Moral rights and Australian contemporary architecture : recent professional dilemmas and the thoughts of Peter Muller in this discourse

The moral rights of contemporary design projects has arisen as a difficult ethical dilemma in Australian architectural discourses, and is more complex when matters of heritage are implicated. This paper considers the position of moral rights under the AustralianCopyright Act 19682 having regard to the Australian exemplars of Peter Muller. Muller is one of the most highly regarded Australian architects of the twentieth century possessing a passion for organic architecture realised in several significant Australian and Indonesian design exemplars. The paper considers recent Australian debates about moral rights and projects that implicate several architectural and landscape architecture projects, the current legal interpretations, and explains the ideas, values, and opinions and practice of Muller in this context. A clear conclusion is that while the Act confers rights, there is no mechanism to ensure adherence to these rights, and particularly in the situation of a living designer where one of their designs is being accorded heritage status.

Spoken mathematics as an instructional strategy: the public discourse of mathematics classrooms in different countries

This chapter examines the use of spoken mathematics in the public discourse of eighth-grade mathematics classrooms internationally. By “spoken mathematics” we mean the recognizably mathematical terms used in spoken interaction in the classroom. Our principal focus was the relatively sophisticated terms by which each lesson’s central concepts or procedures were named. In our analysis we addressed the question(s): “What is the occurrence of publicly spoken mathematics in the different classrooms studied and what efforts do the teachers appear to make to promote students’ use of technical mathematical terms in their public classroom talk?” A companion chapter examines the question of students’ private spoken mathematics in the classroom and the possible learning that might result.

Uni has a different language … to the real world: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

The Australian government has set ambitious targets for increased higher-education participation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. There is, thus, a pressing need to explore how best to empower these students with what they require to progress and succeed at university. The paper draws on a literature review and qualitative data from a national study in which 89 students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and 26 staff were interviewed. The paper argues that demystifying academic culture and discourses for these students is a key step institutions and staff can take in assisting students from low socioeconomic backgrounds to progress and succeed at university. A recurring theme to emerge from both the literature and interviews with students and staff was that teaching the discourse empowers and enables students to learn, has a positive impact on their sense of belonging and ultimately helps them succeed in higher education.

PhD crisis discourse: a critical approach to the framing of the problem and some Australian ‘solutions’

A feature of HE reform discourse is the tendency to construct the rationale for reform in terms of averting calamity and risk. We refer to this risk talk as ‘crisis discourse’. This study examines the formulation of PhD crisis discourse internationally and in Australia. We find that a key feature of PhD crisis discourse is that universities are producing too many graduates for too few academic jobs; and graduates lack skills that enable them to be productive in jobs outside academia. In Australia, the discourse has shifted from one dominated by efficiency concerns from the late 1990s to the present focus on graduate skills and employability. The policy solution to the efficiency crisis in the Australian PhD resulted in system-wide changes in research training funding focused on increased efficiency. The current unemployability discourse has as yet prompted isolated institutional responses, the introduction of new PhD programs or re-badging existing offerings as pro-skills development offerings. Following an examination of three Australian institutional responses, we conclude that the crisis discourse signals tensions surrounding the PhD: should achievement in doctoral education be measured by outcomes in intellectual excellence or the responsiveness of qualification to the current needs and priorities of society?

Eliciting personal constructs to distinguish prevailing D/discourse in police training

This paper describes the application of the rank-order repertory grid technique to elicit personal constructs in order to distinguish prevailing D/discourse in police training. Traditionally, the repertory grid has been used as a quantitative method for data collection, correlation, and analysis, however, in recent years it has been applied as a qualitative method. This research combines the use of the repertory grid as a quantitative method for data collection and initial statistical analysis with a discourse analytic framework for final theoretical analysis. This research is in informed by a literature review of police culture, police training, gender, “Othering”, and inherent D/discourses in police organisations, and inspired by the researcher’s professional experiences in a police organisation. Anecdotal evidence and studies reveal that pedagogical training methods are predominantly used in police training with concerns identified as to their educative value. These concerns are supported by Australian and international studies into police management education which reveal a ‘resistant anti-intellectual subculture’ and a set of unconscious and unchallengeable assumptions regarding police work, conduct, and leadership which prevents critical thinking. An examination of D/discourse in police training is timely and pertinent given the Australasian agenda for policing to become a profession.

Teaching in the iWorld: developing a repertoire of pedagogical discourse around the usage of touch screen devices in early years classrooms

 Touch-screen devices have been enthusiastically adopted by schools across Australia and Canada. Their ease of use means that they are accessible by very young children, and these children often have free access to these devices in their home, however the devices tend to be ‘domesticated’ in the school context (O’Mara and Laidlaw, 2011). In the short period of their availability, a plethora of educational applications have been developed for these devices. This paper addresses emergent themes from our 2011-2013 Canadian/Australian project, Literacy learning in playful spaces: using multi-modal strategies to develop narrative with young learners, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Insight Development Grant). In our analysis of the discourse around the introduction of portable touch screen devices into school literacy classes (published texts, teacher interviews, classroom observations), we noted that much of the public discourse is slanted towards the idea of “teacher-proofing” the curriculum. Initially the teachers we have been working with saw the apps themselves as complete, as doing all the work and the discourse around the devices was around what apps are “best”, and “is there an app for that?” It was only with more experience and time that teachers were able to harness the range of affordances of the devices—their capacity for recording audio, video, pictures etc., and start to categorise the apps themselves. In this paper we suggest ways in which current literacy models might be used to develop a repertoire of pedagogical discourse around these devices, providing language and framings for teachers to think about how these new tools might best be used to enhance literacy teaching and learning. O’Mara, J. & Laidlaw, L. (2011). Living in the iWorld: Two literacy researchers reflect on the changing texts and literacy practices of childhood. English Teaching: Practice and Critique 10 (4): 149-159. Available: http://edlinked.soe.waikato.ac.nz/research/journal/view.php?article=true&id=754&p=1

PhD crisis discourse : a critical approach to the framing of the problem and some Australian ‘solutions’

 A feature of HE reform discourse is the tendency to construct the rationale for reform in terms of averting calamity and risk. We refer to this risk talk as 'crisis discourse'. This study examines the formulation of PhD crisis discourse internationally and in Australia. We find that a key feature of PhD crisis discourse is that universities are producing too many graduates for too few academic jobs; and graduates lack skills that enable them to be productive in jobs outside academia. In Australia, the discourse has shifted from one dominated by efficiency concerns from the late 1990s to the present focus on graduate skills and employability. The policy solution to the efficiency crisis in the Australian PhD resulted in system-wide changes in research training funding focused on increased efficiency. The current unemployability discourse has as yet prompted isolated institutional responses, the introduction of new PhD programs or re-badging existing offerings as pro-skills development offerings. Following an examination of three Australian institutional responses, we conclude that the crisis discourse signals tensions surrounding the PhD: should achievement in doctoral education be measured by outcomes in intellectual excellence or the responsiveness of qualification to the current needs and priorities of society? © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Making strategic change: a critical discourse analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from a discourse model that was developed for an empirical study of a strategic change program.Design/methodology/approach – The perspective informing the discourse model is that discursive processes are central to strategic change in organizations, and that strategic change works by constructing a particular organizational reality in which the possibilities for change are preconditioned. This perspective offers a discursive understanding of how strategic change is formed, articulated, engaged, and contested by managers and employees.Findings – The paper reports the findings from a study in which the discourse model was applied to a strategic change program in a Bank. The findings demonstrate the inter-discursive nature of strategic change in showing how different levels of discourse, from the grand to the local, were intertwined in an organizational and situated context.Research limitations/implications – This paper builds on the small but growing body of empirical work that studies organizational strategy as a discourse. In this paper it has been argued that discursive processes are central to strategic change in organizations - central to the understanding and the practice of how strategic change is formed, articulated, and engaged by managers and employees. This argument was informed by a post-structuralist definition and articulation of language and an understanding of language as discourse in organizations.Practical implications – The paper demonstrates the central role of language and discourse in the formation of a strategic change program. The findings reported in the paper show the importance of strategy discourse in providing a framework for strategic change, for mobilizing change in an organization, and for legitimizing the change imperative.Social implications – A critique of the management of emotional intelligence is set out. The centrality of employee identity and subject position to the processes of change is illustrated. Originality/value – The discourse model made possible an investigation of how a program of strategic change was formed through the discursive framing of organizational reality.

'Peer learning' as pedagogic discourse for research education

Research education has been dominated in recent years by policy-driven preoccupations with doctoral completions, funding and contributions to the economy. This has led universities to focus on enhanced institutional support for research degrees, with an emphasis on supervision, in particular the training of supervisors, and provision of a richer environment for students. This article uses examples from interviews with research students to show how the provision of a rich environment is not in itself sufficient. A new discourse is needed so that students are able to take up opportunities that are available. The article questions the current emphasis and argues that a new focus on pedagogy is explicitly needed. It challenges the dominant focus on supervision and 'provisionism' and suggests that a more appropriate pedagogic discourse should draw on the familiar notion of 'peer' from the world of research. It argues that peer learning, appropriately theorized and situated within a notion of communities of research practice, might be a productive frame through which to view research education. © 2005 Society for Research into Higher Education.

Sentencing in child sexual assault cases: factors influencing judicial decision-making

To date, there has been limited examination of variables that influence sentencing in child sexual abuse cases. This study examines the extent to which offence characteristics (such as the number of offences, number and age of victims), the behaviour and perceived credibility of the victim impact upon both sentence length and the setting of earliest parole dates. Analyses conducted using data from 66 adjudicated cases of child sexual assault from the County Court of Victoria, Australia revealed that longer sentences were handed down to offenders who had perpetrated multiple offences, or who had committed offences against younger children. Lower levels of victim credibility were associated with shorter sentences and earlier parole dates for offenders, which were also associated with the presence of more harmful behavioural indicators of abuse. The findings are discussed regarding the importance of presenting evidence about the behaviour of victims following sexual abuse in criminal trials. © 2013 Copyright National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers.