Serving community : prosocial engagement in educational administration

The rise of managerialism in the 1990s entrenched bureaucratic practices as core education and training for educational administrators. As the educational divide between those who achieve and those who fall short continues to problematize the success of educational reforms, the work of administrators becomes critical to review. The current challenge for educational administration is to provide an environment that genuinely serves the interests of complex diversity and social justice in education systems by building the frameworks that respects differences, protects the weak, and regulates the strong. By taking a more prosocial stance with issues relating to cultural diversity, equity, and democracy, educational administration can transform society, the school, and the classroom, through humanistic and interpretive management practices, and influencing pedagogy, curriculum, educator training, and the socio-political system.

Raising 'standards' in schools : considerations in the first stage of an improvement intervention

This article discusses the initial phase of a government-funded intervention to raise school achievement in a cluster of schools with below average standardised test results. Five schools - four primary schools and one secondary school - in the far outer reaches of Melbourne achieved lower standardised test scores in literacy and numeracy than the state average. Two departmental strategies were in place before my involvement the appointment of a coaching teacher in each school, and funding for a four day intensive residential professional learning workshop for these coaching teachers, to be held at the beginning of the 2009 school year. lt was at this stage that I became involved in what was planned to be an ongoing research program to record, monitor and evaluate the success of the intervention.

Teaching like an artist : the pedagogic identities and practices of artists in schools

This article reports findings from an ethnographic study of the arts curriculum and pedagogy in a British primary school. The policy context for the study is the school's involvement in promoting creative partnerships between teachers and artists. The pedagogies of three different artist-led projects are analysed, using a Bernsteinian framework, and are characterised in relation to notions of 'competence' and 'performance' pedagogies. These characterisations are then used to consider the impact of the artists' pedagogies on teachers in the school, and the extent to which the different pedagogies promote inclusion. Broad conclusions are drawn about the relative difficulty of adopting competence pedagogies in the current educational culture of British schools; more specific conclusions are drawn about the importance of time, text, discourse and interpretation in arts pedagogies.

Effects of online professional development on the integration of technology in schools

This thesis examined how involvement in an online network (The Education Network of Ontario / Reseau educatif de l'Ontario) affected teachers professionally. Findings indicated that the network had supported an online community of practice which encouraged development of information and communication skills but that the community had eventually succombed to social and professional tensions.

Enhancing student learning in a first year business program

The central purpose of this study was to investigate whether specific teaching and learning activities, such as concept mapping and reconceptualising the assessment criteria, could improve student learning outcomes in a first year Business program. The rationale for designing such strategies was based on a preliminary study, which examined the specific characteristics of the student cohort, and relevant literature. Overall, findings of this research suggest that these measures can improve student learning outcomes on a written task and further lighlighted the importance of engaging the student within the learning process.

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.

Opening up pathways : engagement in STEM across the primary-secondary school transition

A review of the literature concerning supports and barriers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics engagement at Primary-Secondary transition. Commissioned by the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Hypermasculinity in schools: the good, the bad and the ugly

Beneath the common-sense understandings that some boys are sporty and some are not lies a complex suite of identity positions. For those that manage to have their identity confirmed within the powerful sporting discourses that dominate the masculinity landscape, the path to peer acceptance is a clearer one. Conversely, for boys that have their identity diminished by these same discourses, the consequences can be quite dramatic. While physical and athletic prowess are clearly prominent vectors in this sorting process there is a range of other personal and social conditions that impact such trajectories. Built on narrative methodological approaches, this chapter draws on research conducted in a range of settings to describe some of the ways young males understand and enact sporting masculinities. Through a series of research narratives I present the voices of a number of young males as they navigate their identities within and against dominant sporting discourses. To help make sense of the identity practices contained within these narratives a theoretical leaning towards ambivalence will be engaged. Drawing on the work of Foucault, the formation of a masculine sporting identity can be understood as the development of a specific relationship with oneself and with others. Within this framework, sporting identities, like all other identities, are viewed as a process not a state.