Nutrition promotion approaches preferred by Australian adolescents attending schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Links between socioeconomic disadvantage and unhealthy eating behaviours among adolescents are well established. Little is known about strategies that might support healthy eating among this target group. This study aimed to identify potential strategies and preferred dissemination methods that could be employed in nutrition promotion initiatives focussed on improving eating behaviours among socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2011 among 22 adolescents (12-15 years) recruited from secondary schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Victoria, Australia. RESULTS: Strategies suggested by adolescents to support healthy eating included increasing awareness about healthy eating; greater cooking involvement; greater parental and peer support; frequent family meal participation; greater parental and peer role-modelling of healthy eating; increased availability of healthy foods and decreased availability of unhealthy foods in homes and schools. Adolescents preferred electronic media, adolescent-specific recipe books, and school-based methods for distributing nutrition promotion messages and strategies. CONCLUSIONS: A number of suggested strategies and methods identified in the present investigation have been employed with success in previous nutrition promotion interventions targeting socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents. The present study also contributes novel insights into potential strategies and methods that could be employed in initiatives aiming to improve eating behaviours in this vulnerable group, and particularly highlights the importance of incorporating strategies involving parents and modifying the home food environment.

Reducing children's classroom sitting time using sit-to-stand desks: findings from pilot studies in UK and Australian primary schools.

BACKGROUND: This research examined the influence of sit-to-stand desks on classroom sitting time in primary school children. METHODS: Pilot controlled trials with similar intervention strategies were conducted in primary schools in Melbourne, Australia, and Bradford, UK. Sit-to-stand desks replaced all standard desks in the Australian intervention classroom. Six sit-to-stand desks replaced a bank of standard desks in the UK intervention classroom. Children were exposed to the sit-to-stand desks for 9-10 weeks. Control classrooms retained their normal seated desks. Classroom sitting time was measured at baseline and follow-up using the activPAL3 inclinometer. RESULTS: Thirty UK and 44 Australian children provided valid activPAL data at baseline and follow-up. The proportion of time spent sitting in class decreased significantly at follow-up in both intervention groups (UK: -9.8 ± 16.5% [-52.4 ± 66.6 min/day]; Australian: -9.4 ± 10% [-43.7 ± 29.9 min/day]). No significant changes in classroom sitting time were observed in the UK control group, while a significant reduction was observed in the Australian control group (-5.9 ± 11.7% [-28.2 ± 28.3 min/day]). CONCLUSIONS: Irrespective of implementation, incorporating sit-to-stand desks into classrooms appears to be an effective way of reducing classroom sitting in this diverse sample of children. Longer term efficacy trials are needed to determine effects on children's health and learning.

Geo-identity, urban school choice and education campaigns for public schools

Educational campaigning has received little attention in the literature. This study investigates long-term and organised urban campaigns that are collectively lobbying the Victorian State Government in Australia, for a new public high school to be constructed in their suburb. A public high school is also known as a state school, government school, or an ordinary comprehensive school. It receives the majority of its funding from the State and Federal Australian Government, and is generally regarded as ‘free’ education, in comparison to a private school. Whilst the campaigners frame their requests as for a ‘public school’, their primary appeal is for a local school in their community. This study questions how collective campaigning for a locale-specific public school is influenced by geography, class and identity. In order to explore these campaigns, I draw on formative studies of middle-class school choice from an Australian and United Kingdom perspective (Campbell, Proctor, & Sherington, 2009; Reay, Crozier, & James, 2011). To think about the role of geography and space in these processes of choice, I look to apply Harvey’s (1973) theory of absolute, relational and relative space. I use Bourdieu (1999b) as a sociological lens that is attentive to “site effects” and it is through this lens that I think about class as a “collection of properties” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 106), actualised via mechanisms of identity and representation (Hall, 1996; Rose, 1996a, 1996b). This study redresses three distinct gaps in the literature: first, I focus attention on a contemporary middle-class choice strategy—that is, collective campaigning for a public school. Research within this field is significantly under-developed, despite this choice strategy being on the rise. Second, previous research argues that certain middle-class choosers regard the local public school as “inferior” in some way (Reay, et al., 2011, p. 111), merely acting as a “safety net” (Campbell, et al., 2009, p. 5) and connected to the working-class chooser (Reay & Ball, 1997). The campaigners are characteristic of the middle-class school chooser, but they are purposefully and strategically seeking out the local public school. Therefore, this study looks to build on work by Reay, et al. (2011) in thinking about “against-the-grain school choice”, specifically within the Australian context. Third, this study uses visual and graphic methods in order to examine the influence of geography in the education market (Taylor, 2001). I see the visualisation of space and schooling that I offer in this dissertation as a key theoretical contribution of this study. I draw on a number of data sets, both qualitative and quantitative, to explore the research questions. I interviewed campaigners and attended campaign meetings as participant observer; I collected statistical data from fifteen different suburbs and schools, and conducted comparative analyses of each. These analyses are displayed by using visual graphs. This study uses maps created by a professional graphic designer and photographs by a professional photographer; I draw on publications by the campaigners themselves, such as surveys, reports and social media; but also, interviews with campaigners that are published in local or state newspapers. The multiple data sets enable an immersive and rich graphic ethnography. This study contributes by building on understandings of how particular sociological cohorts of choosers are engaging with, and choosing, the urban public school in Australia. It is relevant for policy making, in that it comes at a time of increasing privatisation and a move toward independent public schools. This study identifies cohorts of choosers that are employing individual and collective political strategies to obtain a specific school, and it identifies this cohort via explicit class-based characteristics and their school choice behaviours. I look to use fresh theoretical and methodological approaches that emphasise space and geography, theorising geo-identity and the pseudo-private school

Student preferences for bachelor degrees at TAFE: the socio-spatial influence of schools

This report on Student Preferences for Bachelor Degrees at TAFE (Technical and Further Education) institutions is derived from research commissioned by Australia’s National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) hosted at Curtin University and conducted by researchers at Deakin University’s Strategic Centre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation (CREFI). The report focuses on the influence of schools on their students’ higher education (HE) preferences – particularly their preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees – as recorded by the Victorian and South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centres (VTAC and SATAC). Influence is researched in terms of a school’s socioeconomic status, geographical location and sector. The SATAC data set is considerably smaller, at around 8 per cent of the VTAC data set.Bachelor degrees offered by TAFEs are relatively small in number but a growing higher education option for students in Australia (Gale et al. 2013). The Australian Government’s proposal to extend Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) to include Australian higher education not delivered by the nation’s public universities (Department of Education 2014b), is likely to fuel further growth in TAFE bachelor degree offerings. The recent Report of the Review of the Demand Driven Funding System in Australian higher education (Kemp & Norton 2014), which recommended this change, also makes special mention of non-university degree options as something that would be of particular benefit to students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds.The research reported herein is informed by a review of the international research literature, which indicates three main influences on students’ HE preferences: (1) students’ families and communities; (2) the socio-spatial location of their schools; and (3) school practices. This report contributes to understandings on the second of these: the influence of school context (their socio-spatial location) on students’ preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees.The research found that the annual rate of student preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees was relatively stable (at around 1,500 per annum) from 2009 to 2012 but rose significantly (by 30%) in 2013. Students from high socioeconomic status schools (and with an average ATAR of 56.9) were the group that registered the largest number of preferences. The number of preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees lodged by students from metropolitan schools exceeded the preferences of students from schools located in all other regions combined. This might reflect the fact that TAFE institutions offering bachelor degrees tend to be located in metropolitan areas.The research also found that students’ preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees increased after announcement of their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), by between 25 and 30 per cent each year. The post-ATAR increase was most noticeable in the Health and Education fields of study and among students from high socioeconomic status schools. The report concludes that while the public perception of TAFE is that it is a sector primarily for students from low SES backgrounds, this is not reflected in students’ preferences for TAFE bachelor degrees. Instead, the preferences of students from high socioeconomic schools outnumber other SES groups in almost every TAFE-degree field of study. This includes the fields of Health and Education, which are often seen to be typical low SES student choices in universities (Gale & Parker 2013).

School-community collaborations: bringing authentic science into schools

There is increasing interest in collaborative arrangements between schools and community scientists to enhance student engagement with learning. We describe research in which we identify a wide range of such collaborations in Australia, and investigate through interviews with community participants their perspectives on the purposes of collaborations, on the outcomes, and the factors affecting success. We identify challenges with communication, with curriculum and with organisational arrangements that need to be considered in setting up collaborative partnerships, and argue the importance of having a teacher acting as a broker to bridge between the school and scientific communities of practice, if these challenges are to be met.

Between policy and a hard pedagogical place: the emotional geographies of teaching for citizenship in low socioeconomic schools

Reflecting an international trend, Australian education policy increasingly charges schools with fostering active citizens who have the will and capacity to improve the democratic fabric and drive needed social change. This policy prescription also resonates with some teachers’ critical commitments to pedagogical practices that encourage young people to see themselves as transformative citizens capable of engineering a more just and equitable society. In particular, in low socio-economic school contexts, however, the pursuit of such practices may be subject to the complex physical and emotional geographies that attend the project of schooling in such contexts. In this article, I consider the empirical data derived from my recent discourse analysis of two schools in which teachers have introduced what I have termed the pedagogies of active citizenship. Both of these schools are located in low socio-economic Australian communities, that is, communities where structural, socio-geographic and socio-economic forms of marginalisation are an issue. I consider what motivates, enables and authorises such teachers, as well as what risks may attend the championing of such pedagogies in contexts that are subject to conflicting or competing education discourses and priorities. Theoretically, I draw on ideas of risk as well as on a growing body of scholarship that is concerned with the emotional geographies of citizenship and schooling.

Graduate teacher preparation for rural schools in Victoria and Queensland

Graduate teachers' preparedness for working in rural settings are mediated by the development of pedagogical expertise, professional engagement with parents and the community, and broader notions of preparation to teach in rural contexts. The Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project is a four-year longitudinal study tracking teacher education graduates in Queensland and Victoria to investigate the effectiveness of their programs in equipping them to meet the learning needs of students in a diverse range of school settings. A sub-set of the SETE data was examined to explore graduate teacher preparation for rural schools, specifically the authors analysed 1,539 point-in-time survey responses (April 2013) and findings from a case study exploring two teachers' transitions from teacher education into teaching positions at a rural primary school in Victoria. The case study is read iteratively with survey analysis to grapple with the issues associated with graduate teacher preparation for rural schools.

Improving schools: productive tensions between the local, the systemic and the global

This unique book explores school improvement policy – from its translation into national contexts and school networks to its implementation in leader and teacher practices in individual schools and classrooms within this network of schools and its impact on students’ learning. It draws on multiple conceptual and theoretical resources to explore the complexities attached to a school improvement process in a network of schools in Australia. These conceptual and theoretical resources include discourse, practice, representation and network, concepts common to both policy research as well as studies of leadership and classroom practice. They lead to a more detailed understanding of the intersections between educational policy and intervention processes, and the complex reality of school processes and teaching practices. In the book we trace the implementation of school improvement policies through its multiple phases, levels and contexts. Our data-collection and analysis methods draw on a variety of perspectives in the way different players perceive their roles and the nature of the initiative and the ways in which these intersect. The research findings are used to seek productive approaches to school improvement that combine policy integrity with local flexibility. The book contributes to the school improvement literature through its exploration of tensions between global and systemic settings and local practices and histories.

Greenhouse affect : the relationship between the sustainable design of schools and children’s environmental attitudes

This study aims to determine if primary school children’s environmental attitudes can be predicted by whether their school had been designed or adapted for sustainability. A New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale for children was adopted to measure attitudes, with supplementary questions added to align this scale to the Australian context of the study. In addition, the original adult NEP scale was used to determine relationships between children’s environmental attitudes, their School Design and their Parents’ and Teachers’ Environmental Attitudes. Data collected from grade 4, 5 and 6 primary school children, their parents and teachers were analysed via three multiple regressions. The results indicate that sustainable design in schools improves the environmental attitudes of children towards perceptibly green building features, such as solar panels, the use of recycled water, natural daylighting and outdoor classrooms including food-producing gardens.

Change in schools it’s more like sort of turning an oil tanker : creating readiness for health promoting schools

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to the evidence of best practice in the implementation of the Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework by examining the process of creating readiness for change in a large international school in South-East Asia. Using a settings-based approach and guided by readiness for change theory the data collected reflects which factors were most influential in the decision of the leadership team (LT) to adopt a comprehensive HPS model. It follows the process of creating readiness in the early stages of adopting a HPS approach and captures the critical factors effecting leader’s beliefs and support for the program. Design/methodology/approach – This research is a case study of a large pre-K-12 international school in South-East Asia with over 1,800 students. A mixed methods qualitative approach is used including semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The participants are the 12 members of the LT. Findings – Readiness for change was established in the LT who adopted a HPS approach. That is, they adopted a comprehensive model to address health-related priorities in the school and changed the school’s mission and accountability processes to specifically include health. Uncovering the reasons why the LT supported this change was the primary focus of this research. Building the motivation to change involved establishing a number of key beliefs three of which were influential in bringing about readiness for change in this case study. These included the belief that leadership support existed for the proposed change, a belief that there was a need for change with a clear discrepancy in the present and preferred operations in relation to addressing the health issues of the school and the belief that HPS was the appropriate solution to address this discrepancy. Research limitations/implications – Adopting a HPS approach is the first phase of implementation. Long-term research may show if the integrity of the chosen model is maintained as implementation continues. The belief construct of valence, that is, the belief that the change will benefit the change recipient, was not reliably assessed in this research. Further research needs to be conducted to understand how this construct is interpreted in the school setting. The belief construct of valence was not reliably assessed in this research. Further research needs to be done to understand how this construct fits in the school setting. Practical implications – This paper provides a promising example of how health can be integrated into the school’s Mission and Strategic Learning Plan. The example presented here may provide strategies for others working in the field of HPS. Originality/value – Creating readiness is an often over-looked stage of building sustainable change. International schools cater to more than three million students are a rarely researched in regards to health education. It is predicted that the numbers of students in international schools will grow to more than six million in the next ten years.

The subjectivities of ‘included’ students with disabilities in schools

The contextual precept of this paper is to re-theorise inclusive education beyond technical rational solutions to the ‘problem’ of disability. Drawing on Foucauldian and critical disability theories, I make the case for the analysis of inclusive schooling through the lens of students’ ‘included’ subjectivities – notwithstanding the presence of diagnosed special educational needs. I contend that there is a theoretical mismatch between humanist inclusive schooling and the posthumanist position of disability: an epistemic fissure that impedes inclusive development. Through analysis of the voices of students with disabilities from two different schooling contexts in Australia and Spain, I demonstrate how fragmented virtues of normalcy suffused their subjectivities. I conclude the paper with a discussion of the roles that DisHuman disability studies might play in recasting inclusive schooling by troubling normative discourse.

Assessment of student development and learning in IB PYP schools

The aim of this study is to examine how International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) schools define the purpose of educational assessment in their assessment policies and practices. Educational assessment in this study is broadly defined to include standardized tests, and formative and summative assessment. This investigation offers a deeper understanding of the assessment cultures of eight PYP schools and provides insights into the current assessment literacy of teachers. The researchers employed a multiple case-study approach, with two phases of data collection: an online survey of teachers and detailed teacher focus groups and coordinator interviews to follow-up on themes identified in the survey. Assessment in the PYP case-study schools was described as holistic and ongoing, and involved a wide range of assessment strategies. Assessment as learning, however, emerged as an approach still in development in the schools. Teachers enthusiastically supported the development of learner profile attributes, although assessing progress in any particular attribute was regarded as challenging. Finally, while teacher feedback and student self-assessment were common practices, teachers were more equivocal about peer assessment. The authors conclude the report with a number of recommendations for further improving PYP assessment practices.