Book review. Emancipatory practices : adult/youth engagement for social and environmental justice

Book review of Emancipatory practices: Adult/youth engagement for social and environmental justice W. Linds, L. Goulet, A. Sammel, 2010, ISBN 9789087901514 (pbk), Sense Publishers, Rotterdam.

"Well, now I'm upset": Moral and social orders in the playground

There is much still to learn about how young children’s membership with peers shapes their constructions of moral and social obligations within everyday activities in the school playground. This paper investigates how a small group of girls, aged four to six years, account for their everyday social interactions in the playground. They were video-recorded as they participated in a pretend game of school. Several days later, a video-recorded excerpt of the interaction was shown to them and invited to comment on what was happening in the video. This conversation was audio-recorded. Drawing on a conversation analysis approach, this chapter shows that, despite their discontent and complaining about playing the game of school, the girls’ actions showed their continued orientation to the particular codes of the game, of ‘no going away’ and ‘no telling’. By making relevant these codes, jointly constructed by the girls during the interview, they managed each other’s continued participation within two arenas of action: the pretend, as a player in a pretend game of school; and the real, as a classroom member of a peer group. Through inferences to explicit and implicit codes of conduct, moral obligations were invoked as the girls attempted to socially exclude or build alliances with others, and enforce their own social position. As well, a shared history that the girls re-constructed has moral implications for present and future relationships. The girls oriented to the history as an interactional resource for accounting for their actions in the pretend game. This paper uncovers how children both participate in, and shape, their everyday social worlds through talk and interaction and the consequences a taken-for-granted activity such as playing school has for their moral and social positions in the peer group.

Little theory, big plans : social capital and community building in Aboriginal Australia

The discourse surrounding recent Aboriginal social policy regularly refers to pragmatism and partnership. In a simpler world, we might call this ‘getting things done with Aboriginal people.’ To that extent, the discourse draws on an indisputable common sense, and it is not surprising that a variety of political agendas can be packaged within such language. While many things need to be done, the quantity and particularly the quality of social networks required to take effective policy into effective practice is something we ought to consider more carefully. This is where the concept of social capital could be useful, since it focuses attention on the social resources required to construct social policy, as well as the social resources that could be produced by effective social policy. Partnerships and pragmatism are therefore related at a most fundamental level in terms of social policy. We question whether this important conceptual bedrock has been fully explored. Hence we review here some recent ‘big plans’ for Aboriginal Australia, and ask whether the size of the theory matches the size of the plans.

Men's intimate partner abuse and control : reconciling paradoxical masculinities and social contradictions

Intimate partner abuse and control is one of the most common forms of violence against women, and is considered an international problem of social, political, legal and human rights significance. Yet few studies have attempted to understand this problem from the perspective of male perpetrators. This gap is addressed by conducting in-depth interviews with 16 able-bodied men of white European ancestry born and educated in New Zealand or Australia, who have been physically violent and/or emotionally, intellectually, sexually or financially controlling of a live-in female partner. This thesis extends and deepens the dominant ways of thinking about men’s intimate partner abuse by utilising a new theoretical framework compatible with contemporary feminist scholarship. A synthesis of Connell’s theory of masculinities and Bourdieu’s field theory is utilised for the purpose of exploring more nuanced, complex understandings of manliness and men’s relationships with men, women and social structures. Through such an analysis, this thesis finds that men’s perpetration of power and control over women is driven by a need to avoid the stigma of appearing weak. As a consequence, their desire and ability to show love, care and empathy is suppressed in favour of a presumed honourable manliness, and their female partners are used as weapons in the pursuit of symbolic capital in the form of recognition, prestige and acceptance from real and/or imagined men. This research also uncovers the complex interplay between masculine practices and particular social contexts. For example, the norms of practice encountered from those in authority, such as teachers, sports coaches, police, court judges and workplace management, influences the decision making of the men in this study, to use, or not to use, physical violence, psychological abuse and structural control. The principal conclusion is that there is a repertoire of paradoxical masculinities and contradictory social messages available to the men in this study. But gender policing by other men, complicit women and those in authority provides little room for legitimate complexity in masculine practices. Perpetrators in this study reconcile these conflicts of interest by generally avoiding subordinated masculinity and possible ostracism, and instead practicing more heroic hegemonic masculinities by abusing and controlling women and particular other men. This thesis concludes that for intimate partner abuse and control to cease, changes in power structures have to occur at all levels of society.

Indigenous men's support groups and social and emotional wellbeing : a meta-synthesis of the evidence

Indigenous men’s support groups are designed to empower men to take greater control and responsibility for their health and wellbeing. They provide health education sessions, counselling, men’s health clinics, diversionary programs for men facing criminal charges, cultural activities, drug- and alcohol-free social events, and advocacy for resources. Despite there being ~100 such groups across Australia, there is a dearth of literature on their strategies and outcomes. This paper is based on participatory action research involving two north Queensland groups which were the subject of a series of five ‘phased’ evaluative reports between 2002 and 2007. By applying ‘meta-ethnography’ to the five studies, we identified four themes which provide new interpretations of the data. Self-reported benefits included improved social and emotional wellbeing, modest lifestyle modifications and willingness to change current notions of ‘gendered’ roles within the home, such as sharing housework. Our qualitative research to date suggests that through promoting empowerment, wellbeing and social cohesion for men and their families, men’s support groups may be saving costs through reduced expenditure on health care, welfare, and criminal justice costs, and higher earnings. Future research needs to demonstrate this empirically.

Young children’s active citizenship : storytelling, stories, and social actions

This thesis inquires into possibilities for young children‘s active citizenship as provoked through a practice of social justice storytelling with one Preparatory1 class of children aged five to six years. The inquiry was practitioner-research, through a living educational theory approach cultivating an interrelational view of existing with others in evolving processes of creation. Ideas of young children‘s active citizenship were provoked and explored through storytelling, by a storytelling teacher-researcher, a Prep class of children and their teacher. The three major foci of the study were practice, narrative and action. A series of storytelling workshops with a Prep class was the practice that was investigated. Each workshop began with a story that made issues of social justice visible, followed by critical discussion of the story, and small group activities to further explore the story. The focus on narrative was based on the idea of story as a way knowing. Stories were used to explore social justice issues with young children. Metanarratives of children and citizenship were seen to influence possibilities for young children‘s active citizenship. Stories were purposefully shared to provoke and promote young children‘s active citizenship through social actions. It was these actions that were the third focus of the study. Through action research, a social justice storytelling practice and the children‘s responses to the stories were reflected on both in action and after. These reflections informed and shaped storytelling practice. Learning in a practice of social justice storytelling is explained through living theories of social justice storytelling as pedagogy. Data of the children‘s participation in the study were analysed to identify influences and possibilities for young children‘s active citizenship creating a living theory of possibilities for young children‘s active citizenship.

Sustaining the next generation of teacher-researchers to work for social justice

This chapter explores a research project involving teachers working with some of the most disadvantaged young people in South Australia, children growing up in poverty, in families struggling with homelessness and ill-health, in the outer southern suburbs. Additionally, there were particular children were struggling with intellectual, emotional and social difficulties which were extreme enough for them not be included in a mainstream class. The research project made two crucial interrelated moves to support teachers to tackle this tough work. First, the project had an explicit social justice agenda. We were not simply researching literacy outcomes, but literacy pedagogies for the students teachers were most worried about. And we wanted to understand how the material conditions of students’ everyday lifeworlds impacted on the working conditions of teachers’ schoolworlds. We sought to open up a discursive space where teachers could talk about poverty, violence, racism and classism in ways that would take them beyond despair and into new imaginings and positive action. Second, the project was designed to start from the urgent questions of early career teachers and to draw on the accumulated practice wisdom of their chosen mentors. Hence we designed not only a teacher-researcher community, but cross-generational networks. Our aim was to build the capacities of both generations to address long-standing educational problems in new ways that drew overtly on their different and complementary resources.

Developing a social justice framework to ensure good practice in higher education

As higher education institutions respond to government targets to widen participation, their student populations will become increasingly diverse, and the mechanisms in place to support student success and retention will be more closely scrutinised.

Schooling and refugees : engaging with the complex trajectories of globalisation

This paper examines the complexities associated with educating a mobile and politically marginalised population, refugee students, in the state of Queensland, Australia. Historically, schools have been national institutions concerned with social reproduction and citizenship formation with a focus on spatially fixed populations. While education authorities in much of the developed world now acknowledge the need to prepare students for a more interconnected world of work and opportunity, they have largely failed to provide systemic support for one category of children on the move - refugees. We begin this paper with a discussion of forced migration and its links with ‘globalisation’. We then present our research findings about the educational challenges confronting individual refugee youth and schools in Queensland. This is followed with a summary of good practice in refugee education. The paper concludes with a discussion of how nation-states might play a more active role in facilitating transitions to citizenship for refugee youth.

Applying a social justice framework to ensure good practice in monitoring student learning engagement

A current Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded action research project aims to provide a set of practical resources founded on a social justice framework, to guide good practice for monitoring student learning engagement (MSLE) in higher education. The project involves ten Australasian institutions, eight of which are engaged in various MSLE type projects. A draft framework, consisting of six social justice principles which emerged from the literature has been examined with reference to the eight institutional approaches for MSLE in conjunction with the personnel working on these initiatives during the first action research cycle. The cycle will examine the strategic and operational implications of the framework in each of the participating institutions. Cycle 2 will also build capacity to embed the principles within the institutional MSLE program and will identify and collect examples and resources that exemplify the principles in practice. The final cycle will seek to pilot the framework to guide new MSLE initiatives. In its entirety, the project will deliver significant resources to the sector in the form of a social justice framework for MSLE, guidelines and sector exemplars for MSLE. As well as increasing the awareness amongst staff around the criticality of transition to university (thereby preventing attrition) and the significance of the learning and teaching agenda in enhancing student engagement, the project will build leadership capacity within the participating institutions and provide a knowledge base and institutional capacity for the Australasian HE sector to deploy the deliverables that will safeguard student learning engagement At this early stage of the project the workshop session provides an opportunity to discuss and examine the draft set of social justice principles and to discuss their potential value for the participants’ institutional contexts. Specifically, the workshop will explore critical questions associated with the principles.

Developing a social justice framework to ensure good practice in higher education

The concept of student engagement is a key factor in student achievement and retention and Australasian universities have a range of initiatives aimed at monitoring and intervening with students who are at risk of disengaging. Given the aspirations about widening participation, it is absolutely critical that these initiatives are designed to enable success for all students, particularly those for whom social and cultural disadvantage have been a barrier. Consequently, these types of initiatives must be consistent with the concept of social justice and a set of principles would provide this philosophical foundation for the sector. An Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project that involves ten Australasian universities, is designing of a suite of resources for the sector which will include: (1) a set of principles for good practice in MSLE, (2) a good practice guide for the design and implementation of institutional MSLE policy and practice, and (3) a collection of resources for and exemplars of good practice to be taken up by the sector. This workshop session will provide an opportunity for participants to examine the draft set of principles and to discuss their potential value for the participants’ institutional contexts. Australian Learning and Teaching Council Competitive Grant CG10-1730 2010-2012: Good practice for safeguarding student learning engagement in higher education institutions.

Teaching to disrupt preconceptions : education for social justice in the imperial aftermath

In this paper I discuss some of the approaches that I take in challenging student teachers to understand education in global context, rather than in a decontextualized or instrumental way. These approaches draw on my experience of being an educator from the ‘global South’ (the Caribbean) now working in the ‘global North’ (Australia). As the first black teacher that most Australian student teachers have encountered in their entire education, I find that I can offer them provocative educational narratives and questions stemming from a lifetime career in education, studying and working in various roles in schools, colleges, universities and ministries of education in Jamaica, Grenada, Hong Kong, the UK, the USA and Australia. I set out to disrupt the preconceptions of my students as a starting point in a collective journey of thinking differently about education.