Classrooms, creativity and everyday life : a continuing inquiry

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, as well as documents published by the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (ACARA) in the lead up to the implementation of the national curriculum, all highlight the importance of students becoming ‘confident and creative individuals’ who are capable of meeting the demands posed by the 21st Century. These texts have prompted us to think again about ‘creativity’ and how the knowledge and experience embodied in the traditions in which we operate as English teachers might provide a context for implementing the national curriculum and for continuing the work that we have always done in encouraging young people’s imagination and creativity. The essay breaks up into four parts, including a reflection on the Ghosts of Curriculums Past contained in an old filing cabinet, a dialogical analysis of ACARA rhetoric about ‘creativity’ and a narrative written by Douglas in which he examines the creativity of his Year 8 students when they explored the potential of the ‘Quest’ story as a literary genre. We wrap up by locating our thinking about creativity within what, in the course of our inquiry, has emerged for us as a salient theoretical framework for understanding the creativity that young people display in classroom settings, namely the work of Raymond Williams. The sections of this essay are more or less self-contained, but we hope that cumulatively they point beyond the circumscribed notion of creativity at the heart of the ACARA documentation. The fact that the publication of The Australian Curriculum: English has motivated us to conduct this inquiry suggests that the professional practice of English teachers will always be richer and more multifaceted than this document’s attempt to contain what happens in English classrooms. The best way for teachers to respond to the new curriculum is to continue to engage in reflective practice, exploring the disjunction that will inevitably emerge between the intended curriculum and the curriculum they enact in their local settings.

Communities, networks, individuals : place, self and everyday life on the internet

In this paper, I review the long-established use of the concept of ‘community’ which attempts both to perceive and analyse the experience of human interaction, mediated by networked computing. Ever since this form of communication commenced, it was clear that it was no ‘bloodless technological ritual’ (Rheingold, 1994), but something much more deeply human and expressive. For many years, the conceptual apparatus of ‘community’ served as the primary means for understanding the limits and potentials of this activity. However, the recent rise of social networking and social media might cast doubt on the legitimacy of this contested term’s continued relevance. Thus, I move from community to self, via the network notation that has come now to dominate our terminologies. I seek to demonstrate that, as the Internet has become interleaved with everyday life to the point where there is no distinction, for many people, between online and offline, we need to think again about how and what community might mean. In doing so, I suggest that the relationship between self and others, mediated or otherwise, is always one of shared ‘place’ but that contemporary practices of social networking differ significantly in how that place is shared and the degree of collective effort required.

Baozou manhua (rage comics), internet humour and everyday life

Wang Nima launched baozoumanhua.com in 2008 to introduce rage comics (baozou manhua) to China after noticing its popularity in the USA. The emergence of baozou manhua signifies a new form of expression for ordinary netizens where they move from simply being consumers of comics to producers, combining image and text in a humorous way and distributing them via a wide variety of communication tools. This paper examines how the genre of baozou manhua enables Chinese netizens to vent about their everyday experiences and frustrations of daily life. It also explores how computer software technology and the Internet have influenced contemporary Chinese visual humour by focusing on the baozoumanhua.com Internet community. Although baozou manhua is an Internet phenomenon emerging from the specific sociopolitical context of contemporary China, examining this form of expression not only sheds light on popular online culture in China and the issues Chinese netizens grapple with but also provides an understanding of how digital visual culture changes across time and space as North American rage faces circulate around the world and garner new meaning after being appropriated and reinterpreted in the ‘interpretative community’ of Chinese cyberspace.

Doing justice' : stories of everyday life in disadvantaged schools and neighbourhoods

I worked as a school administrator in 'disadvantaged schools' for many years. In this study I asked colleagues from sixteen schools in the northern and western suburbs of Adelaide to co - theorise about changes in their neighbourhood, school populations and programs, now that their schools are no longer recognised by policy as 'disadvantaged1. I explore the use of narrative method and arts based approaches by constructing a 'literary' research text that uses conventional sociological forms together with images, poetry and personal stories. I use anthropological and geographical theoretical constructs to look at the changing material, economic, cultural and social landscapes and the mosaic of inequalities in the city of Adelaide. I suggest that this is not a simple binary polarisation, although large numbers of people are similarly positioned by de-industrialisation and the diminishing social wage. After examining the literature on poverty in Australia, I am eventually prepared to call this space class, understanding that this is a sociological metaphor. Through a theorisation of each school as a 'place' within a specific neighbourhood, I look at the similarities and differences across sites. I suggest that 'disadvantaged schools' are similarly positioned as sites for the mediation of social inequalities, and that this can be readily seen in the time consuming 'housework' of discipline and welfare. I indicate how each school is differently able to 'do more with less', because of their unique neighbourhood and its narratives, knowledges, histories, teleologies and people. I show that the common coercive regimes of market devolution, new public management and the 'distributive curriculum' frame the work of teachers, students and administrators in ways that are not conducive to 'doing justice', despite the policy rhetoric of equity and community. I provide evidence that the neoliberal imaginary of context free schooling enshrined in effective schools literatures is Utopian and irrational. I argue that the capacity of the school to 'generate context' is always paradoxically dependent on 'context derived'. I discuss the notion of 'doing justice' and the benefits of 'disadvantaged schools' having a local set of principles that guide their decisions and actions and provide evidence that the school administrator's understandings of 'doing justice' are important. I also suggest that, despite being increasingly isolated and hindered by policy directions, the majority of the sixteen schools continue to work for and with principles of justice and equity, drawing on a range of emotional and intellectual resources and deep, longstanding commitments. I conclude by speculating on the kinds of policy and research agendas that might take account of both the commonalities and differences amongst 'disadvantaged schools', and what might be included in a comprehensive and systematic approach to 'doing justice'.

Consumption and the meaning of life

Through an analysis of data from depth interviews with modern American consumers, we examine whether and how individuals quest for life’s meaning through consumption. Our analysis identifies three worldviews that are differently related to the experience of transcendence through consumption. A rationalist worldview is revealed as being unrelated to such a pursuit. It contrasts two magical worldviews held by most informants in which consumption objects are infused with supernatural and metaphysical beliefs that animate life’s meaning for them. Our discussion highlights how recognition of magical worldviews contributes to consumer theory, methods, and concepts of investigation.

Book review : Everyday life in Central Asia past and present

Review of Everyday life in Central Asia past and present, edited by Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007, 401 pp., £14.00/$24.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-253-21904-6

A preliminary examination of public opinion in Australia on the use of biometric devices or identifiers in everyday life

Since the September 11,2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, many countries including Australia have been able to justify the use of biometric devices for identification and surveillance of their own citizens and others in the name of national security.

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a survey that examined Australians' views and experiences with the use of biometric devices in everyday situations in the context of their potential to serve as a 'Panopticon' to keep the nation's citizenry under surveillance. It discusses the adoption of the new communication technology from the point of view of the Justification model that sees technology choice as social
gambling and the pluralist view of technology that sees technology as neutral in itself but as having negative or positive effects on society based on how It is used.

The paper proposes the need for Australian society to balance citizens' right to privacy and civil liberties with the right to stay alive and safe from terrorism and how it may be done with the necessary legal and regulator)' safeguards.

The influence of perceived body image, vanity and personal values on food consumption and related behaviour

Although food is a vital part of the chemical process of life, the manner in which people choose the foods that they eat is subject to a wide variety of external and internal influences. This study employed a sequential mixed method research design to investigate the influence of perceived body image, vanity and personal values on food purchasing behaviour among 18- to 30-year-old females. It was found that although personal values and orientation have a major influence on the food purchasing and consumption process, vanity, physical health and perceived body image were major factors of influence in the purchasing and consumption decision.

Negotiating cultural difference in everyday life : some insights for inclusionary local governance

With the waning of state-sponsored multiculturalism, local governments in Australia have assumed leadership and responsibility for establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships with stakeholders to promote diverse and inclusive cities. Engaging with residents often through consultation processes and interacting with key institutions, local governments aim to value local knowledge and mobilise citizen participation. This social interactive approach to building local knowledge in places officially and popularly identified as socially disadvantaged and culturally diverse, however, is fraught with interethnic tensions if cultural practices unintentionally priviÌege whiteness. In this paper I argue that such tensions can also give rise to moments of affective ambivalence that ate productive if it leads to the acknowledgement and questioning of white privilege within the formal agencies of government. Such questioning provides the possibility to value the voices of local residents and engage in meaningful intercultural dialogue. This paper draws on indepth interviews with planners, elected local councillors and residents in the City of Greater Dandenong, Melbourne, to illustrate the potential that the affective dimension of living with cultural diversity has in building governance capacity and inclusive understandings of citizenship.

Researching bullying with students : a lens on everyday life in an innovative school.

Bullying is a serious problem in schools. This paper reports on a project in which the authors worked with a group of secondary students in an innovative school in the north of England to research issues of bullying and safety. The student researchers used photographs to stimulate conversations with focus groups of their peers. The data showed that while there was little serious bullying in the school, there was an everyday practice of name-calling, isolation, and physical hassling associated with the formation and maintenance of a hierarchy of sub-cultural groupings in the school. The students’ research not only challenges the notion of bullying as necessarily involving a perpetrator and victim, but also offers a lens through which to examine the imbrication of educational differentiation via setting, testing and choice with youth identification practices. It is suggested that this project also has implications for the ways in which one understands and works for inclusion.