Ethnicity, social class, practice and pedagogy : a study of teacher identity

This paper draws on findings from three separate research projects to illustrate how teachers’ and student-teachers’ ethnic and social class identities shape theirrepresentations of professional self, their interactions with their students and the pedagogies they privilege in their classes. The paper raises a number of important implications for teacher education seeking to prepare teachers for culturally diverse contexts such as Australian classrooms. It concludes that a major challenge for teacher educators is to find ways of enabling their students to interrogate often taken-for-granted assumptions about their own ethnic and classed positionings.

Experienced teachers' perspectives on cultural and social class diversity : which differences matter?

This article reports on a pilot study that investigated the beliefs, values, and pedagogies of experienced high school teachers who worked with student populations of non-English speaking and economically disadvantaged immigrants or refugees in Australia. Qualitative research methods, including focus groups and in-depth individual interviews with teachers, produced data that were examined using Critical Discourse Analysis. Close reading of the teachers' comments suggests that there are a number of key discourses that teachers use to make sense of differences among culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged groups of students. Specifically, teachers distinguish between cultural groups on the basis of students' life experiences prior to arrival in Australia; students' collective and individual educational experiences; and the different social class positioning of students within the same ethnic group. In their comments, teachers at times categorised students in generalised and stereotypical ways but also were able to critique and reflect on their personal assumptions. An analysis of the teachers' reflections provides insights into how they made sense of “diversity” and how, as teachers, they try to work productively with ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged students.

The Australian class structure and Australian politics 1931 - 40

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the class structure of interwar Australia based largely on the 1933 Commonwealth census. It reviews previous analyses by academics but although contemporary journalists and political strategists. It develops an estimate of the class composition of the electorate as distinct from the general population and attempts to define the class position of voters outside of the paid workforce. It considers the question of to what extent Labor needed non-working-class votes to secure an electoral majority and how the differing social composition of the Australian states impacted on electoral outcomes and Labor strategies. It employs the method of bounds to develop some preliminary conclusions about the electoral behaviour of different social groups and concludes with some observations on the divided nature of the Australian working class and the competing strategies that parties developed in their search for an electoral majority.

Book review : Class act : Melbourne Workers Theatre 1987 - 2007

The article reviews the book "Class Act: Melbourne Workers Theatre 1987-2007," edited by Glenn D'Cruz.

A class of modified variable step-size NLMS algorithms for system identification

This paper proposes a class of modified variable step-size normalized least mean square (VS NLMS) algorithms. The class of schemes are obtained from estimating the optimum step-size of NLMS that minimizes the mean square deviation (MSD). During the estimation, we consider the properties of the additive noise and the input excitation together. The developed class of VS NLMS algorithms have simple forms and give improved tradeoff of fast convergence rate and low misadjustment in system identification.

Adaptive fast finite time control of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

This paper concerns the adaptive fast finite time control of a class of nonlinear uncertain systems of which the upper bounds of the system uncertainties are unknown. By using the fast non-smooth control Lyapunov function and the method of so-called adding a power integrator merging with adaptive technique, a recursive design procedure is provided, which guarantees the fast finite time stability of the closed-loop system. It is proved that the control input is bounded, and a simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

Language, power and ruling relations in vocational education and training

This thesis uses institutional ethnography to explore the text-based regulatory framework of the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Training Packages are national competency standards used to assess local workplace practice. The Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) is a national compliance framework used to audit local learning and assessment practice. These texts operate in a ‘symbiotic relationship’ to achieve a policy goal of national consistency. The researcher explicates the social relations of VET starting from her disquiet as a practitioner. The thesis argues that Training Packages and the AQTF socially organise the content and delivery of local learning and assessment activities. VET practitioners struggle to use these texts to support good practice, and their hidden work maintains an unstable VET system. Yet the extralocal mode of ruling offers no room to challenge VET policy. The thesis explicates three themes. Interview data is used to explore the contrast between the institutional language of Training Packages and the vernacular of workplaces in which these texts are activated. Many practitioners and participants simply do not understand Training Package competency standards. Using these texts to judge employee performance shifts the policing of workplace practice from local sites to external VET authorities. A second theme emerges as the analysis explores why VET practitioners use this excluding language in their work with participants. Interview data reveals that local training organisations achieve different readings as they engage with ruling VET texts. Some organisations use the national texts as broad frameworks, allowing practitioners to create spaces for meaningful learning. Other organisations adopt a narrow and rule-bound reading of national texts, displacing practitioners’ authority over their own practice. A third theme is explored through examination of a sequence of VET texts. The review and redevelopment of the mandatory qualifications for VET practitioners identified the language of the competency standards as a significant accessibility issue. These concerns were reshaped and subsumed in an official response that established the use of this language as a compulsory assessable requirement and a language and literacy benchmark. The thesis presents a new understanding of VET as a regulatory framework established through multiple levels of ruling texts that connect local sites to national government agendas. While some individual practitioners are able to navigate through this system, there is an urgent need for practitioners as a profession to challenge national hegemony.

State-NGO relations in Malaysia in the Mahathir years

This thesis states that the containment of NGOs is not simply due to the state's control of the political mechanisms. This study argues that the boundaries for NGOs are determined by the interplay between the state, the ruling elites, the middle class and the business elites.