Alternative pathways to traditional destinations : higher education for disadvantaged Australians

In 1985, the Higher Education Equity Program was introduced by the Australian Government to improve the participation of those persons from social groups traditionally under-represented within higher education. In 1990, the program was incorporated within A Fair Chance For All which provided more specific details of the government's desire for a system-wide approach to equity issues. One result has been the proliferation of access and equity programs conducted by universities around the country and aimed at redressing the disadvantage of potential students. The alleged success of these programs is based on greater participation in and graduation from Australian universities by individuals from targeted disadvantaged groups. The research reported here, however, would suggest that such programs are prone to co-opt the language of equity and social justice, dependent as they are on satisfying statistically-orientated program performance indicators in order to receive recurrent government funding. Further, the paper argues that success in achieving equity within Australian higher education will remain limited unless the structural arrangements that work to construct social inequalities in mainstream higher education are addressed.

Under what conditions? Including students with learning disabilities within Australian classrooms

In Australian schools, "inclusion" is a term that is used to challenge a previously narrow focus on students with disabilities and their integration within and distribution amongst "mainstream" schools and classrooms. Nevertheless, this article argues that, as a concept, "inclusion" requires further broadening and deepening, particularly in arenas of practice, if it is to serve the interests of all students. Informed by notions of recognitive justice, the paper advocates rethinking inclusion to accommodate student differences in more socially just ways - emphasising students' contributions rather than their disabilities - and what this means for the organisation of classrooms and schools. Within the article, research data are focused primarily on students with learning disabilities and draw on twenty semi-structured interviews conducted with parents and teachers across six Australian state primary and secondary schools. Three sets of conditions are proposed as necessary for inclusive classroom and school processes: specifically, those that promote self-identity and respect, self expression and development and selfdetermination and decision-making.

Rethinking social justice in schools : how will we recognize it when we see it?

The dialogue of this paper operates at two levels. First, it seeks to rethink the various perspectives on social justice evident in the academic literature, reviewing what is collectively known about it and where current thinking is taking and/or should be taking us. Second, it reports on research concerning the schooling of students with disabilities or, more accurately, research concerning the practices of teachers in relation to the inclusion of students with disabilities within ‘mainstream’ classrooms. These two discussions come together through their collaborative interest in recognizing social justice when they ‘see’ it; the data from the research are used to inform the theory it illustrates and the theory is used to explain teachers' practices. In this critical sense it is more than a dialogue, with its parts dialectically related. The paper's critique also extends to questioning whose interests are served (and whose are not) by various social justice perspectives and their applications to schooling. It concludes that ‘a critical theory of social justice must consider not only distributive patterns, but also the processes and relationships that produce and reproduce those patterns’ (Young 1990: 241).

Main streams and fine rivers : thinking the aporetics of edge

This paper takes up the question (reframed by Deleuze and Guattari) of where expansion takes place: at the ends or from the centre. Despite the connotations of mediocrity that can be attributed to the term ‘mainstream’, it is possible to rethink what happens at close range as the space of radical openings. Writers can often believe that what is most abnormal or fringe will produce the highest probability of creative ‘event’. The question, however, can be posed – framed by the lineage of deconstruction – whether the key to unlocking any system of totality or closed possibility may lie in a very central (although physically peripheral) location. If, instead of the classical image, expansion may occur from re-imagined ‘middles’ rather than conventional ‘margins’, this reading of where potential can arise may offer a more resilient model than that of fragile peripheries, forever exposed to being amputated from staid centres of status and restricted participation. Drawing on the writings of Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida and Badiou, this paper seeks to unsettle any simplistic approach to the notion of edge, reinscribing it within the repetitiveness of our situations, to argue that right in the middle of the so-called mainstream, there might be the fine rivers of aporia that when encountered in thought can constitutes gates to that which is most radical in writing and other creative practices.

A participatory model for ethnic audience development for the arts

This paper aims to investigate strategies to increase ethnic minority group consumers' participation in arts performances in Australia. Our findings are based on focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with participants from ethnic minority groups, namely, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Indian in Australia. The findings indicate that a mixed cultural/arts events and culturally specific events are the most favoured forms for attracting participation from culturally diverse audiences. Further strategies are to provide more arts and cultural education for minority and
mainstream cultures, and appropriate marketing activities to minority groups could increase arts participation of ethnic consumers. Our research will contribute to further understanding of ethnic marketing literature and cross-cultural marketing for the arts sector.

Dyslexic and entrepreneur : typologies, commonalities and differences

There is anecdotal evidence as well as a small but growing research literature indicating there may be a higher incidence of dyslexia amongst entrepreneurs compared to business managers and to the general population. Studies indicate that while dyslexics may resist entry into mainstream business due to their generally low literacy levels, there appears to be no such barrier for dyslexics wanting to start new ventures. Given that dyslexics also dislike imposed structure, have strong oral and spatial skills, are intuitive/insightful/curious as well as resilient and determined, it is not suprising that they gravitate towards self-employment as opposed to highly organised corporate professions.

Challenges in conserving indigenous culture in Minahasa : culture, Genius Loci and the Indonesian Environmental Planning system

Culture and spirit of land is integral to Indigenous community meaning and identity. With colonisation, transmigration and assimilation policies and practices over the last 200 years, many Indigenous communities, like the Minahasa, have witnessed their culture, curatorial responsibilities, and their mythological associations to their lands eroded. Minahasa, meaning 'becoming one united', encompasses some eight ethnic communities who reside in the Minahasa regencies in the North Sulawesi Province on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. The region was first colonised by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and then by the Dutch VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie) in the 17th and 18th centuries bringing a strong Christian Protestant faith to the communities that appropriated many of the cultural symbols and mythological narratives of the Minahasa, and now compromises the largest concentration of Christian faith in the Indonesian archipelago being one of the reasons why there was considerable political requests for the region to formally become a province of The Netherlands in the lead up to Indonesian independence in 1945.

North Sulawesi never developed any large empire like on other islands in the archipelago. In 670, the leaders of the different tribes, who all spoke different languages, met by a stone known as Watu Pinawetengan. There they founded a community of independent states, who would form one unit and stay together and would fight any outside enemies if they were attacked, and the Dutch used this cultural ethos to help unite the linguistically diverse Minahasa confederacy under their colonial regime. Integral to the Minahasa is the Watu Pinawetengan and the series of narratives that enjoin the Minahasan communities to this place and around Lake Tondano. With Indonesian governance considerable angst has been launched by the Minahasa about loss of local autonomy, generic Indonesian policies, and a lack of respect of Indigenous culture and non-mainstream religions within this predominantly Moslem nation. This paper reviews the state of knowledge as to the cultural associations and genius loci meanings of the Minahasa, to their landscape and place, cast against contemporary Indonesian 10 year plans and policies that seek to generically manage the collective Indonesian archipelago as one community and landscape. It is a critique about the Minahasan Indigenous land use and planning philosophies, against top-down generic land use and environmental policies and plans written in Jakarta for generic application across the Indonesian archipelago.

On the edge of the desert : design and planning for Roxby Downs

The design and planning of settlements in arid Australia has long been wrought with difficulties because they are positioned in the extremes of environmental and social contexts. Historically many mining-related settlements in Western Australia (WA), South Australia (SA), Northern Territory (NT) and Queensland have struggled or failed in realising a quality design and plan, but also to sustain a robust and vibrant community who do not wish to escape to mainstream suburbia or simply operate as a fly-in fly-out employer commuter from this suburbia. Places like Mt Isa, Theodore, Moranbah, Broken Hill, Radium Hill, Leigh Creek, Roxby Downs, Paraburdoo, Shay Gap, Karratha are typical of these circumstances.

This paper reviews the design and planning origins of the villages at Olympic Dam, and critiques the future designs embedded in the Olympic Dam Expansion Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] (2009). These villages consist of Olympic dam village ( a fly-in fly-out dong-go containerised community accommodating some 500 workers) and Roxby Downs (a mixed Adelaide-template suburb with temporary village and caravan park insertions accommodation some 4,500 ‘permanent’ residents and some 200 fly-in fly-out ‘workers’). The scenario presented in the EIS is to demolish the former and establish a new village for some 10,000 workers, and expand Roxby Downs from 4,500 to near 20,000 although whether this later figure will occur is unclear but certainly the infrastructure and facilities have to be increased as well as increasing residential accommodation units).

Is psychotherapy a vector for isolation and anomie?

A key traditional question the client learns in the conventional psychotherapies is ‘Am I getting what I want?’. But can this question incite a mindset that does not align with the ‘give and take’ essence of sustainable everyday relations? Is it possible that the psychotherapies—if these practices can be bundled together—might teach clients to become more self-centred and relationally illiterate? MARK FURLONG suggests that well-intentioned practitioners can inadvertently de-empathise, ignore or even disrupt their clients’ intimate networks. Findings from his research support the proposition that the action of the mainstream therapies tends to undermine the service users’ prospects for sustainable personal relationships. Exceptions were found in the specialist settings of paediatric and aged care, and in narrative and family therapy practice.

Positioning people with intellectual disabilities as the experts : enhancing pre-service teachers’ competencies in teaching for diversity

The need for graduate teachers to own their professional responsibilities to engage successfully with students with special educational needs (SENs) in mainstream classrooms has been recognised in educational policies and programmes in many countries for well over two decades. Despite wide-ranging research, questions remain as to how pre-service education courses can help beginning teachers to develop the required commitment, knowledge and pedagogies to feel confident in teaching students with disabilities. Challenges to find new ways to enhance pre-service teachers’ familiarity with special needs children, overcome resistance from some towards including SEN students in mainstream classrooms and develop a sense of efficacy in teaching are common to many programmes. In this paper, we report on a pilot study where adults with intellectual disabilities, as members of a community theatre, were positioned as the experts and explored their schooling experiences and personal biographies with soon-to-be graduate teachers in a 3 h workshop. Taking the lead and working collaboratively with the workshop participants, members of Fusion Theatre used drama activities to develop understandings of strategies that helped them to learn. By challenging the traditional power relationships between those labelled as ‘disabled’ and those who would be teachers, the workshop helped the participants to engage on many levels. Here, we report on the data, analyse the findings and discuss implications for other pre-service programmes.

Assessing the therapeutic climate of prisons

This study examined perceptions of the prison social climate in two Australian prisons from the perspective of both prison staff and prisoners. Ratings of social climate were compared between a specialist treatment prison that provides intensive rehabilitation programs to violent, sexual, and substance-using offenders and a mainstream prison that does not specialize in offender rehabilitation. The results suggested that staff and prisoners at the specialist treatment prison rated the social climate as more conducive to rehabilitation, although the differences were less pronounced for prisoners. These findings are discussed in relation to the development of specialist therapeutic prisons and how assessments of social climate might inform assessments of their success.

Lost in translation? Emotional intelligence, affective economies, leadership and organizational change

Not until the late 1990s did the rational/emotional binary embedded in mainstream literature on educational leadership and management come under challenge. Now the emotional dimensions of organisational change and leadership are widely recognised in the leadership, organisational change and school improvement literature. However, the dissolution of the binary did not draw from feminist social theory, critical organisational theory, the sociology of emotions or critical pedagogy. Instead, the strongest influence in educational leadership and administration has been from psychological theory, management theory and brain science, mobilised particularly through Goleman's notion of emotional intelligence. This article undertakes a feminist deconstruction of two texts: one from organisational theory by Goleman and the other on educational leadership and school improvement, in order to explore how ‘emotion’ has been translated into educational leadership. As a counterpoint, I identify the gaps and silences, appropriations and marginalisation identified from feminist perspectives. I argue that the emotional labour of teaching and leading cannot be individualised because emotion is both relational and contextual.

Changing green subjectivities in outdoor and environmental education : a qualitative study

This article draws on a longitudinal qualitative study of Australian tertiary students studying Outdoor and Environmental Education. It draws on the work of Foucault and Darier to consider how ‘environmental governmentality’ shapes the conduct, desires and attitudes of these students over time. Attention is drawn to normalising and disciplinary effects of mainstream environmental discourse alongside an exploration of some of the inconsistencies and ruptures in how participants interact with discourses of environmentalism.

Discovery of latent subcommunities in a blog's readership

The blogosphere has grown to be a mainstream forum of social interaction as well as a commercially attractive source of information and influence. Tools are needed to better understand how communities that adhere to individual blogs are constituted in order to facilitate new personal, socially-focused browsing paradigms, and understand how blog content is consumed, which is of interest to blog authors, big media, and search. We present a novel approach to blog subcommunity characterization by modeling individual blog readers using mixtures of an extension to the LDA family that jointly models phrases and time, Ngram Topic over Time (NTOT), and cluster with a number of similarity measures using Affinity Propagation. We experiment with two datasets: a small set of blogs whose authors provide feedback, and a set of popular, highly commented blogs, which provide indicators of algorithm scalability and interpretability without prior knowledge of a given blog. The results offer useful insight to the blog authors about their commenting community, and are observed to offer an integrated perspective on the topics of discussion and members engaged in those discussions for unfamiliar blogs. Our approach also holds promise as a component of solutions to related problems, such as online entity resolution and role discovery.

Politics of accommodation of the Rise of China : the case of Australia

In the context of the rise of China, Southeast Asian countries and Australia have begun shifting towards an accommodation policy. Robert Ross examines the accommodation policy in South Korea, Mochizuki discusses Japanese accommodationists, and Manicom and O’Neil show some evidence of Australian accommodation of Chinese strategic preferences. The scholarship has, however, narrowly focused on and overestimated the role of security. Through a study of the origin, process, structural conditions and impacts of accommodation policy, this paper broadens the concept of accommodation to capture its multiple meanings and practices. It finds that a selective accommodation policy and strategy toward the rise of China developed in Australia is a sign of the changing power relations under which the mainstream paradigms of containment and engagement, hard balancing or bandwagoning, have proved inadequate to the task of dealing with China, and that economic interdependence has driven the politics of accommodation in Australia and several Asian countries.