishment and prisons. Kerry Carrington's review attempts to articulate Pat Carlen's contributions to feminism, critque and crimnology, a selection of which is republished in the third scetion 'A criminological imgination'. Kelly Hannah-Moffat's review provides a succint but broad ranging analysis of Carlen's contributions to knowledge, politics and penal reform. Jo Phoenix takes Carlen's contributions to women, crim and scoial control as her main source of inspiration from this large body of work to review.