Critical intellectual resources for praxis in physical education teacher education : the limits to rationality

This study focuses on the way four student-teachers engage with critical social discourses in a year-long physical education unit. The student-teachers were encouraged to examine and (re)construct their pedagogy through their interactions with critical discourses. Drawing on their personal theories and actions, the study examines the extent to which critical intellectual resources can provide pedagogical frames of reference that are 'practical and non-ideal'. Using a critical ethnographic methodology the students' interactions with critical social discourses are diagnosed across three levels. The first level is the case study presentations of each student's engagement with the critical intellectual resources and the extent to which they were able to understand and implement them. The second level involves an interpretation of the individual cases that is informed by Brian Fay's (1987) metatheoretical reconstruction of the critical social sciences. In the third stage of diagnosis the study focuses on retheorising critical aspirations for praxis pedagogy in physical education. Critical scholars within the physical education arena argue that critical praxis represents a pedagogy based on a 'world view' of the potential for agents to engage in a rational reordering of their qualitative existence. The essence of their claim is that critical discourses have the potential to facilitate a mode of praxis through which physical education teachers might better recognise, understand, critique and transform their values and practices. However, there is broad recognition that the translation of social-critical discourses into a pedagogic context is highly problematic. Interpretation of the study is provided by Fay's (1987) 'limits to change' thesis which recognises that critical aspirations must ultimately be adopted and implemented by real people in real settings. As a diagnostic frame of reference, Fay insists that a 'complete' critical theory [of physical education] be simultaneously scientific, critical, practical and non-ideal. In seeking to temper the "e; over-rationalistic"e; tendency of the critical project he recognises the historical, embedded, embodied and traditional nature of human existence Criticisms of critical theories of education traverse a number of philosophic perspectives. Recent post-structural criticisms of truth regimes, knowledge-power differentials, rationality and agency have seriously destabilised modernist justifications of the critical agenda. Critical theories of physical education have not been absolved of such criticism. A prominent element of this study is its promotion of a dialectical relationship between agency and structure to extend critical conceptualisations of physical education pedagogy. Through the mediation of structural determinism and self-determination this research proffers a means of practically advancing a critical praxis in physical education. The conclusion of this thesis outlines some broad recommendations pertaining to the introduction of social critical discourses in physical education teacher education.

Community-based environmental education : government and community, economics and environment

This thesis contends that government focus on policy implicitly defines community education as a means of overcoming barriers to government-initiated change, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. The role of education is thus viewed as instrumentalist rather than as dialectical in nature. I argue that this role has been reinforced and driven by economic rationalism, as a mechanism related to scientific theory and practice. The thesis addresses the role of government in non-institutional community-based environmental education. Of interest is environmental education under the dominance of economic rationalism and as expressed in government-derived policy, in its own right, and as enacted in two government funded animal management projects. The main body of data, then, includes a review of some contemporary environmental policies and two case studies of 'policy in practice'. Chapter One provides an overview of environmentalism as it has emerged as part of the discourse of Western political systems. Recognised as part of this change is a move to environmentalism embued with the rhetoric of economic theory. The manifestation of this change can be seen in an emphasis on management for the natural environment's use as a resource for humans. Education under this arrangement is valued in terms of its ability to support initiatives that are perceived as economically viable and economically advantageous, maintaining centralised control of decision-making and serving the interests of those who profit from this arrangement. Government-derived environmental policies are presented in Chapter Two. They provide evidence of the conjoining of environment with economic rationalism and the adoption of a particular stance which is both utilitarian and instrumentalist. Emerging from this is an understanding of the limitations placed on environmental debates that do not respond to complex understandings of context and instead support and legitimate centralisation of decision-making and control. Chapter Three presents an argument for an historical approach to environmental education research to accommodate contextual dimensions, as well as scientific, economic and technical dimensions, of the subject under study. An historical approach to research, inclusive of biographical, intergenerational and geographical histories, goes some way to providing an understanding of current individual and collective responses to policy enactment within the two study sites. It also responds to the concealing of history which results from the reduction of environmental debates to economic terms. With this in mind, Chapters Four and Five provide two historical case studies of 'policy in practice'. Chapter Four traces the workings of a rabbit control project in the Sutton Grange district of Victoria and Chapter Five provides an account of a mouse plague project in the Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The Sutton Grange rabbit project is organised and controlled by district landholders while the Wimmera and Mallee mouse project is organised and controlled by representatives from a scientific organisation and a government agency. Considered in juxtaposition, the two case studies enable an analysis of two somewhat different expressions of the 'role of government'. Chapter Six investigates the competing processes of community participation in governmental decision-making and Australia's system of representative democracy, Despite a call for increased community participation, the majority of policies remain dominated by governmental rhetoric and ideology underpinned by a belief in impartiality. The primacy of economics is considered in terms of government and community interaction, with specific reference to the emergence of particular conceptual constructions, such as cost-benefit analysis, that support this dominance. Of specific importance to this thesis is the argument that economic theory is essentially anthropocentric and individualist and, thus, necessarily marginalises particular conceptions of environment that are non-anthropocentric and non-individualistic. Finally, Chapter Six examines two major interrelated tensions; those of central interests and community interests, and economic rationalism and environmentalist. Chapter Seven looks at examples of theories and practices that fall outside the rationality determined by scientistic knowledge. It is clear from the examination of environmental policy within this thesis that the role ascribed to environmental education is instrumentalist. The function of education is often to support, promote and implement policy and its advocated practices. It is also clear from the examination of policy and advocated processes that policy defines community education as a means of manifesting change as determined by policy, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. The domination of scientific, economic and technocratic processes (and legitimation of processes) allows only for an instrumentalist approach to education from government. What is encouraged by government through the process of change is continuity rather than reform. It promotes change that will not disrupt the governing hegemony. Particular perspectives and practices, such as a critical approach to education, are omitted or considered only within the unquestioned rationale of the dominant worldview. Chapter Seven focuses on the consequence of government attention to policy which implicitly defines community education as a means of overcoming barriers to change, rather than as an input to governmental decision-making. Finally a list of recommendations is put forward as a starting point to reconstruct community-based environmental education. The role considered is one that responds to, and encourages engagement in, debates which expose disparate views, assumptions and positions. Community ideology must be challenged through the public practices of communication and understanding, decision-making, and action. Intervention is not on a level that encourages a preordinate outcome but, rather, what is encouraged is elaborate consideration of disparate views and rational opinions, and the exposure of assumptions and interests behind ideological positions.

Evaluation of Australian undergraduate engineering management education for flexible delivery

This thesis examines issues in Australian undergraduate engineering management studies in the context of flexible learning delivery. It is proposed that, within an Australian context: a) the management skills and competencies required by graduate engineers can be determined and classified on a rational basis, permitting an educational focus on those elements most appropriate for graduates; and b) on-line and other computer-based technologies are a practical and effective method for the support of undergraduate engineering management studies. The doctoral project incorporates: • an examination of the nature of engineering management; • a review of the relevant literature establishing the importance of management studies in undergraduate engineering courses; • a review of historical and recent developments in Australian undergraduate engineering management studies; • an investigation of the management skills and competencies required by graduate engineers - based on original research; • an examination of flexible delivery of engineering education - based on professional practice experience; and • an evaluation of case studies of flexible delivery of engineering management education - based on original research and professional practice experience. A framework of ranked classified management skills is developed. Broadly, the ranking framework is generic professional skills, followed by general management skills and technical discipline specific management skills, followed by other professional discipline skills and theoretical skills. This framework provides a rational basis for design of undergraduate engineering management studies. This is supplemented by consideration of the management skills required for the future of engineering practice. It is concluded that undergraduate engineering management education is well suited to delivery and support by on-line and computer-based technology. Recent developments in improved access to the Internet, software systems for on-line collaboration and changes in copyright legislation to create a broad-based right to communication via on-line media have contributed to the facilitation of on-line delivery of teaching and learning. It is noted that though many on-line infrastructure issues have been satisfactorily resolved, higher level issues will emerge as being crucial, including the academic staff development and reward for operating in an online teaching environment and the financial sustainability of on-line development and delivery of courses.

Global education, travel and new imaginaries for teachers' work

This study investigated how teachers‘ knowledge and identities are influenced through their experience of travel. Understanding how teachers make meaning from and respond to travel revealed aspects of knowledge creation and identity formation. Set within contexts of globalisation, the study also investigated global education through analysis of changing definitions and meanings by taking an historical stance.
Through qualitative methodology semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teachers who had recently been on a study tour. The other form of data collection included a collection of four ‗travel‘ stories written by the researcher. The social imaginary was the concept employed to explain and analyse the impact of travel on teachers work and lives.

This small case study of three participants provided a depth of responses to the following three research questions.
1. What is global education?
2. How does the experience of travel shape teachers‘ work and identities?
3. How does teachers‘ work reconfigure global education?
The findings from this study revealed that global education has shifted from a position of marginality in curriculum and teaching practices to a more central location in education policies. The analysis of participants‘ responses to travel as a feature of globalisation, revealed new knowledge, additional teaching pedagogies and greater awareness of stereotypes both held and disclosed from students. The practices and thinking described by participants were consistent with calls for greater cosmopolitan teaching.

This study contributed understanding about how teachers embed global imaginaries in their teaching. This in turn builds understanding around how globalisation is reshaping local contexts and individuals‘ thinking and being. The findings challenge global education as a discrete framework and suggest teachers‘ experiences as influential on education now in a global world. The study confirms that globalisation is reshaping educators‘ work and lives towards a global education.

Technology education, science and science education : exploring the relationship

In this paper the nature of technology education in relation to science and science education is explored. Ways forward are indicated for both technology and science in the curriculum so that the two areas can be mutually supportive. In the 1990s, when curriculum writers were attempting to provide technology a unique place in the curriculum, they tended to downplay the relationship between technology and science. One reason for this tendency derives from a perception that science is an academic and elitist discipline and technology is well served by emphasizing the distance between the two. The other reason is perhaps political, that science, by virtue of its status in the community, and the status of its special type of knowledge, would be in a position, if allowed, to subsume the new subject. There are philosophical and historical precedents that justify such a concern. In tracing the historical relationships between science and technology, in professional practice, in philosophical positioning, and in school curriculum, we inevitably need to deal with the politics of school subjects.

The position taken in this paper is that science and technology are different, both in their epistemological foundations, and in the nature of the professional communities and the concerns of individual practitioners within the two areas. In clarifying these differences the essential nature of technology and of science are illuminated. The paper also explores ways in which the two areas can benefit from each other’s existence in the curriculum, and ways of approaching teaching that both clarifies the special nature of each type of knowledge, and allows them to be mutually supportive. This may necessitate a reconstruction of the nature of school science.

Management education in Australian engineering undergraduate courses

Deals with the requirement mandated by the Institution of Engineers, Australia for the course content of engineering undergraduate courses in Australia. Historical developments on engineering in Australia; Details on the engineering management education in Australia; Implications of the policy and procedures on the nature of engineering management education.

Understanding euthanasia debate : the Northern Territory experience in historical context

The thesis analyses the principles and philosophies behind the public submissions into the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act [1995], which mirror wider debate over euthanasia since 1945. It argues that religious prohibitions against euthanasia have been largely replaced by slippery slope arguments that effectively obstruct law reform.

Community resilience, climate change, sustainability & engagement : adventures in creative project-based education on the Eyre Peninsula

Teaching sustainability ethics and creative practical technological applications holistically, in a multi-disciplinary ethos, with real community engagement is fraught with pedagogical and logistical issues. This paper reviews a highly community-acclaimed tertiary course/project, offered at the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture & Urban Design at the University of Adelaide, undertaken on the Eyre Peninsula in 1st semester 2009. The course successfully enhanced student appreciation of rural community capacity building and economic fragility issues while undertaking a project-based approach to interrogating and working with rural communities to devise and demonstrate potential micro-relevant design and planning initiatives that could strengthen community resilience, climate change adaptiveness, and validate natural resource management aims within townships. The project involved some 120 students in 6 host communities through 6 local municipalities with the full support of the Natural Resource Management (NRM) Board and Local Government Association (LGA).

The paper reviews the project, its historical evolution, aims, objectives, learning strategies, community aspirations and outcomes, and positions such against various professional education accreditation frameworks. The methodological learning process, including its philosophical, pedagogical and instruments outcomes are reviewed and interrogated. The student learning outcomes, University reputation impact, and community impact, professional practice knowledge and skill attributes, and instrumental outcomes are also reviewed drawing upon evidence derived from extensive meetings, questionnaire surveys, synergistic NRM-sponsored research projects, student evaluation of teachings (SELTS), and local media coverage of the project.

The project has received applause from the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) and Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), and preliminary endorsement from the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), as being integral to the School’s curriculum that achieves their professional accreditation expectations of key learning experiences relevant to climate change, master planning and design, and community engagement. The project offers a possible educational model that enriches student experience and learning and addresses recent generic university community engagement policy expectations.

Pedagogy of connections : findings of a collaborative action research project in outdoor and environmental education

Improving human-nature relationships is often a stated aim of outdoor education, yet this aim is not always made explicit in practice. This paper reflects on a pedagogical intervention which aims to find ways to explicitly develop students' connections with natural places through a tertiary outdoor and environmental education program. It describes the intervention process, which is guided by principles of collaborative action research. Furthermore, the intervention uses a multi-pronged teaching approach incorporating repeated visits to natural places utilizing different 'ways of knowing', weekly readings, journal writing, collaborative discussions, and others. We summarize the key findings of the research project and report that repeated visits to a natural place using different ways of knowing (e.g., historical, scientific, ecological, artistic, experiential, etc.) are influential in improving connections. We conclude with a discussion of the opportunities and dilemmas of using action research as a form of pedagogy.

The impact of religious diversity and revitalization on inter-religious education for citizenship and human rights

The unanticipated rise of religious diversity and the re-entry of religion to the public sphere have radically increased the need and demand for education about religions – how they contribute to social and cultural capital – and about the management of religious diversity. The global movement of people and cultures has brought religious diversity to nearly every major city. With diversity has come a renewed interest in the religious identity of others and how to incorporate religious diversity in ways that produce social cohesion. Religious diversity has also raised interest in a values discourse where once atheistic secularity prevailed, made faith-based social and health service delivery both more appealing to governments and more difficult to deliver, and has challenged societies to accommodate a wider range of religious needs and lifestyles. Policies designed to promote social justice and peace have little chance of success without taking seriously the religious dimensions to the issues involved. This context makes clear the need for opportunities to learn about the religions in a society at all levels of education – opportunities that include direct experience of the ‘other’, curricula that appreciate the worlds of faith, spirituality and religion rather than demeaning them, education that provides both historical depth and local reality. Some of this education will be in school, some in remedial work required for a generation or two of leaders who have been raised in ignorance of religion, or trained to despise it.

Early childhood science education : do Australian publishing trends represent world publishing trends?

A literature search of both Australian early childhood journals and Australian science education journals provides a compelling picture of science education in Australian early childhood in the recent past and the previous 40 years. Whilst a previous review of the literature found that there were concerns over the early childhood educators' confidence in teaching science, particularly physical sciences, current research indicates that this problem is still prevalent. The historical perspective also found that there was a distinctive approach evolving in early childhood science education, however further research into the place of science in the cognitive domain of early childhood was required. The more recent literature search found that as an area of investigation, early childhood science is still a neglected research area and there is still much scope for the development of theories and analysis of early childhood science education. The literature search was undertaken scanning for titles which included science education and early childhood in several Australian early childhood journals and Australian science education journals, although it is acknowledged that some articles may have been sent to international journals.

How parental and school responses to choice policies reconfigure a rural education market in Victoria, Australia

Market principles now dominate the education and social policies of many Anglophone countries, including Australia, but articulate differentially within specific contexts. Existing historical legacies, local economic and social conditions, and geographical settings interact with federal and state funding and transport policies to shape the nature of regional education markets and the choices families make in a rural school market in Australia. Through two school case studies, this article explores the effects of policy shifts on parental choice and student movement within a regional Victorian community. Informed by policy sociology, the article views the policy as a dynamic, often ad hoc process with contradictory effects. It indicates how an ensemble of federal and state funding and conveyancing policies enable some schools to develop marketing practices that reconstruct the local education market to their advantage through the introduction of transport and flexi-boarding policies. It demonstrates that education markets are not confined to urban settings and that while choice is not a new phenomenon in this rural area, federal and state funding and transport policies have reconfigured local markets and intensified the market work undertaken by schools and parents with, in this instance, unequal effects on the provision of schooling in a rural region.

Queer breeding: historicising popular culture, homosexuality and informal sex education

Through an analysis of gay protest music (1975) and an educational kit for students (1978), both sponsored by the Campaign for Homosexual Equality in the UK, this paper brings into focus a history of gay rights activists' efforts to marshal popular culture in the development of informal sex education for young people in the second half of the 1970s. Through a reparative critique of prevailing therapeutic research methodologies, and through a theoretical deployment of notions of methodological reconciliation and queer breeding, it makes the case for the importance of historical methods in contemporary sex education research.

Global education: travel and new imaginaries for teachers' work

This book confirms that globalisation is reshaping educators’ work and lives towards a more global education. Understanding how teachers make meaning from and respond to travel revealed aspects of knowledge creation and identity formation. Set within contexts of globalisation, the study investigated global education through analysis of changing definitions and meanings by taking an historical stance. Teachers revealed that their study tour created new knowledge, teaching pedagogies and greater awareness of stereotypes both held and disclosed from students. The practices and thinking described by participants were consistent with calls for greater cosmopolitan teaching. A collection of ‘travel’ stories written by the author are included. The book sheds light on how teachers embed global imaginaries in their teaching. This in turn builds understanding around how globalisation is reshaping local contexts and individuals’ thinking and being. The findings challenge global education as a discrete framework and suggest teachers’ experiences as influential on education now in a global world.