The story of fable : a narrative analysis of the experience of four registered nurses in their first year of practice

This research explores the transition from student to registered nurse from the perspective of the new graduate. This interpretive study uses narrative analysis as the methodology. Individual stories were collected and processed using the method of core story creation and emplotment (Emden 1998). Four newly registered nurses were invited to share stories related to how they were experiencing their role. Participants were encouraged to tell their stories in response to the open question 'what is it like to be a registered nurse?' In the final step of the analysis one honest and critical story has been crafted (Barone 1992) using a process termed emplotment thus disclosing the themes that allow the stories to be grasped together as a single story (Polkinghorne 1988, Emden 1998). The final story of 'Fable' gives insight into the ways in which newly registered nurses experience their role. Becoming a registered nurse is not easy however, Fable finds that nursing is more than just a job and describes many rewarding experiences. It is hoped that the outcomes of this research will be valuable to students, graduates, nurse academics and the profession of nursing generally by enhancing understandings of the relationship between the graduate and the actual employment experience.

Ongoing colonial legacy : contemporary education beliefs and practices in Papua New Guinea

In the late 1980ˇ¦s, a realisation that the western education system bequeathed to Papua New Guinea at the time of Independence had functioned to devalue and marginalise many of the traditional beliefs, knowledge and skills students brought with them to education, led to a period of significant education reform. The Reform was premised on the report of a Ministerial Review Committee called A Philosophy of Education. This report made recommendations about how education in Papua New Guinea could respond to the issues and challenges this nation faced as it sought to chart a course to serve the needs of its citizens on its own terms. The issues associated with managing and implementing institutionalised educational change premised on importing western values and practices are a central theme of this thesis. The impact of importing foreign curriculum and associated curriculum officers and consultants to assist with curriculum change and development in the former Language and Literacy unit of the Curriculum Development Division, is considered in three related sections of this report: „P a critical review of the imported educational system and related practices and related issues since Independence „P narrative report of the experience of two colleagues in western education „P evidential research based on curriculum Reform in the Language and Literacy Unit. How Papua New Guinea has sought to come to terms with the issues and challenges that arose in response to a practice of importing western curriculum both at the time of Independence and currently through the Reform, are explored throughout the thesis. The findings issues reveal much about the capacity of individuals and institutions to respond to a post-colonial world particularly associated with an ongoing colonial legacy in the principle researcherˇ¦s work context. The thesis argues that the challenges Papua New Guinea curriculum officers face today, as they manage and implement changes associated with another imported curriculum are caught up in existing power relations. These power relations function to stifle creative thinking at a time when it is most needed. Further, these power relations are not well understood by the curriculum officers and remained hidden and unquestioned throughout the research project. The thesis also argues that in the researcherˇ¦s work context, techniques of surveillance were brought to bear and functioned to curtail critical thinking about how the reformed curriculum could be sensitive and respectful of those beliefs and traditions that had sustained life in Papua New Guinea for thousands of years. Consequently, many outmoded beliefs and practices associated with an uncritical and ongoing acceptance of the superiority of western imports have been retained, thereby effectively denying the collective voices of Paua New Guineans in the current curriculum Reform.

Heteroglossia : a space for developing critical language awareness?

This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject, ‘Language and Literacy in Secondary School’, a subject requiring them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy (this is dictated by state government specifications of graduate outcomes for teacher education programs). To develop an understanding of the way that language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences – a task which they all find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than simply reminiscing about their early childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and the present, and to combine a range of texts within their writing. They thereby create a heteroglossic text (Bakhtin, 1981) that stretches their repertoires as language users and enables them to develop a socially critical awareness of language and literacy, including the literacy practices in which they engage as university students. Later in the semester they revisit these accounts of their early literacy experiences, and (in a separate piece of writing) endeavour to place these accounts within the contexts of theories and debates they have encountered in the course of completing this unit.

The students’ writing provides a small window on how they are experiencing their tertiary education, including the managerial controls that are currently shaping university curriculum and pedagogy. Their writing also raises questions as to extent to which tertiary students are actually able to formulate a critical language awareness that will subsequently inform their professional practice as secondary teachers.

Teaching narrative journalism and the APN Professional Development Program

This paper extends the familiar concept of ‘journalism-as-storytelling’ into a description of some of its practical applications in a university and industry partnership resulting in a commercial training arrangement in early 2007. It describes the APN/USQ Professional Development Program for newspaper employees (with no formal journalism qualification) and exemplifies how print journalism courses may be adapted to teach narrative writing techniques. It demonstrates how foundation skills in journalistic practice may be incorporated into an adapted teaching model, suggesting that “the basics” of narrative writing should not be thought of as discrete components of journalism education. This argument is further supported by the description of a robust pedagogical approach informed by Mezirows’ transformative learning theory for a cross-disciplinary knowledge base.

From ‘consulting pupils’ to ‘pupils as researchers’ : a situated case narrative

Schools in England are now being encouraged to 'personalise' the curriculum and to consult students about teaching and learning. This article reports on an evaluation of one high school which is working hard to increase student subject choice, introduce integrated curriculum in the middle years and to improve teaching and learning while maintaining a commitment to inclusive and equitable comprehensive education. The authors worked with a small group of students as consultants to develop a 'student's-eye' set of evaluative categories in a school-wide student survey. They also conducted teacher, student and governor interviews, lesson and meeting observations, and student 'mind-mapping' exercises. In this article, in the light of the findings, the authors discuss the processes they used to work jointly with the student research team, and how they moved from pupils-as-consultants to pupils-as-researchers, a potentially more transformative/disruptive practice. They query the notion of 'authentic student voice' and show it as discursive and heterogeneous: they thus suggest that both a standards and a rights framings of student voice must be regarded critically.

A narrative study of migrant women and Australian law

This thesis found that the migrant women it studied experienced everyday, discrimination-related hardships and legal problems which the law only partially resolved. It concluded that discrimination was an invisible issue with serious personal consequences for these migrant women.

Narrative analysis of female student 'resistance' in a Japanese private university

The thesis points to the emergence of a series of distinctive tensions which were informed by the author's position as a Western male researcher living in Japan, and the changing perceptions of what occured as notions of 'empowerment' and 'voice' touched the 'grounded' data. It argues that the generative narrative(s) constitutes a form of ongoing 'conversation' which succeed in producing an unstructured reading or pedagogy. Although the research does not achieve tangible liberatory outcomes, the generative narrative(s) provides the lens through which to view the student 'resistance' and, as such, permits the examination of an instance of student 'resistance' in Japan.

Sites of dreaming: architecture and narrative

In this collection of work Daniel investigated relationships between architecture and the architectural in terms of memories, fictions and imagination. The work has drawn from childhood explorations of architecture and play, namely in the form of the Cubby Hut as well as exploring relationships between architecture in terms of culture and fiction with respect to architectural structures which are inspired by the classic form of the flying saucer or UFO.