'Smart' technologies in early years literacy education. A game changer: mobile touchscreen devices and the education of young children

Professors Julianne Lynch and Terri Redpath discuss their article published in the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy entitled "Smart Technologies in Early Years Literacy Education".

The new heritage studies : origins and evolution, problems and prospects

Over the last three decades, community and professional views of what constitutes significant cultural heritage have broadened in many countries around the world. Heritage practice has moved from a narrowly technical or fabric focus to a values-based approach engaging all stakeholders, including indigenous communities. While much Western heritage knowledge and practice remains indispensable, gaps can be filled in by drawing on other knowledge areas and ethical considerations, including links between heritage practice and human rights. These new directions require new approaches in the preparation of practitioners as well as others engaged in heritage processes. In addition to education and training, a third concept – capacity-building – is overarching and potentially powerful in reaching new heritage actors. The aim of giving heritage a valued role in the life of the community, which applies at global, national, and local levels, represents the greatest challenge for educators, trainers, and capacity-builders in the contemporary world.

The new heritage studies and education, training, and capacity-building

Over the last three decades, community and professional views of what constitutes significant cultural heritage have broadened in many countries around the world. Heritage practice has moved from a narrowly technical or fabric focus to a values-based approach engaging all stakeholders, including indigenous communities. While much Western heritage knowledge and practice remains indispensable, gaps can be filled in by drawing on other knowledge areas and ethical considerations, including links between heritage practice and human rights. These new directions require new approaches in the preparation of practitioners as well as others engaged in heritage processes. In addition to education and training, a third concept – capacity-building – is overarching and potentially powerful in reaching new heritage actors. The aim of giving heritage a valued role in the life of the community, which applies at global, national, and local levels, represents the greatest challenge for educators, trainers, and capacity-builders in the contemporary world.

Rethinking the spatiality of literacy practices in multicultural conditions

Moving beyond the limitations of the ‘space-as-container’ ontology (Gotham, 2003), this paper offers Bakhtinian (dialogical) perspective on the use of cultural-semiotic spaces, in particular with regard to the production of new transcultural meanings and hybrid literacy practices as a result of interaction between differences. From this perspective cultural-semiotic space is not a neutral backdrop against which literacy practices unfold, but rather it is in the constant process of change due to the struggle between centrifugal and centripetal forces that operate on the level of spatial and textual politics – that is, between the processes of cultural and textual uniformization and local fragmentation. Given the dialogical nature of space and its relations to cultural identities of migrant and minority students and their literacy practices, the paper argues for rethinking literacy studies in multicultural conditions. This task becomes more urgent in the current educational era of standards, accountability and classroom pedagogies that are not attuned to the particularities of students’ intertextual practices and emergent transcultural places in which they live.

Building equitable literate futures: home and school computer-mediated literacy practices and disadvantage

This five-volume collection lays out the foundations and nuances of literacy studies. Beginning with the theoretical and epistemological perspectives that have been influential in shaping contemporary approaches in literacy studies, the set further explores new digital literacies, literacy in educational and institutional contexts, and the crucial issues of literacy in relation to social mobility, multilingualism and globalization. With a full introduction to the set and to each volume, researchers will find in this set a comprehensive guide to this crucial area of study.
Chapter 4 in volume 3(Angus, Snyder and Sutherland-Smith) is a research chapter exploring literacy practices and the use of technology in the context of disadvantage. In four contexts it examines the 'digital divide' in home and school literacy and what makes a difference in learning success. 

Health literacy and the determinants of obesity: a population-based survey of sixth grade school children in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: Health literacy has become an important health policy and health promotion agenda item in recent years. It had been seen as a means to reduce health disparities and a critical empowerment strategy to increase people's control over their health. So far, most of health literacy studies mainly focus on adults with few studies investigating associations between child health literacy and health status. This study aimed to investigate the association between health literacy and body weight in Taiwan's sixth grade school children.

METHODS: Using a population-based survey, 162,209 sixth grade (11-12 years old) school children were assessed. The response rate at school level was 83%, with 70% of all students completing the survey. The Taiwan child health literacy assessment tool was applied and information on sex, ethnicity, self-reported health, and health behaviors were also collected. BMI was used to classify the children as underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. A multinomial logit model with robust estimation was used to explore associations between health literacy and the body weight with an adjustment for covariates.

RESULTS: The sample consisted of 48.9% girls, 3.8% were indigenous and the mean BMI was 19.55 (SD = 3.93). About 6% of children self-reported bad or very bad health. The mean child health literacy score was 24.03 (SD = 6.12, scale range from 0 to 32). The overall proportion of obese children was 15.2%. Children in the highest health literacy quartile were less likely to be obese (12.4%) compared with the lowest quartile (17.4%). After controlling for gender, ethnicity, self-rated health, and health behaviors, children with higher health literacy were less likely to be obese (Relative Risk Ratio (RRR) = 0.94, p < 0.001) and underweight (RRR = 0.83, p < 0.001). Those who did not have regular physical activity, or had sugar-sweetened beverage intake (RRR > 1.10, p < 0.0001) were more likely to report being overweight or obese.

CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates strong links between health literacy and obesity, even after adjusting for key potential confounders, and provides new insights into potential intervention points in school education for obesity prevention. Systematic approaches to integrating a health literacy curriculum into schools may mitigate the growing burden of disease due to obesity.

A review of epidemiological studies on children`s health and wellbeing

New epidemiological studies on children's health and wellbeing are essential to guide policy development. To ensure that these studies are based on the current conceptualisation of health, they should have a theoretical rationale for the selection of their domains. The scales used to measure each domain must be psychometrically sound, and also reflect the current conceptualisation of the domain. When selecting scales for each domain, child questionnaires must be considered, in addition to adult proxy measures. Through following these recommendations, researchers can ensure that their studies have theoretical and practical relevance. (non-author abstract)

Sir Walter Scott in the western district, 1836-1851

A survey of 30 early settlement squatters in Victoria, using their letters, diaries and memoirs to compile a regional history of colonial readers. The resulting reader-responses support the emerging interpretations of Affective Reading, rather than more conventional strategies of literary criticism (New Historicism and Discourse Analysis).

Teacher agency and participation in professional learning for new literacies

The proliferation of digital technologies is influencing the relational as well as the technological and meaning-making aspects of literacy learning. There is a renewed focus on student learning that promotes agency and enables new literacies mindsets. However a lack of clarity persists as to the form and content of effective professional learning for teachers of new literacies. Combining elements from various models of professional learning to foster teacher agency and participation mobilises transformed processes and conditions. This article draws on literature from the areas of new literacies, student agency and teacher professional learning to argue for approaches to teacher professional learning that support new literacy learning. It explores the characteristics of models of professional learning for teachers; describes a professional learning program offered to teachers of literacy; outlines a mixed methods research study in the form of a survey of participants engaged in the professional learning program; and analyses teacher perceptions of their experiences of professional learning and how key characteristics influenced their learning.

Seeking mechanisms for improved integration of biodiversity issues in regional natural resource management planning

This article reviews the literature on natural resource management (NRM) planning in Australia, with particular consideration given to exploring how regions might better integrate biodiversity conservation into catchment or regional planning in ways that lead to improved biodiversity conservation practice in the field. Many of the findings of the review are generic, affecting a range of NRM issues (including biodiversity conservation) and the NRM planning process itself, whilst other findings are specific to conservation of biodiversity. Factors affecting the integration of biodiversity include the organizational characteristics of the regional NRM body, clarity in the region of the responsibilities across the three tiers of government, effective participation of stakeholders, existence of detailed NRM plans that include sound biodiversity data and management principles, access to interpreted information, use of a mix of policy instruments capable of delivering biodiversity goals, and effective monitoring frameworks and tools to track the return on investment. there is considerable variability in the ways that NRM planning is practiced across Australia, at the enterprise, regional or catchment levels. However, an overarching issue is how well the planning caters for differences across space, time and human values and this article attempts to identify the considerations that impact on that requirement.

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.