The discourse of public education: an urban campaign for a local public high school in Melbourne, Victoria

This paper explores the metonymic slippage surrounding the discourse of public education, through observations and interviews with Lawson High School active campaigners in the state of Victoria, Australia. The notion of campaigning for public education has become an ever-present issue on an international scale, and this article aims to contribute qualitative knowledge regarding the key concepts that lobbyists produce and articulate within their meetings concerning public education. Data have been obtained through direct participatory observation within a contextually specific campaigning site, lobbyists' publications and one-on-one interviews with active campaigners. Findings indicate that campaigners present distinct conceptualisations of public education as a discourse and a well-defined model of their school-of-choice.

Geo-identity, urban school choice and education campaigns for public schools

Educational campaigning has received little attention in the literature. This study investigates long-term and organised urban campaigns that are collectively lobbying the Victorian State Government in Australia, for a new public high school to be constructed in their suburb. A public high school is also known as a state school, government school, or an ordinary comprehensive school. It receives the majority of its funding from the State and Federal Australian Government, and is generally regarded as ‘free’ education, in comparison to a private school. Whilst the campaigners frame their requests as for a ‘public school’, their primary appeal is for a local school in their community. This study questions how collective campaigning for a locale-specific public school is influenced by geography, class and identity. In order to explore these campaigns, I draw on formative studies of middle-class school choice from an Australian and United Kingdom perspective (Campbell, Proctor, & Sherington, 2009; Reay, Crozier, & James, 2011). To think about the role of geography and space in these processes of choice, I look to apply Harvey’s (1973) theory of absolute, relational and relative space. I use Bourdieu (1999b) as a sociological lens that is attentive to “site effects” and it is through this lens that I think about class as a “collection of properties” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 106), actualised via mechanisms of identity and representation (Hall, 1996; Rose, 1996a, 1996b). This study redresses three distinct gaps in the literature: first, I focus attention on a contemporary middle-class choice strategy—that is, collective campaigning for a public school. Research within this field is significantly under-developed, despite this choice strategy being on the rise. Second, previous research argues that certain middle-class choosers regard the local public school as “inferior” in some way (Reay, et al., 2011, p. 111), merely acting as a “safety net” (Campbell, et al., 2009, p. 5) and connected to the working-class chooser (Reay & Ball, 1997). The campaigners are characteristic of the middle-class school chooser, but they are purposefully and strategically seeking out the local public school. Therefore, this study looks to build on work by Reay, et al. (2011) in thinking about “against-the-grain school choice”, specifically within the Australian context. Third, this study uses visual and graphic methods in order to examine the influence of geography in the education market (Taylor, 2001). I see the visualisation of space and schooling that I offer in this dissertation as a key theoretical contribution of this study. I draw on a number of data sets, both qualitative and quantitative, to explore the research questions. I interviewed campaigners and attended campaign meetings as participant observer; I collected statistical data from fifteen different suburbs and schools, and conducted comparative analyses of each. These analyses are displayed by using visual graphs. This study uses maps created by a professional graphic designer and photographs by a professional photographer; I draw on publications by the campaigners themselves, such as surveys, reports and social media; but also, interviews with campaigners that are published in local or state newspapers. The multiple data sets enable an immersive and rich graphic ethnography. This study contributes by building on understandings of how particular sociological cohorts of choosers are engaging with, and choosing, the urban public school in Australia. It is relevant for policy making, in that it comes at a time of increasing privatisation and a move toward independent public schools. This study identifies cohorts of choosers that are employing individual and collective political strategies to obtain a specific school, and it identifies this cohort via explicit class-based characteristics and their school choice behaviours. I look to use fresh theoretical and methodological approaches that emphasise space and geography, theorising geo-identity and the pseudo-private school

Geographical dimensions of imagined futures: post school participation in education and work in peri-urban and regional Australia

This paper discusses preliminary findings from a sub-set of empirical data collected for a recent NCVER study that explored the geographic dimensions of social exclusion in four locations in Victoria and South Australia with lower than average post school education participation. Set against the policy context of the Bradley Review (2008) and the drive to increase the post-school participation of young people from low socio-economic status neighbourhoods, this qualitative research study, responding to identified gaps in the literature, sought a nuanced understanding of how young people make decisions about their post-school pathways. Drawing on Appadurai’s (2004) concept ‘horizons of aspiration’ the paper explores the aspirations of two young people formed from, and within, their particular rural ‘neighborhoods’. The paper reveals how their post-school education and work choices, imagined futures and conceptions of a ‘good life’, have topographic and gendered influences that are important considerations for policy makers.

Middle-class school choice in urban spaces: the economics of public schooling and globalized education reform

Middle-class School Choice in Urban Spaces examines government-funded public schools from a range of perspectives and scholarship in order to examine the historical, political and economic conditions of public schooling within a globalized, post-welfare context. In this book, Rowe argues that post-welfare policy conditions are detrimental to government-funded public schools, as they engender consistent pressure in rearticulating the public school in alignment with the market, produce tensions in serving the more historical conceptualizations of public schooling, and are preoccupied by contemporary profit-driven concerns.Chapters focus on public schooling from different global perspectives, with examples from Chile and the US, to examine how various social movements encapsulate ideologies around public schooling. Rowe also draws upon a rich, five-year ethnographic study of campaigns lobbying the Victorian State Government in Australia for a brand-new, local-specific public school. Critical attention is paid to the public school as a means to achieve empowerment and overcome discrimination, and both a local and global lens are used to identify how parents choose the public school, the values they attach to it, and the strategies they use to obtain it. Also considered, however, are how quality gaps, distances and differences between public schools threaten to undermine the democracy of education as a means for individuals to be socially mobile and escape poverty.This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of global social movements and activism around public education. As such, it will be of key interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, specifically those working on school choice, class and identity, as well as educational geography.

Easier analysis and better reporting : modelling ordinal data in mathematics education research

This article presents an examination of the use of Rasch modelling in a major research project, 'Improving Middle Years Mathematics and Science' (IMYMS). It is unarguable that it is important to take students' perceptions, or views, into account when planning learning and teaching for them. The IMYMS student perceptions survey is an attempt to make visible these student viewpoints, and report them in a way that is accessible to teachers and researchers involved in the project. The project involves four clusters of schools from urban and regions of Victoria to investigate the role of mathematics and science knowledge and subject cultures in mediating change processes in the middle years of schooling. There are five secondary and twenty-eight primary schools. The project has generated both qualitative and quantitative data, with much of the qualitative data being ordinal in nature. Reporting the results of analyses for a range of audiences necessitates careful, well-designed report formats. Some useful new report formats based on Rasch modeling -the Modified Variable Map, the Ordinal Map, the Threshold Map, and the Annotated Ordinal Map - are illustrated using data from the IMYMS project. The Rasch analysis and the derived reporting formats avoid the pitfalls that exist when working with ordinal data and provide insights into the respondents' views about their experiences in schools unavailable by other approaches.

Operating a studio within a research culture: the urban heart surgery design research forum

The question of whether or not design can be considered research has perplexed schools of architecture ever since they were first introduced into universities. It was at the center of the Oxbridge union debates in the early 1900s. It formed one of the corner stones of the Oxford conference on education organized by the RIBA in 1958 (Martin 1958) and came under scrutiny again in the UK with the introduction of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 1992. While the arguments both for and against are considerable1, “in order to understand the questions and the possibilities of architectural research and to respond to the difficulties that confront us now, we have to have a model which acknowledges what schools of architecture really are, and could be, and then work with that” 2.
Drawing on professionally oriented research models, such as qualitative ‘clinical research’, from Medicine and the Health Sciences - where the processes of exploration, observation, investigation, recording and communication are conducted in-situ by the ‘practitioner-as-researcher’ 3 - the following paper outlines an initiative introduced in 1999, referred to as the ‘Urban Heart Surgery’ 4. The program actively integrates students entering their second degree program into a studio based design research culture and allows them to engage in critical discourse by working on high profile strategic design projects in three areas significant to Victoria’s future growth: Metropolitan Urbanism, Urbanism on the Periphery, and Regional Urbanism.
With a growing core of industrial and community based partnerships, including: four regional councils (Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Warrnambool) and three metropolitan municipalities (Melbourne City, Port Phillip and Wyndham), the forum actively facilitates a graduate/practice research agenda through the ARC linkage grant program.

Cigarette smoking is negatively associated with family average income among urban and rural men in regional Mainland China

Socio-economic status (SES) has a strong influence on cigarette smoking behaviour. However, as a more sensitive and realistic index of SES, family average income (FAI) has little studied regarding its association with smoking. With a response rate of 90.1%, a cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected urban-rural participants (n  = 29,353) between October of 2000 and March of 2001 in Nanjing, China. The proportion of male participants who were current smokers was 54.7%; for females it was 2.2%. After adjustment for possible confounding variables (area of residence, age, education, occupation) males in the middle (OR 0.76; 95% CI 0.69–0.84) and higher (OR 0.64; 95% CI 0.57–0.71) FAI tertiles had lower odds of being smokers than did males in the lower FAI tertile. There were no differences by FAI category in the odds of being an ex-smoker. Therefore, current smoking among adult males is inversely associated with family average income in a regional Chinese population. FAI may inform the targeting of campaigns or other initiatives, particularly in populations where material prosperity is low in some social groups.

International comparisons of rural-urban educational attainment : data and determinants

We study cross-country differences in rural and urban educational attainment by using a data set comprising 56 countries. We focus on the determinants of rural–urban educational inequality, which is measured by the ratio of rural to urban average years of schooling within each country. We find that riskier human capital investment, less credit availability, a colonial heritage, a legal system of French origin and landlockedness of nations are all associated with relatively lower rural educational levels and greater rural–urban educational inequality. Conversely, larger formal labor markets, better infrastructure and a legal system of British origin are associated with relatively higher rural educational levels and lower rural–urban educational inequality. We also identify an interaction effect between economic development level and some of these factors. In particular, we find that as development level increases, the negative (positive) relationship between French (British) legal systems and rural–urban educational inequality is reversed and becomes positive (negative).

Hybridity, globalisation and literacy education in the context of New York City

Although multiliteracies have been well theorised in recent years, few studies have researched the practical aspects of developing a curriculum of multiliteracies. This article examines multiliteracies as a crossdisciplinary curriculum practice, drawing on data from a 3-year study in an urban middle school. The data show possibilities for students to engage in critique and to move toward designing multimodal texts. Using Bourdieusian concepts of social capital and academic field, we explore the struggles around learning to inhabit certain school discourses.

Adopting web-based learning and teaching: a case study in higher education

Most universities worldwide are becoming distance education providers through adopting web-based learning and teaching via the introduction of learning management systems that enable them to open their courses to both on- and off-campus students. Whether this is an effective introduction depends on factors that enable and impede the adoption of such systems and their related pedagogical strategies. This study examines such factors related to adopting a learning management system in a large multicampus urban Australian university. The research method used case study approaches and purposively selected the sample consisting of innovative teaching academics from across the university, who used web-based approaches to teach both on- and off-campus learners. The data were analyzed using a combination of Rogers' theory of diffusion of innovations and actor-network theory and revealed a series of enabling and impeding factors faced by pioneering technology-adopter teaching academics, some of which are technology related while others are policy related and common to large multicampus institutions. The study found that safe adoption environments recognizing career priorities of academics are a result of the continuous negotiation between the evolving institution and its innovative and creative staff. The article concludes with a series of conditions that would form a safe, enabling, and encouraging environment for technology-adopter teaching academics in a large multicampus higher education setting.

Australian gp's preferences for education about depression and related disorders

OBJECTIVE: To Investigate Australian general practitioners' experiences of accessing education about depression and their preferences for future education on depression and related disorders.
METHOD: Six hundred and eight anonymous surveys were distributed to GPs through 52 rural and urban divisions of general practice; 420 were retumed.
RESULTS: Educational formats involving direct contact with people having mental health expertise were highly valued. Distance education and web based technologies were least used. In the previous year, women and older GPs had spent more time on education about depression. Most intended to undertake more such education in the future and said that education in psychosocial strategies would be very useful. General practitioners' attitudes to further education about depression were influenced by their gender, practice location, and their previous mental health training.
DISCUSSION: More face-to-face training may be desirable to take advantage of GPs' willingness to spend more time on education about depression and related disorders.

Urban area disadvantage and physical activity: a multilevel study in Melbourne, Australia

Objective: To estimate variation between small areas in the levels of walking, cycling, jogging, and swimming and overall physical activity and the importance of area level socioeconomic disadvantage in predicting physical activity participation.

Methods: All census collector districts (CCDs) in the 20 innermost local government areas in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, were identified and ranked by the percentage of low income households (<$400/week) living in the CCD. Fifty CCDs were randomly selected from the least, middle, and most disadvantaged septiles of the ranked CCDs and 2349 residents (58.7% participation rate) participated in a cross sectional postal survey about physical activity. Multilevel logistic regression (adjusted for extrabinomial variation) was used to estimate area level variation in walking, cycling, jogging, and swimming and in overall physical activity participation, and the importance of area level socioeconomic disadvantage in predicting physical activity participation.

Results: There were significant variations between CCDs in all activities and in overall physical participation in age and sex adjusted models; however, after adjustment for individual SES (income, occupation, education) and area level socioeconomic disadvantage, significant differences remained only for walking (p = 0.004), cycling (p = 0.003), and swimming (p = 0.024). Living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas was associated with a decreased likelihood of jogging and of having overall physical activity levels that were sufficiently active for health; these effects remained after adjustment for individual socioeconomic status (sufficiently active: OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.90 and jogging: OR = 0.69, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.94).

Conclusion: These research findings support the need to focus on improving local environments to increase physical activity participation.

Abbreviations: SES, socioeconomic status; CCD, census collector district

Traffic safety education and health promoting school : a metropolitan and rural pilot study

Traffic Safety Education (TSE) is an important part of a school's program; however, it competes with many other components of schooling such as literacy, numeracy and a number of health areas. Hence TSE provision in Victorian schools has been somewhat fragmented and haphazard in its delivery. This small pilot study involved two metropolitan and two rural schools which attempted to link TSE into mainstream school activities through the new Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) utilising the internationally accepted Health Promoting Schools (HPS) framework.
The findings of the pilot study showed that though schools face many demands, understanding and ownership of TSE is possible when administrative support, professional development and adequate planning time are made available. The report outlines several key recommendations to improve the delivery of Traffic Safety Education in Victorian schools.