Afterschool MediaClub: Critical literacy in a high diversity, high poverty urban setting

In this chapter we present analyses of data produced with young people in an afterschool digital literacy program for 9 – 12 year olds. The young people were students at a high diversity, high poverty outer suburban elementary school in Queensland, Australia. The club was part of the URLearning research project (2010-14). In the classroom-based component of the project we worked with teachers to develop intellectually substantive and critical digital literacy practice. MediaClub was in some ways complementary to the classroom component; it was designed to skill up interested kids as digital media experts not only for their families and communities, but also for the classroom. Given the critical literacy traditions established in Australian schools, we approached MediaClub with certain critical expectations. In this chapter we look at what ensued, highlighting unanticipated critical outcomes at a time of heightened struggle over English curriculum. Critical literacy has been part of official English curriculum in Queensland since the early 1990s. The approach has been primarily text analytic, concerned with giving students access to genres of power and tools for understanding the ideological work of language through text. Many ideas for translating this normative critical project into classroom practice have been developed for use from the earliest elementary grades onwards. However, curricular space for critical literacy is under pressure. Amongst other things, this reflects both the development of Australia’s first national curriculum and the construction of a regimen of national literacy testing. At MediaClub we found a certain resistance to learning activities which were “too much like school”. However, in a context of increased control of teachers’ and students’ work in the classroom, MediaClub evolved as a learning space that can be understood in critical terms. Our experience in this regard might be of interest to teachers and researchers in high diversity high poverty settings that are strongly controlled through increasingly prescriptive – even scripted – pedagogies.

Urban renewal from the inside out: Spatial and critical literacies in a low socioeconomic school community

This article focuses on how teachers worked to build a meaningful curriculum around changes to a neighborhood and school grounds in a precinct listed for urban renewal. Drawing on a long-term relationship with the principal and one teacher, the researchers planned and designed a collaborative project to involve children as active participants in the redevelopment process, negotiating and redesigning an area between the preschool and the school. The research investigated spatial literacies, that is, ways of thinking about and representing the production of spaces, and critical literacies, in this instance how young people might have a say in remaking part of their school grounds. Data included videotapes of key events, interviews, and an archive of the elementary students' artifacts experimenting with spatial literacies. The project builds on the insights of community members and researchers working for social justice in high-poverty areas internationally that indicate the importance of education, local action, family, and youth involvement in building sustainable and equitable communities.

In the shadow of the welfare state : the role of payday lending in poverty survival in Australia

A defining characteristic of contemporary welfare governance in many western countries has been a reduced role for governments in direct provision of welfare, including housing, education, health and income support. One of the unintended consequences of devolutionary trends in social welfare is the development of a ‘shadow welfare state’ (Fairbanks, 2009; Gottschalk, 2000), which is a term used to describe the complex partnerships between statebased social protection, voluntarism and marketised forms of welfare. Coupled with this development, conditional workfare schemes in countries such as the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia are pushing more people into informal and semi-formal means of poverty survival (Karger, 2005). These transformations are actively reshaping welfare subjectivities and the role of the state in urban governance. Like other countries such as the US, Canada and the UK, the fringe lending sector in Australia has experienced considerable growth over the last decade. Large numbers of people on low incomes in Australia are turning to non-mainstream financial services, such as payday lenders, for the provision of credit to make ends meet. In this paper, we argue that the use of fringe lenders by people on low incomes reveals important theoretical and practical insights into the relationship between the mixed economy of welfare and the mixed economy of credit in poverty survival.

Teacher education for high poverty schools : the National Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools program

A vital element to improve outcomes for disadvantaged students is outstanding teachers. A reality, however, is that teacher graduates in the top quartile of academic scores are far less likely to accept positions in tough urban, regional, rural and remote schools. Further, because high poverty schools can be challenging environments, these teachers are retained for much shorter periods of time. In response to this challenge, the National Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools program (NETDS) creates a pathway for the highest quality pre-service teachers to be fully prepared, professionally and personally, for roles within high poverty schools. The program identifies the highest-achieving mainstream preservice teachers in university programs across the country and offers them a specialised curriculum and supported practicum experience in a network of disadvantaged partner schools. By working closely with government, philanthropy and partner schools, the program also works to channel these exceptional pre-service teachers into employment in schools where they will have the greatest impact. Its initial results have been exceptional: over 90% of graduates are now employed as teachers in high poverty schools. This paper will discuss their research on how they are working to build the infrastructure and capacity for research on innovations that prepare teachers for 21st century schools in the Australian context.

The Sawa World model : addressing extreme poverty through local solutions and youth empowerment

With an estimated 1.2 billion people worldwide living in extreme poverty, it is critical to find effective long-term solutions. Sawa World is a non-profit organization founded by Daphne Nederhorst in 2005 to empower marginalized youth to document simple, locally created solutions that address this pressing issue. Currently working primarily in Uganda, Sawa World has created a unique model that celebrates powerful solutions generated from within the community to help people living in poverty help themselves. Using inspiring local leaders who themselves come from extreme poverty, Sawa World aims to end extreme poverty from the ground up.

Is there a link between poverty and food security?

This paper addresses the gap in economic theory underlying the multidimensional concept of food security and observed data by deriving a composite food security index using the latent class model. The link between poverty and food security is then examined using the new food security index and the robustness of the link is compared with two unidimensional measures often used in the literature. Using Vietnam as a case study, it was found that a weak link exists for the rural but not for the urban composite food security index. The unidimensional measures on the other hand show a strong link in both the rural and urban regions. The results on the link are also different and mixed when two poverty types given by persistent and transient poverty are considered. These findings have important policy implications for a targeted approach to addressing food security.

Teacher Education for High Poverty Schools

This volume captures the innovative, theory-based, and grounded work being done by established scholars who are interrogating how teacher education can prepare teachers to work in challenging and diverse high-poverty settings. It offers articles from the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Chile by some of the most significant scholars in the field. Internationally, research suggests that effective teachers for high poverty schools require deep theoretical understanding as well as the capacity to function across three well-substantiated areas: deep content knowledge, well-tuned pedagogical skills, and demonstrated attributes that prove their understanding and commitment to social justice. Schools in low socioeconomic communities need quality teachers most, however, they are often staffed by the least experienced and least prepared teachers. The chapters in this volume examine how pre-service teachers are taught to understand the social contexts of education. Drawing on the individual expertise of the authors, the topics covered include unpacking poverty for pre-service teachers, issues related to urban schooling as well as remote and regional area schooling.

The nexus between poverty and deprivation in Vietnam

Unlike previous studies’ finding on western and developed economies, income is a significant determinant of multidimensional deprivation in Vietnam. This first study on a developing country also incorporates food security in a latent class framework to compute a new multidimensional deprivation index. It was found that chronic poverty and not transient poverty has a detrimental effect on multidimensional deprivation and thus current poverty alleviation programs should potentially be tailored according to these poverty types to effectively combat multidimensional deprivation. The finding that 20% of non-poor are most deprived with85% of this group living in urban Vietnam also points to the need for a new form of targeted policy.

Air pollution levels measured at traffic hot spots : Brisbane urban corridor study

Air pollution levels were monitored continuously over a period of 4 weeks at four sampling sites along a busy urban corridor in Brisbane. The selected sites were representative of industrial and residential types of urban environment affected by vehicular traffic emissions. The concentration levels of submicrometer particle number, PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NOx were measured 5-10 meters from the road. Meteorological parameters and traffic flow rates were also monitored. The data were analysed in terms of the relationship between monitored pollutants and existing ambient air quality standards. The results indicate that the concentration levels of all pollutants exceeded the ambient air background levels, in certain cases by up to an order of magnitude. While the 24-hr average concentration levels did not exceed the standard, estimates for the annual averages were close to, or even higher than the annual standard levels.

How can land and urban development make houses healthier?

Traditionally, the main focus of the professional community involved with indoor air quality has been indoor pollution sources, preventing or reducing their emissions, as well as lowering the impact of the sources by replacing the polluted indoor air with "fresh" outdoor air. However, urban outdoor air cannot often be considered "fresh", as it contains high concentrations of pollutants emitted from motor vehicles - the main outdoor pollution sources in cities. Evidence from epidemiological studies conducted worldwide demonstrates that outdoor air quality has considerable effects on human health, despite the fact that people spend the majority of their time indoors. This is because pollution from outdoors penetrates indoors and becomes a major constituent of indoor pollution. Urban land and transport development has significant impact on the overall air quality of the urban airshed as well as the pollution concentration in the vicinity of high-density traffic areas. Therefore, an overall improvement in indoor air quality would be achieved by lowering urban airshed pollution, as well as by lowering the impact of the hot spots on indoor air. This paper explores the elements of urban land and vehicle transport developments, their impact on global and local air quality, and how the science of outdoor pollution generation and transport in the air could be utilized in urban development towards lowering indoor air pollution.