From nutrients to food literacy

This paper is based on a webinar broadcast by the Home Economics Institute of Australia in 2015. I should make clear at the outset that I will be discussing the academic literature, particularly that relating to nutrition education and foodliteracy that reports studies with measured outcomes. This may seem ‘last century’ to many Australian home economics teachers who long ago moved from teaching about nutrients to education about dietary practices. However, in nutrition science there has long been a fascination with the possible effects of education about nutrition on disease risks and outcomes. There has been an expectation among health researchers and governments that education should reduce disease risks and promote wellbeing among young people. I think this view is too narrow and unrealistic in contrast to more holistic approaches such as those of home economics and the emerging area of food literacy. In this brief overview I will discuss four areas to dowith the emerging area of food literacy education. First, I will discuss the emergence of a broader view of food and dietary patterns in the nutrition sciences and the reasons for this. Secondly, I will explore the competing assumptions behind ‘education’ versus those of ‘health promotion’ and public health, followed by different disciplinary views of the emerging area of food literacy with its emphasis on competencies. Finally, I will explore some interesting new developments in food literacy education.

Between education and psychology: school staff perspectives

When discussing contributions from psychology in/to educational practices like school-based mental health promotion, it is peculiar that psychologists (of an educational or clinical kind) or education-oriented sociologists, both not often based in schools or classrooms, dominate the topic. It has been acknowledged that school staff have been over looked and underutilised in contributing to the discussion, particularly as this pertains to sharing perspectives on how they experience their role in relationship to education policy and practice. The study presented here looked to address this situation by seeking the perspectives of school staff on a range of concerns situated at the nexus between education and psychology. Contrary to the type of displaced assessment intimated above, this group of school staff generally accepts they perform a crucial task in supporting students, their main concern being to incisively question how they might negotiate existing role-related pressures to better current school-based practice.

What I ‘know’: Literary studies and the teaching of English

This essay unfolds through a series of juxtapositions, involving storytelling and writing of a more analytical nature. In thinking about what I ‘know’ as an English teacher, my aim has been to present my ideas in a form that might do justice to the contradictions and complexities of my professional life, including my continuing efforts to negotiate a pathway between the rich particularities of the educational settings in which I have worked and my knowledge and values as an English teacher. My primary focus is on how my literary education has shaped and been shaped by my work as an English teacher vis-à-vis a devaluing of teachers’ disciplinary knowledge that has occurred through standards-based reforms. I attempt to make the standpoint from which I am writing an object of scrutiny, thus producing an account of what I ‘know’ that arises out of my work as an English teacher and returns to it as a necessary dimension of a politically committed praxis.

Psyshoanalysis and its discontents

There are only 5,000 patients in psychoanalysis with members of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), and these analysts are often viewed as arrogant and insular. As a laboratory for psychoanalytic institutions the APsaA provides crucial lessons for the future across the field. What ingredients are needed for psychoanalysis to be a vibrant discipline? What factors have prevailed where psychoanalysis is successful? The author explores the cases of Argentina and France, where psychoanalysis is relatively popular, and then returns to the U.S. situation. Insular mind-sets led to many missed opportunities for cultural and academic engagement in the United States. As an example, the author explores responses to the making of John Huston's film Freud: The Secret Passion. To become revitalized, psychoanalysis needs to be a cultural asset. Psychoanalysts need to build bridges, engage in partnerships, and emphasize the exciting method of philosophical probing of the human mind and the nature of human nature.

Restructuring educational leadership in changing contexts: a local/global account of restructuring in Australia

The 1990s saw considerable structural reform in school education in many Anglophone nation states, marked by trends towards school-based, site-based, self-managing and self-governing schools. This article illustrates through a case study of educational restructuring in Victoria, Australia, how leadership, as a discursive practice, is redefined in the context of spatial and cultural restructuring. Restructuring produced a spatial redistribution of educational provision and individual opportunities as a result of structural adjustment reforms. These same policy moves towards post-welfarism also produced cultural shifts in attitudes to education with the rise of the new instrumentalism and entrepeneurialism. For school principals at the forefront of self managing schools, this meant shifts in resource distribution through new policy mechanisms of managerial and market accountability, and also new priorities impacting on leadership practices with a move from dialogic to decisional modes of management. The question is how recent policy moves towards learning networks and reinventing systematic support with a focus on locational disadvantage are addressing what were increased educational disparities between schools and students. Does this provide scope for more equity-driven leadership practices?

Experiencing change: an inside view from the outside

As a South African of Indian descent I bring to education in Victoria an intimate knowledge of 'change in progress' and seek to use that for the benefit of my disciplines as a practitioner and teacher, primarily of music at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. In this article, I discuss some of the gains made by Australian teachers through using African music in their settings, and also describe what some of their teaching and learning needs are. This article arises from two research projects that I undertook: with students at Deakin University (2002-2003) and with music teachers who are currently teaching African music in Melbourne, Australia (2004). The student project investigated the potential for using African music to enhance the generic musical experiences, learning, motivation, interest, confidence and competence of non-specialist primary pre-service teachers. The teacher project explored why teachers are embracing change through the use of African music, what type of African music is taught and how it is being taught. In a world that is in a state of almost constant flux, teachers face the challenge to maintain the relevance of the curriculum and to promote openness to the cultural diversity represented in our contemporary Australian society. Both groups report highly positive changes.

Assessing the likely impact of mandatory residential sessions for engineering and technology students

Off-campus students are important to the Deakin School of Engineering and Technology – in 2003, 47.5 % of all enrolments in the main engineering and technology Bachelor courses were off-campus students. In 2005, the School will be compelled, for professional accreditation, to introduce annual two-week mandatory residential sessions into its engineering and technology courses. In 2004, prior to its implementation, the impacts of the introduction of a mandatory on-campus residential element into engineering and technology courses were unknown. This research project sought to understand these impacts, so that strategies could be developed to minimise the likely impact of these changes. In engineering, off-campus study is an essential element of access to education for those in remote locations and/or seeking to upgrade their qualifications whilst employed. There was very little support from any students (on- or offcampus) for the introduction of residential sessions. The School should expect that the introduction of mandatory residential sessions will reduce the number of off-campus students enrolling to study engineering and technology.

Projections of the future path of the gender wage gap in Great Britain

Purpose – The paper attempts to project the future trend of the gender wage gap in Great Britain up to 2031.
Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis utilises the British Household Panel Study Wave F together with Office for National Statistics (ONS) demographic projections. The methodology combines the ONS projections with assumptions relating to the evolution of educational attainment in order to project the future distribution of human capital skills and consequently the future size of the gender wage gap.
Findings – The analysis suggests that gender wage convergence will be slow, with little female progress by 2031 unless there is a large rise in returns to female experience.
Originality/value – The paper has projected the pattern of male and female skill acquisition together with the associated trend in wages up to 2031.

Social, cultural and environmental influences on child activity and eating in Australian migrant communities

Aim: This study set out to examine the socio-cultural, familial and environmental factors influencing health, eating habits and patterns of physical activity contributing to child and adolescent overweight and obesity. Methods: Semi-structured, community-based interviews were conducted with contrasting key informant three-generation families; and generation by generation focus groups of grandparents, parents and children from four cultural communities in the state of Victoria, Australia. Purposive sampling occurred from Turkish, Greek, Indian and Chinese communities that have migrated to Australia within the last three generations (n = 160, eight families, 47 children aged 5–15 years, 29 parents, 42 grandparents). Results: Evidence of two-way influences on eating and physical activity across three generations was evident, with children reporting the greatest cross-cultural diversity. A range of dietary restrictions was reported across all cultural groups. Efforts to foster healthy eating and lifestyle patterns within communities were evident. Parents, as a generation in particular, felt the need for more access to education and support regarding healthy limits for pre-puberty and puberty stages. Conclusion: There is a dynamic influence of culture on many aspects of family lifestyle across three generations. To achieve successful intervention design, childhood obesity researchers need to collaborate with diverse groups and communities. Considering the role and influence of extended family, a multigenerational, whole-of-community approach beyond that of parent and child populations ought to be considered.

A virtual environment for cultural and linguistic inclusivity teaching in a global environment

The Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia) operational policy on 'International and Culturally Inclusive Curricula' states that Deakin will incorporate international/intercultural perspectives and inclusive pedagogies into its courses in order to prepare all students to perform capably, ethically and sensitively in international, multicultural, professional and social contexts.

This paper is about a specific project to internationalise the teacher education curriculum through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This project is scoped in the context of the UNESCO thrust of 'Education for All' in agreeing that inclusive societies begin with inclusive education practices. In our view current strategies have been insufficient to ensure that marginalized and excluded children receive access to their right to education.

The project aims to operationalise part of the UNESCO Dakar Framework for high quality learning environments by responding to ‘…the diverse needs and circumstances of learners and giving appropriate weight to the abilities, skills and knowledge they bring to the teaching and learning process’ by minimising language acquisition barriers that can otherwise impede effective communication and learning.

In addition, we need to be mindful of the marginalisation of people from non-English speaking backgrounds and therefore, in this initiative we use ICT to bridge the 'tyranny of distance' and offer a curriculum that values cultural and linguistic diversity.

In this paper we will discuss how we intend to develop these project principles. In particular we will indicate our plans to use relatively low cost, accessible software to develop a virtual environment where students can enter text in their native language, view foreign language text in their native language, hear text in their own language and automatically encode text into MP3 files and attach the files to messages.

States, markets and communities : is there room for educational leadership?

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and administration that follow from such analysis. It is concluded that in different times and places power relationships external to education are often complex and contested, producing a variety of relays and attempts at classification and framing that serve differing interests and are articulated through policies containing significant internal contradictions. In such circumstances contingency and immediate local influence may affect the practice of educational leadership as well as offering scope for subversion, resistance, simulated consent and collective action. The possibility of a public pedagogy through which such complexities could be articulated is raised and its importance to the practice of educational leadership affirmed.

Travelling pedagogies : curriculum for a global world

Travel can interrupt and disrupt ways of seeing and understanding the world. For teachers, their experience of travel is often overlooked as a resource to be utilised in the classroom and school. This paper explores the impact of travel on teachers’ work through analysis of two teachers’ experiences of an educational study tour. The impact of this travel can be seen through revised curriculum, teachers’ increased knowledge and altered customs. A discussion of this impact is through the social imaginary. The central argument is that teachers’ travel experiences are an undervalued resource with potential to shape a global education and improve classroom effectiveness. It concludes with speculation about the possibilities for enrichment of classroom practices through travel experiences both as personal growth and curriculum renewal that responds to education for a changing world.

Teaching EBP : part 2 – making sense of clinical practice guidelines

Previously, we indicated that we wanted to address the dialogue pertaining to education and teaching approaches to increase the use of specific types of evidence that exist to guide and inform practice, and began this by focusing on Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG). This column builds on that knowledge to highlight how educators can use CPGs in practice and change situations whilst also raising awareness of the limitations of these tools in terms of their impact on practice.

Leviathan resists : the endogenous relationship between privatization and firm performance

Using a panel dataset of privatized cement firms in Turkey, this paper models and finds support for the simultaneous relationship between privatization and firm performance. It is found that favorable short-run performance, weak market potential, higher employment, lower socio-economic development, concentrated voter preferences, and weaker representation of right-wing parties in the firms’ locality delay the timing of privatization. The paper also finds that privatization increases output in the medium-term by reducing the labor stock and promoting the adoption of more advanced technology, such that production shifts from constant to decreasing returns to scale.

The suboptimality of optimal punishments in Counot supergames

We investigate, within a Cournot supergame, whether previous termoptimalnext term punishments may become suboptimal when economies of scale are not negligible. We show that, for sufficiently strong increasing returns to scale, the critical discount factor associated to grim trigger strategies is lower than the one associated to previous termoptimalnext term penal codes.