The second curriculum opera : Arias, assessment and methodological traces

Drawing on contemporary forms of qualitative research such as performance ethnography (McCall, 2000), autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Ellis & Flaherty, 1992) and using narrative and writing as forms of inquiry (Richardson, 1990; 1992; 1995a; 1995b; 1997; 1999; 2000), this research project constructs a 'learning through' (Gardner, 1983; 1993; 1995; 1999; 2003a; 2003b) approach to curriculum within pre-service teacher education. During 2002 we initiated the first curriculum opera (Dixon & White, 2003; Dixon, White, & Smerdon, 2003) in our Faculty of Education with thirty-seven students. In 2003 we developed this learning and teaching approach with twice as many students. We also reconsidered assessment of students involved in the opera for overall theoretical consistency. As students increasingly took control, they 'imagined curriculum' (Doll & Gough, 2002) and transformed their exploration of identity in the 'process of becoming' teachers (Britzman, 2003). In this paper, we outline the project and the learning involved. We also indicate future directions for learning and teaching in preservice teacher education as well as the potential uses and misuses of teacher assessment through portfolio.

Structures, processes and performance of corporate and business ethics in supply chains

The objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a conceptual framework of firms' corporate and business ethics in supply chains in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance. A framework is outlined and positioned incorporating an ethical frame of reference in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM). A number of areas and sub-areas of firms' corporate and business ethics are framed in the context of supply chains. The introduced framework should be seen as a seed for further development and refinement in the field of SCM. It provides opportunities for further research of ethical concerns in supply chains.

Risk and trust in cross-sector R & D projects

The Cooperative Research Centres are hybrid organizations at the leading edge of change in Australia's research culture and are key elements in the new knowledge infrastructure contributing to technological innovation. The paper presents findings from a qualitative study of CRC managers' perceptions and management of downside risk in commercially-focused R&D projects. CRC managers deal with both performance risks (arising from uncertainties about achieving goals) and relational risks (arising from collaborative relationships). They do so through formalisation, the selection of people with desirable characteristics, and the building of relationships. Underlying these risk mitigation strategies is the formation of trust (a willingness to rely on a partner in whom one has confidence), and this occurs at both interorganizational and project levels.

Governance and goodness in the public arena

We discuss the association of governance with notions of goodness and virtue in the public arena. In line with moves away from universal notions of best practice and toward recognition of local initiatives, we suggest that public management research give more explicit attention to the ethical frameworks that underlie and complicate definitional and values-based debates. We suggest that greater consideration of the ethics of public management may assist researchers to move beyond definitional dilemmas and will inform analysis of hybrid or 'reformed' bureaucracies where competing logics may be in play.

Complexity sciences and business ethics : a different perspective

This paper strives to shed some light on organizations' behaviours and practices of business ethics in the marketplace and the surrounding society by the aid of complexity sciences. For this purpose, a conceptual discussion will be based upon the causal frameworks of teleology introduced by Stacey, Griffin and Shaw (2000).

How do Australian small and medium enterprises communicate their corporate social responsibility activities online?

Much of the existing research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) focuses on large firms, with comparatively little on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The SME research focuses on barriers and drivers to CSR and neglects how SMEs communicate their CSR activities. This paper addresses this gap by reporting on a content analysis of 443 Australian SME websites which identifies how they are using this channel to communicate their CSR activities.

Visual narratives in the children's picture story book : an investigation of the extent to which the formal structuring of a visual narrative retrieves a pastiche of past experiences and images which in turn shapes and redirects the story

Throughout this research, the notion that illustrators of children's books embark on two types of activity has been reinforced at every turn. On one hand the artist acknowledges the external world by organising images of actions and events in the contexts of place and time. This process involves bringing ideas into a physical form and demands the structuring of characters, settings, and story development. Planning and decisions are informed by imperatives that recognise the need for conventions of articulation and communication to a particular target audience. These then become a mayor priority of bookmaking and are constantly impacted on by publishers1 demands and ethical constraints. The other perspective sees the illustrator as expresser where the core of visual narratives for children celebrates the potency of imagination. Here dreams, fantasies, memories and the unconscious become the conduits to shaping sequential images. The artist is engaged not simply in visually telling a story, but rather telling facets of his or her own story. This exegesis traces the evolution of my own picture story book Eddie's Fantastic Fortnight published by Five Mile Press Publishers in tandem with the insights and reflections of five of Australia's most prominent illustrators. It examines whether the structure invested in a visual narrative liberates expressive response, ascribing to the premise that bookmaking plays an informing role to imagination. Equally it adopts the alternative position which asserts that the essence of children's books is indeed fantasy, memory and dreams. This proposition views imagination and inspiration as the primary catalyst around which illustrators build their narrative. In the often lengthy processes of bookmaking, these considerations constantly shift. I have attempted to explore and reveal these mobile and ever changing priorities, not only in my own work, but also through leading exponents in the field.

Narrativization of actuality : convergence of form and genre in film and television

The thesis concerns the treatment of actuality in film and television, particularly the narrativization of actuality images, and the context of their placement within audio/visual texts. Several instances of the convergence of media form and genre are analyzed, and the conventions of classificatory systems and boundaries that pertain to film and television representations are reconsidered in light of changes in the conventions of genre. The distinction between, and convergence of fictional and non-fictional conventions of narrative are therefore central to the thesis, as are the related issues of viewer response, the nature of subjectivity in the viewer, the connectivity of text and culture, and the relations of actuality to the text. The thesis traces the narrativization of actuality through textual, formal and genre boundaries, adopting a ‘line of flight or deterritorialization’ that enables the thesis to ‘change in nature and connect with other multiplicities.’This line of flight passes through the conventional separation of genre groupings and texts, and, similarly, has been applied in the thesis as a rationale for the diminution of theoretical boundaries. A multiperpectival approach is applied to the permeability of, or transcendent relations of the analysis to the boundaries between genres, between texts and culture, and between actuality and virtual representation. In the thesis there is also a theoretical deterritorialization that consents to a pluralism of theory, which is an approach demonstrated by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. The model of multi-perspectivalism adopted in the thesis engages in establishing connections and similarities between theories, rather than emphasizing contradictory and exclusive practices. The Foucauldian notion of the rules of formation in discourse, Nichols’ theories of documentary representation of reality, Bordwell’s schematic interpretation, and several other positions are critiqued, as the line of flight embarked upon in the thesis intersects with, and passes through both textual and theoretical boundaries. The thesis consists of two parts: firstly, a location of theoretical perspective, in which the issues of theory pertaining to actuality and narrative are explicated, and the methodological approach of the thesis is defined. The second part commences with an analysis of the most familiar instances of actuality in film and television, with particular attention to documentary forms. It then engages in the analysis of films that represent actuality but which, in the process of narrativization, display a convergence of genre conventions. The films selected for analysis include Steven Speilberg's Schindler's List, (1993) Oliver Stone's JFK, (1991) and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, (1994) and Contact, (1996). Hence the thesis is concerned with the application of a pluralist theoretical approach, with, however, an emphasis on the Deleuzo-Guattarian notions of rhizome and assemblage. Within this theoretical frame, the connections between actuality and the audio/visual text are explicated, and the formation of text as ‘a rhizome with the world’, is analyzed across a range of examples.

Mathematics as a second language : looking for a bridge between mathematical language and the language of thought

Our thoughts are in one language, and mathematical results are expressed in a language foreign to the way we think. Mathematics is a unique foreign language with all the components of a language; it has its own grammar, vocabulary, conventions, synonyms, sentence structure, and paragraph structure. Students need to learn these components to partake in a thorough discussion of how to read, write, speak and think mathematics. Beginning with the students natural language and expanding that language to include symbolism and logic is the key. Providing lessons in concrete, pictorial, written and verbal terms allows the instructor to create a translation bridge between the grammar of the mother language and the grammar of mathematics. This papers presents methods to create the translation bridge for students so that they become articulate members of the mathematics community. The students "mother" language, expanded to include the symbols of mathematics and logic, is the the key to both the learning of mathematics and its effective application to problem situations. The use of appropriate language is the key to making mathematics understandable.