Thinking about practice in integrated children’s services: considering transdisciplinarity

Integrated service delivery in the early childhood education and care sector is burgeoning as a direct result of government agendas in Australia that privilege services for young children and families, especially those considered most vulnerable and at risk. In many cases this means reviewing and revising current practice to work more collaboratively with other professionals. This paper reports the findings of one aspect of a larger Australian study entitled: ‘Developing and sustaining pedagogical leadership in early childhood education and care professionals’. The focus of this paper is the understandings and practices of professionals in both Queensland and Victoria working in integrated Children's Services across the education, care, community and health sectors. The notion of transdisciplinary practice is also explored as a way to sustain practice. Qualitative data collection methods, including the ‘Circles of Change’ process, the ‘Significant Change’ method and semi-structured interviews were used. The findings indicate concerns around professional identity, feeling valued, role confusion and the boundaries imposed by funding regulations. Working in a transdisciplinary way was generally considered a useful way to move practice forward in these settings, although the ramifications for leadership that this approach brings requires further consideration.

Valuing creativity in the higher education sector : what price the creative knowledge economy?

Contemporary economic and social contexts including the creative knowledge economy provide competing perspectives on ‘the future’ of higher education and the role of the academic within these contexts. Increasingly educators and educationa leaders are expected to act in ‘futures’ oriented ways whilst remaining true to the professional standards of their present environments. Working in the creative industries or as part of the creative knowledge economy increasingly contributes to Australia’s strategic directions for the future but also has an influence on what is valued in the higher education sector.
This paper explores the impact of the creative knowledge economy on the higher education sector and its response to the changing educational landscapes. An exploration is undertaken of the shift towards creative industries where the value of creativity and the arts is linked to economic value. It is argued that this shift requires researchers to alter their identities from that of having ‘academic’ value to engaging with the commodification of knowledge. The paper concludes with a suggested way forward for both the creative industries and the higher education sector using Giri’s (2002) model for transdisciplinarity.

Enactive research : transversal possibilities for expanding the imaging of science

This paper explores the notion of the expanded image as a transdisciplinary interaction between people and environments. In support of this proposition, images and imaging will be discussed through a series of transformative steps: from the diagram to the biogram and from the biogram to biotopology. Two research projects, exemplary of a transdisciplinary approach, inform the move to biotopology (the continuous surface of interactions tied to imaging practices): first, theories of enaction in cognitive science foreground co-selective processes and the precariousness of self- organizing systems and supply new ways of imaging body-environment relationships (Stewart et al 2010; Thompson 2007; and Varela et al 1993); and second, the procedural architecture of artist- turned-architects Arakawa and Gins foregrounds the reconfigurability of the co-selective process that becomes an enactive practice. These approaches suggest that if the image were expanded to include the intersection of the human organism’s behaviors, artifacts (such as images) and built- environments, then the ‘person’ whose myriad surfaces flicker towards future action, might become the best description of an expanded form of imaging, always in process and flickering towards future action. The many and non-locatable surfaces of person would defy disciplinary boundaries and interfere with habitual patterns of imaging. Ultimately, the aim of expanding imaging practices is to expand an embodied capacity to configure and reconfigure conceptual and material realms.

Here where it lives … bioscleave

This essay introduces the work of Arakaw and Gins to interdisciplinary specialists and scholars and practitioners who are concerned with issues of art-science convergence. The co-authors discuss several points of view to the work of these artist-turned-architects and address the difficulties and challenges that their work represents in terms of the convergence and complexity of multiple dicourse and the practical challenges to embodied experience, technlogy-based approaches ot knowledge acquisition and perceptually-based learning environments.

Professional partnerships in children's services: working together for children

Early childhood education and care services in Australia are moving towards an integrated approach to service delivery requiring educators to work in partnership with professionals from sectors such as health, education and community services for the benefit of young children and their families. This means that educators need to work in perhaps new and different ways in their everyday work.Professional partnerships in children’s services: Working together for children looks at ways educators can work effectively with other professionals in building and leading these partnerships in children’s services. It examines some of the issues surrounding working in partnership with others and the implications this has for understanding and enacting leadership. It explores topics such as:•working collaboratively in early childhood education and care settings•thinking about the knowledge base of others•transdisciplinarity—a new strategy to consider•examples of collaborative practice with otherprofessionals in early childhood education and care services are provided.Examples are given that have been implemented in early childhood education and care services to work collaboratively with other professionals. Professional partnerships in children’s services: Working together for children points to a way forward by encouraging the rethinking and reworking of practice by educators with the inclusion of reflective questions, scenarios from services and top tips for educators to consider.

Digital ubiquity in the Anthropocene : the non-anthropocentric anthropology of Massimo Canevacci

The work of Massimo Canevacci is undoubtedly one of the most compelling examples of transdisciplinary thinking when applied to the interdisciplinary effort of expanding the boundaries of a discipline. His work engages with geography, art, technology, media, psychology, etc – a true kaleidoscope of perspectives. The synapses created by the transversal connections he makes across a multiplicity of epistemologies are catalytic. To follow the logical itinerary created by his scholarly inquiry is to be taken on a journey that leaves none of our pre-conceptions untouched.