The school food environment : associations with adolescent soft drink and snack consumption

Background
Because students may purchase food and drinks in and around their schools, the school food environment may be important for obesity-related eating behaviors such as soft drink and snack consumption. However, research exploring the associations between school environments and specific eating behaviors is sparse.

Methods
Associations of the availability of canteen food and drinks, the presence of food stores around schools, and individual cognitions (attitudes, norms, modeling, perceived behavioral control, and intentions) with soft drink and snack consumption were examined in a cross-sectional study (2005–2006) among 1293 adolescents aged 12–15 years. Soft drink and snack consumption and related cognitions were assessed with self-administered questionnaires. The presence of food stores and the distance to the nearest food store were calculated within a 500-meter buffer around each school. Data on the availability of soft drinks and snacks in school canteens were gathered by observation. In 2007, multilevel regression models were run to analyze associations and mediation pathways between cognitions, environmental factors, and behaviors.

Results
Adolescents' attitudes, subjective norms, parental and peer modeling, and intentions were positively associated with soft drink and snack consumption. There was an inverse association between the distance to the nearest store and the number of small food stores with soft drink consumption. These effects were mediated partly by cognitions.

Conclusions
This study provided little evidence for associations of environmental factors in the school environment with soft drink and snack consumption. Individual cognitions appeared to be stronger correlates of intake than physical school-environmental factors. Longitudinal research is needed to confirm these findings.

Intertextual turns in curriculum inquiry : fictions, diffractions and deconstructions

This thesis is based primarily on work published in academic refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. Taken as a whole, the thesis explores and enacts an evolving methodology for curriculum inquiry which foregrounds the generativity of fiction in reading, writing and representing curriculum problems and issues. This methodology is informed by the narrative and textual 'turns' in the humanities and social sciences - especially poststructuralist and deconstructive approaches to literary and cultural criticism - and is performed as a series of narrative experiments and 'intertextual turns'. Narrative theory suggests that we can think of all discourse as taking the form of a story, and poststructuralist theorising invites us to think of all discourse as taking the form of a text; this thesis argues that intertextual and deconstructive readings of the stories and texts that constitute curriculum work can produce new meanings and understandings. The thesis places particular emphasis on the uses of fiction and fictional modes of representation in curriculum inquiry and suggests that our purposes might sometimes be better served by (re)presenting the texts we produce as deliberate fictions rather than as 'factual' stories. The thesis also demonstrates that some modes and genres of fiction can help us to move our research efforts beyond 'reflection' (an optical metaphor for displacing an image) by producing texts that 'diffract' the normative storylines of curriculum inquiry (diffraction is an optical metaphor for transformation). The thesis begins with an introduction that situates (autobiographically and historically) the narrative experiments and intertextual turns performed in the thesis as both advancements in, and transgressions of, deliberative and critical reconceptualist curriculum theorising. Several of the chapters that follow examine textual continuities and discontinuities between the various objects and methods of curriculum inquiry and particular fictional genres (such as crime stories and science fiction) and/or particular fictional works (including Bram Stoker's Dracula, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, and Ursula Le Guin's The Telling). Other chapters demonstrate how intertextual and deconstructive reading strategies can inform inquiries focused on specific subject matters (with particular reference to environmental education) and illuminate contemporary issues and debates in curriculum (especially the internationalisation and globalisation of curriculum work). The thesis concludes with suggestions for further refinement of methodologies that privilege narrative and fiction in curriculum inquiry.

Critical analysis of action research-based inservice teacher education : four case histories

Changing the nature of institutionalised education is the central theme of the thesis. The potential for radical changes to classroom teaching and to inservice teacher education is considered through four curriculum and teaching reform projects structured by action -research. The problems explored through the thesis are at the levels of teaching, institutional and research practices. It is argued that the professional activity of teachers, administrators, consultants, teacher educators and researchers can be understood to be tightly bound and determined by rules for acceptable professional ways of acting which are often unquestioned and unexamined by educators themselves. It is further argued that institutionalised education is dominated by ways of thinking and acting that are inherently individualistic. The thesis analyses the ideological character of this 'individualistic1 structuring of educational practice, identifying belief systems that hold the lived reality of educators and students in place. The thesis endeavours to show that the bureaucratic character of institutionalised education primarily serves and maintains the interests of dominant groups. The thesis examines the possibilities for radical reform in classroom teaching, the support teachers need when embarking on curriculum and teaching change processes, and the possible outcomes of such reform. The thesis also examines the interaction between the institutional practices of schools, universities and regional offices in the Ministry of Education in Victoria, Australia on these reform processes in classrooms. Finally, the thesis examines the potential of action research as a research and educative process in the professional development of educators who are both critically aware of the ideological nature of institutionalised education and committed to collective social action. From the analyses of the four action research projects the thesis concludes that action research has the potential to transform institutionalised education when its own practice is firstly, developed as a liberating pedagogy and not as research projects structured by individualistic and paternalistic interests; secondly, is driven by a commitment to the political struggle for equity and social justice; and thirdly, is itself an expression of communitarian work. The thesis concludes that the transformative processes associated with action research under these conditions hold the promise of democratising the 'individualistic' character of institutional education.

Language, power and ruling relations in vocational education and training

This thesis uses institutional ethnography to explore the text-based regulatory framework of the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Training Packages are national competency standards used to assess local workplace practice. The Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) is a national compliance framework used to audit local learning and assessment practice. These texts operate in a ‘symbiotic relationship’ to achieve a policy goal of national consistency. The researcher explicates the social relations of VET starting from her disquiet as a practitioner. The thesis argues that Training Packages and the AQTF socially organise the content and delivery of local learning and assessment activities. VET practitioners struggle to use these texts to support good practice, and their hidden work maintains an unstable VET system. Yet the extralocal mode of ruling offers no room to challenge VET policy. The thesis explicates three themes. Interview data is used to explore the contrast between the institutional language of Training Packages and the vernacular of workplaces in which these texts are activated. Many practitioners and participants simply do not understand Training Package competency standards. Using these texts to judge employee performance shifts the policing of workplace practice from local sites to external VET authorities. A second theme emerges as the analysis explores why VET practitioners use this excluding language in their work with participants. Interview data reveals that local training organisations achieve different readings as they engage with ruling VET texts. Some organisations use the national texts as broad frameworks, allowing practitioners to create spaces for meaningful learning. Other organisations adopt a narrow and rule-bound reading of national texts, displacing practitioners’ authority over their own practice. A third theme is explored through examination of a sequence of VET texts. The review and redevelopment of the mandatory qualifications for VET practitioners identified the language of the competency standards as a significant accessibility issue. These concerns were reshaped and subsumed in an official response that established the use of this language as a compulsory assessable requirement and a language and literacy benchmark. The thesis presents a new understanding of VET as a regulatory framework established through multiple levels of ruling texts that connect local sites to national government agendas. While some individual practitioners are able to navigate through this system, there is an urgent need for practitioners as a profession to challenge national hegemony.

Situationist outdoor education in the country of lost children

This thesis is a study of outdoor education, in the deliberative tradition of curriculum inquiry. It examines the intentional generation and distribution of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes through organised outdoor activities, both as a research interest, and as a critical perspective on outdoor education discourse. Eight separate but interrelated research projects, originally published in 11 refereed journal articles, develop and defend the thesis statement: The problem of determining what, if any, forms of outdoor experience should be educational priorities, and how those experiences should be distributed in communities and geographically – that is who goes where and does what – is inherently situational. The persistence of a universalist outdoor education discourse that fails to acknowledge or adequately account for social and geographic circumstances points to serious flaws in outdoor education research and theory, and impedes the development of more defensible outdoor education practices. The introduction explains how the eight projects cohere, and illustrates how they may be linked using the example of militaristic thinking in outdoor safety standards. Chapters 1 and 2 defend and elaborate a situationist approach to outdoor education, using the examples of outdoor education in Victoria (Australia), and universalist approaches to outdoor education in textbooks respectively. Chapters 3 and 4 expand on some epistemological implications of the thesis and examine, respectively, the cultural dimensions of outdoor experience, and the epistemology and ontology of local natural history. Chapters 5 and 6 apply a situationist epistemology to personal development based outdoor education. Traditions of outdoor education that draw on person-centred rather than situation-sensitive theories of behaviour are examined and critiqued. Alternatives to person-centred theories of outdoor education are discussed. Chapters 7 and 8 use situationist outdoor education to provide a critical reading of nature-based tourism. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 return to the theme of safety in the introduction and Chapter 1, and examine the safety implications of a situationist epistemology. Closing comments briefly draw together the conclusions of all of the chapters, and offer some directions for future outdoor education research.

Continuity and change at C.B.C. : an ethnography of a Catholic Brothers School in Australian society

This thesis is an ethnographic investigation of a Catholic Brothers school, Christian Brothers College (C.B.C.), in the provincial city of Newburyport, Australia* The study explores the traditions and historical purposes of education at the independent, religious school, and examines the manner in which these have changed or are changing. All names, including the name of the school and the city, have been altered to preserve anonymity. The opening section discusses the emergence of the theoretical problem of the dialectic of change and continuity in the ongoing activity of C.B.C. actors. This is followed by an argument that an understanding of such activity requires an ethnographic perspective. Such a perspective, however, must not overlook the organisational and structural constraints within which participants operate. Hence, a critical ethnography, which takes account of both the agency of human actors and the structures which influence their activity, is advocated as the most suitable approach for understanding continuity and change within a complex organisation in its social context. This argument is followed by an ethnographic account of Christian Brothers College, which focuses on the perceptions and activities of teachers and administrators, Individual chapters deal with the Christian Brothers Order and its educational mission at C.B.C.; the nature of religious education at the school; the administration of the school; approaches to control and discipline; the curriculum and evaluation of pupils; and the relationship between C.B.C. and the wider Newburyport community. The concluding section integrates an analysis of continuity and change at C.B.C. with a discussion of theoretical perspectives on reproduction and transformation. The thesis concludes that, although change has occurred in many ways, an institutionalised image of C.B.C. as 'Brothers’ school'persists and impedes the formation of more democratic authority relations, curriculum, and evaluation. The potential for such change, however, is seen most strongly in the ongoing reform of religious education.

Action research in higher education : the advancement of university learning and teaching

This thesis aims to contribute to the improvement and advancement of university learning, teaching, and staff development; to integrate educational theory and the practice of university teaching; and to contribute to the establishment of a new, emerging paradigm in higher education. The strategy towards achieving these aims comprises (1) an alternative research methodology in the interpretive, non-positivist paradigm; (2) an integrated framework drawing on a variety of previously unrelated theories to form an alternative model of university education; and (3) reference to the dialectical relationship between educational theory and teaching practice and their integration through action research in higher education. The thesis is not so much a critique of the traditional paradigm and of existing functionalist-structuralist approaches to higher education, but more a development and clarification of an alternative, dialectical, human action approach to higher education. The original contribution of this thesis to the theory and practice of higher education lies in the development (1) of an alternative model of university education based on an integration of previously unrelated domains of theory; (2) of a theoretical model of professional development as action research (the CRASP Model: Critical attitude, Research into teaching, Accountability, Self-evaluation, Professionalism); and (3) of action research projects in higher education. Action research is research by the university teachers themselves into their teaching practice, i.e. into problems of the curriculum and student learning. The case studies included in and appended to this thesis show that in one educational setting at least it was possible to improve and advance university learning and teaching through action research. The evidence for this advancement is provided in a number of previously published case studies compiled in the Appendix.

Investigating the pedagogical process in physical education teacher education

The study investigated two main questions: the first focused on the factors that enabled and constrained student teachers' engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in physical education teacher education (PETE); the second centered on gaining insight into the usefulness of knowledgeability as a concept for analysing student teachers engagement of a socially critical pedagogy. At the time of writing this thesis empirical analyses of socially critical pedagogies in physical education were rare in the educational literature. The study provided an alternative way of analysing student teachers’ engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. Alternative in that it avoided recycling and reproducing the dualism between agency and structure (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1985) that is prevalent in much of the physical education literature. Conversational interviews were conducted with four student teachers and their teacher educators throughout the duration of a one-semester PETE unit in an Australian university. Observations were made of the lecture and practical sessions and a document analysis was conducted of all unit learning resources. The analytical frame used in the study was structuration theory (Giddens, 1979, 1984). This framework was useful because it gave primacy to the duality of structure which recognised ‘the structural properties of social systems are both the medium and outcome of practices that constitute those systems’ (Giddens, 1979, p.69). The pedagogical intentions of the teacher educator co-ordinating the PETE unit were to change the orientations of the student teachers towards primary school physical education by encouraging them to adopt different ‘lenses’ through which to examine pedagogical practices. These ‘lenses’ highlighted the questions central to those with socio-critical intentions, eg. power, social injustice and diversity. Data generated from conversations with, and observations of, the student teachers, indicated that the actualisation of the teacher educator's intentions were somewhat limited. Despite this, adopting structuration theory as the explanatory framework for the study proved generative at a number of levels. Broadly, structuration theory was useful because it highlighted the way that student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy is contingent upon particular (idiosyncratic) dialectics of agency and structure. Using the duality of structure as an analytical tool illustrated the way student teachers' were influenced by structural factors as well as the way these structural factors were in turn constituted by the action of the student teachers. Also, by utilising structuration theory as an explanatory framework, the concept of knowledgeability was identified as a useful concept for analysing student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. What is more, the study highlighted the reflexivity of the self and social knowledge, both characteristics of late modernity, as being integral to the way the student teachers engaged with the socially critical pedagogy of EAE400. Not only did the study highlight the reflexivity of the self but it also provided insight into the reflexivity of social knowledge. Much of the socially critical work in physical education implicitly adopts a linear approach to change. Given the findings of the study it might be useful for future developments to consider change as circular. The thesis concludes by suggesting that given the reflexivity of social knowledge, socially critical perspectives might be more readily engaged if the PETE content was incorporated into student teachers existing knowledge frameworks rather than viewed as a replacement for such frameworks.