Peers and pragmatics : listening to ESL students in a mainstream Australian school

This paper discusses a listening initiative aimed at assisting newly arrived ESL adolescents to meet the sociolinguistic challenges they faced in an Australian school. Proponents of a mainstream approach to ESL learning maintain that immersing students into age appropriate classrooms with native speakers provides superior opportunities for ESL students to those of a language school. Listening to native speaking peers is viewed as a way to accelerate sociolinguistic learning. Yet the school where this study took place acknowledged that many of the ESL students were quickly marginalized rather than supported within the school environment, and their academic success was erratic. A listening based initiative was introduced to raise awareness of pragmatics, the knowledge of meaning in context. Observed instances of communication analysed in this paper typify those likely to isolate ESL adolescents in their early years of mainstream secondary school. Furthermore, the positive impact of the outlined peer listening intervention on social inclusion as a precursor of significant language development is demonstrated. This case study has curriculum and welfare implications relevant to schools offering ESL students mainstream education.

The impact of school suspension on student tobacco use : a longitudinal study in Victoria, Australia, and Washington State, United States

Context: School suspension may have unintended consequences in contributing to problem behaviors, including dropping out from school, substance use, and antisocial behavior. Tobacco use is an early-onset problem behavior, but prospective studies of the effects of suspension on tobacco use are lacking.

Method: Longitudinal school-based survey of students drawn as a two-stage cluster sample, administered in 2002 and 2003, in Washington State, United States, and Victoria, Australia. The study uses statewide representative samples of students in Grades 7 and 9 (N = 3,599). Results: Rates of tobacco use were higher for Victorian than Washington State students. School suspension remained a predictor of current tobacco use at 12-month follow-up, after controlling for established risk factors including prior tobacco and other drug use for Grade 7 but not Grade 9 students.

Conclusions: School suspension is associated with early adolescent tobacco use, itself an established predictor of adverse outcomes in young people. Findings suggest the need to explore process mechanisms and alternatives to school suspensions as a response to challenging student behavior in early adolescence.

Is the neighbourhood environment associated with sedentary behaviour outside of school hours among children?

Background Little is known about neighbourhood environments and children’s sedentary behaviour outside school hours.
Purpose This study aims to examine the associations between public open spaces (POS), parent perceptions of the neighbourhood and children’s sedentary behaviours.
Methods Parents reported their child’s television viewing and computer/electronic game time and their perceptions of the physical and social neighbourhood. Children’s sedentary
time was objectively assessed. The closest POS was audited.
Results Cross-sectionally, living near a POS with a water feature and greater parental satisfactionwith POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games; greater POS area was negatively associated with TV viewing. Longitudinally, living in a cul-de-sac and greater satisfaction with POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games and TV viewing, respectively. Awalking path in the POS was positively associated with computer/e-games.
Conclusion Neighbourhood features appear to positively and negatively influence children’s sedentary behaviours, highlighting the complexity of urban planning on behaviour. Further age- and context-specific studies are required.

Context sensitive development : how international NGO's operate in Myanmar

This thesis examined the operation of International Non-Government Organisations (INGOs) in Myanmar, as a case study of development sensitive to difficult socio-political contexts. The thesis extended context-sensitive development theory, explored the Myanmar socio-political context, and explored the ways INGOs contextualise their operations in that country to maximise development effectiveness.

Professional autonomy of Victorian surgeons in the context of law and ethics

An analysis of legislation and court decisions demonstrates that the privilege of autonomous decision making by surgeons in Victoria has become progressively constrained. Factors that have led to this include workforce issues and the protection of the public combined with increasing involvement of the courts in questions involving medical ethics.

Health promotion practice in the context of climate change

Climate change and environmental degradation caused by human activities are having an irrefutable impact on human health. This thesis by publication demonstrates that health promotion practitioners are well placed to use their professional competencies, strategies and principles to facilitate action on climate change and environmental sustainability.

University entrepreneurship : context, process and performance

This project embraced empirical work that studied existing research commercialization systems (RCS) at both first tier and second tier universities, found them flawed and produced an enhanced framework that is definitely applicable to second tier universities (the vast majority) and possibly applicable to first tier universities as well.

Talking books for children's home use in a minority Indigenous Australian language context

Members of the Kunibidji community are the traditional owners of the lands and seas around Maningrida, a remote community in Northern Australia. Most of the 200 members of the Kunibidji Community speak Ndjebbana as their first language. This study reports on the complexities of transforming technology to provide Kunibídji children with access to digital texts at home. The printed Ndjebbana texts that were kept at school were transformed to Ndjebbana talking books displayed on touch screen computers in the children's homes. Some results of the children's interaction around these touch screens are presented as well as some quantitative results of the computer viewing in the homes. The processes of rejecting technological determinism, upholding linguistic human rights of speakers of minority languages and viewing technology as practice rather than a set of artefacts are discussed in this paper. The results of this study highlight the need for speakers of minority Indigenous Australian languages to have access to texts in their threatened languages on technologies at home.

Coastal planning, education and the Australian context

The Victorian Planning Minister’s response to the ‘Coastal Climate Change Advisor Report’, initiated by the Baillieu government in 2010, identified the need to “initiate ! a skills audit with the view to developing a range of professional development courses to meet the shortfall of professionals with the capability to assess coastal climate change impacts” (Victoria 2012). The following paper addresses this deficiency by examining how Australia’s higher education and further education sectors currently attend to the issue of coastal planning.

A detailed review of a large number of national and international planning programs was undertaken to highlight the subject matter contained in each program with a specific focus on any coastal planning courses. Working from a theoretical perspective, the first part of the paper addresses why a dedicated subject on Coastal Planning is required in the present Australian planning school syllabus, and how such a program would be positioned within the intent of PIA’s Education Policy.

Utilising the benefits of Problem Based learning and Student Centred Learning in relating to delivering a Coastal planning course, the second part of the paper provides a theoretical overview of the types of competencies which students may be expected to attain when undertaking such a course. The third part of the paper proposes a series of 12 lectures to underpin a unit titled “Coastal Planning: The Australian Context” which includes a draft lecture relating to the monitoring of Coastal Erosion in Adelaide.

The Copenhagen school on your in Kyrgyzstan : is securitization theory useable outside Europe?

The article argues that the theoretical framework presented by the Copenhagen School is currently unsuited to empirical studies outside the West owing to two factors. First, the presence of the ‘Westphalian straitjacket’ has prevented explicit interrogation of the normative concepts underlying the framework: there is a presumption that European understandings of society and the state are universal. Second, the centrality of the speech-act for securitization to the exclusion of other forms of expression, such as physical action, results in the theoretical framework producing a Westernized description of a given situation. The extent to which these factors limit the utility of the concepts of securitization and societal security in a non-Western setting is illustrated through the case of the overthrow of the government in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005. This example forms an empirical critique to highlight how theoretical shortcomings result in a simplified and Westernized description of the situation that does not take into account the specific local socio-political context. The article concludes that if the Copenhagen School’s theoretical framework is to be considered suitable for universal application, future theoretical developments must explicitly address the issues discussed to enable progress in escaping International Relations’ Westphalian straitjacket.

What factors are associated with adolescents' school break time physical activity and sedentary time?

Purpose Adolescents' physical activity levels during school break time are low and understanding correlates of physical activity and sedentary time in this context is important. This study investigated cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between a range of individual, behavioural, social and policy/organisational correlates and objectively measured school break time physical activity and sedentary time.

Methods In 2006, 146 adolescents (50% males; mean age = 14.1±0.6 years) completed a questionnaire and wore an accelerometer for ≥3 school days. Time spent engaged in sedentary, light (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school break times (recess and lunchtime) were calculated using existing cut-points. Measures were repeated in 2008 among 111 adolescents. Multilevel models examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations.

Results Bringing in equipment was cross-sectionally associated with 3.2% more MVPA during break times. Females engaged in 5.1% more sedentary time than males, whilst older adolescents engaged in less MVPA than younger adolescents. Few longitudinal associations were observed. Adolescents who brought sports equipment to school engaged in 7.2% less LPA during break times two years later compared to those who did not bring equipment to school.

Conclusion These data suggest that providing equipment and reducing restrictions on bringing in sports equipment to school may promote physical activity during school recess. Strategies targeting females' and older adolescents', in particular, are warranted.

Learning context in Australian universities - perceptions of Chinese accounting students

The study concentrates on how Mainland Chinese students perceive and respond to the learning in Australian universities. Students' satisfaction with their educational experiences and the Australian learning context such as teaching, teacher/student relationship, assessment, workload and English language is explored in this study. Using focus groups, the results show that teaching, teacher/student relationships and English language are areas of concern.

Reassessing the theorisation of community experience within the digitally mediated, global context

This paper argues that the changing environment in which community experience occurs requires re-theorisation within the digitally mediated, global context. A range of work has certainly emerged addressing this, but there is more to be done, including tracing a theoretical lineage of community studies.

Beginning with the early Chicago School, community was described as geographically bounded. Decades later, community experience meditated by digital technology has been commonly understood to be about virtual community. Ironically, many virtual community scholars have perpetuated the Chicago School perspective in examinations of online groupings, the only difference being that such ‘boundedness’ now referred to relatively fixed locations in cyberspace.

As an emerging alternative, a parallel range of literature has focused upon the immersion of ICT-mediated social relations into everyday life. It is argued that Wellman’s networked individualism provides a way to integrate the online/offline mediated social experience, however it is not a sufficiently complete metaphor to describe spatially distributed, mediated community experiences. From the work of Robert Park, a member of the early Chicago School, the idea of the social ‘ecology’ of place can be adapted to provide a connecting thread into digitally mediated ecologies of community experience. 

Building equitable literate futures: home and school computer-mediated literacy practices and disadvantage

This five-volume collection lays out the foundations and nuances of literacy studies. Beginning with the theoretical and epistemological perspectives that have been influential in shaping contemporary approaches in literacy studies, the set further explores new digital literacies, literacy in educational and institutional contexts, and the crucial issues of literacy in relation to social mobility, multilingualism and globalization. With a full introduction to the set and to each volume, researchers will find in this set a comprehensive guide to this crucial area of study.
Chapter 4 in volume 3(Angus, Snyder and Sutherland-Smith) is a research chapter exploring literacy practices and the use of technology in the context of disadvantage. In four contexts it examines the 'digital divide' in home and school literacy and what makes a difference in learning success. 

Context matters: SETE mapping of teacher education in diverse contexts

The Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project (2010- ) investigates, as a priority, how well equipped teacher education graduates are to meet the requirements of diverse school settings. This paper outlines notions of diversity as reflected in large-scale longitudinal data sets including quantitative teacher and principal surveys (n=5,000+), national audit of teacher education programs (n=500+), and analysis of data from intensive case studies which track 170 graduate teachers through the first three years of their teaching career.