Critical literacies in place : teachers who work for just and sustainable communities

This chapter draws upon theories of social justice, critical literacy and place-based pedagogies and two research projects to discuss how teachers are working ethically and creatively towards a sustainable and just society in their place(s).

Anticipated behaviours of emergency prehospital medical care providers during an influenza pandemic

Introduction: Emergency prehospital medical care providers are frontline health workers during emergencies. However, little is known about their attitudes, perceptions, and likely behaviors during emergency conditions. Understanding these attitudes and behaviors is crucial to mitigating the psychological and operational effects of biohazard events such as pandemic influenza, and will support the business continuity of essential prehospital services. ----- ----- Problem: This study was designed to investigate the association between knowledge and attitudes regarding avian influenza on likely behavioral responses of Australian emergency prehospital medical care providers in pandemic conditions. ----- ----- Methods: Using a reply-paid postal questionnaire, the knowledge and attitudes of a national, stratified, random sample of the Australian emergency prehospital medical care workforce in relation to pandemic influenza were investigated. In addition to knowledge and attitudes, there were five measures of anticipated behavior during pandemic conditions: (1) preparedness to wear personal protective equipment (PPE); (2) preparedness to change role; (3) willingness to work; and likely refusal to work with colleagues who were exposed to (4) known and (5) suspected influenza. Multiple logistic regression models were constructed to determine the independent predictors of each of the anticipated behaviors, while controlling for other relevant variables. ----- ----- Results: Almost half (43%) of the 725 emergency prehospital medical care personnel who responded to the survey indicated that they would be unwilling to work during pandemic conditions; one-quarter indicated that they would not be prepared to work in PPE; and one-third would refuse to work with a colleague exposed to a known case of pandemic human influenza. Willingness to work during a pandemic (OR = 1.41; 95% CI = 1.0–1.9), and willingness to change roles (OR = 1.44; 95% CI = 1.04–2.0) significantly increased with adequate knowledge about infectious agents generally. Generally, refusal to work with exposed (OR = 0.48; 95% CI = 0.3–0.7) or potentially exposed (OR = 0.43; 95% CI = 0.3–0.6) colleagues significantly decreased with adequate knowledge about infectious agents. Confidence in the employer’s capacity to respond appropriately to a pandemic significantly increased employee willingness to work (OR = 2.83; 95% CI = 1.9–4.1); willingness to change roles during a pandemic (OR = 1.52; 95% CI = 1.1–2.1); preparedness to wear PPE (OR = 1.68; 95% CI = 1.1–2.5); and significantly decreased the likelihood of refusing to work with colleagues exposed to (suspected) influenza (OR = 0.59; 95% CI = 0.4–0.9). ----- ----- Conclusions:These findings indicate that education and training alone will not adequately prepare the emergency prehospital medical workforce for a pandemic. It is crucial to address the concerns of ambulance personnel and the perceived concerns of their relationship with partners in order to maintain an effective prehospital emergency medical care service during pandemic conditions.

The relative impact of work-related stress, life stress and driving environment stress on driving outcomes

Previous research has shown the association between stress and crash involvement. The impact of stress on road safety may also be mediated by behaviours including cognitive lapses, errors, and intentional traffic violations. This study aimed to provide a further understanding of the impact that stress from different sources may have upon driving behaviour and road safety. It is asserted that both stress extraneous to the driving environment and stress directly elicited by driving must be considered part of a dynamic system that may have a negative impact on driving behaviours. Two hundred and forty-seven public sector employees from Queensland, Australia, completed self-report measures examining demographics, subjective work-related stress, daily hassles, and aspects of general mental health. Additionally, the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) and the Driver Stress Inventory (DSI) were administered. All participants drove for work purposes regularly, however the study did not specifically focus on full-time professional drivers. Confirmatory factor analysis of the predictor variables revealed three factors: DSI negative affect; DSI risk taking; and extraneous influences (daily hassles, work-related stress, and general mental health). Moderate intercorrelations were found between each of these factors confirming the ‘spillover’ effect. That is, driver stress is reciprocally related to stress in other domains including work and domestic life. Structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that the DSI negative affect factor influenced both lapses and errors, whereas the DSI risk-taking factor was the strongest influence on violations. The SEMs also confirmed that daily hassles extraneous to the driving environment may influence DBQ lapses and violations independently. Accordingly, interventions may be developed to increase driver awareness of the dangers of excessive emotional responses to both driving events and daily hassles (e.g. driving fast to ‘blow off steam’ after an argument). They may also train more effective strategies for self-regulation of emotion and coping when encountering stressful situations on the road.

Assurance of learning : the role of work integrated learning and industry partners

In the partnering with students and industry it is important for universities to recognize and value the nature of knowledge and learning that emanates from work integrated learning experiences is different to formal university based learning. Learning is not a by-product of work rather learning is fundamental to engaging in work practice. Work integrated learning experiences provide unique opportunities for students to integrate theory and practice through the solving of real world problems. This paper reports findings to date of a project that sought to identify key issues and practices faced by academics, industry partners and students engaged in the provision and experience of work integrated learning within an undergraduate creative industries program at a major metropolitan university. In this paper, those findings are focused on some of the particular qualities and issues related to the assessment of learning at and through the work integrated experience. The findings suggest that the assessment strategies needed to better value the knowledges and practices of the Creative Industries. The paper also makes recommendations about how industry partners might best contribute to the assessment of students’ developing capabilities and to continuous reflection on courses and the assurance of learning agenda.

Work integrated learning : an industry partners’ perspective

In recent years the Australian tertiary education sector may be said to be undergoing a vocational transformation. Vocationalism, that is, an emphasis on learning directed at work related outcomes is increasingly shaping the nature of tertiary education. This paper reports some findings to date of a project that seeks to identify the key issues faced by students, industry and university partners engaged in the provision of WIL within an undergraduate program offered by the Creative Industries faculty of a major metropolitan university. Here, those findings are focussed on some of the motivations and concerns of the industry partners who make their workplaces available for student internships. Businesses are not universities and do not perceive of themselves as primarily learning institutions. However, their perspectives of work integrated learning and their contributions to it need to understand more fully at practical and conceptual levels of learning provision. This paper and the findings presented here suggest that the diversity of industry partner motivations and concerns contributing to WIL provision requires that universities understand and appreciate those partners as contributors with them to a culture of learning provision and support. These industry partner contribution need to be understood as valuing work as learning, not work as something that needs to be integrated with learning to make that learning more authentic and thereby more vocational.

Young people’s aspirations for education, work, family and leisure

Young people are arguably facing more ‘complex and contested’ transitions to adulthood and an increasing array of ‘non-linear’ paths. Education and training have been extended, identity is increasingly shaped through leisure and consumerism and youth must navigate their life trajectories in highly individualised ways. The study utilises 819 short essays compiled by students aged 14–16 years from 19 schools in Australia. It examines how young people understand their own unique positions and the possibilities open to them through their aspirations and future orientations to employment and family life. These young people do not anticipate postponing work identities, but rather embrace post-school options such as gaining qualifications, work experience and achieving financial security. Boys expected a distant involvement in family life secondary to participation in paid work. In contrast, around half the girls simultaneously expected a future involving primary care-giving and an autonomous, independent career, suggesting attempts to remake gendered inequalities

Gender influences on the work-related stress-coping process

The increasing incidence of occupational stress is recognized as a global phenomenon that is having a detrimental impact on both individuals and organizations. This study aims to identify whether men and women adopt different stress and coping processes when subjected to stress in a work context. A total of 258 workers of various professions (males = 106, females = 152) participated in the study. Results indicated that men and women differ in their stress and coping processes, forming two very distinct groups and adopting specific process models when encountering a stressful situation at work. Limitations and implications from this study are discussed.

The work of women teachers in primary literacy education : knowing and doing

This paper provides a retrospective account of three decades of my work as a literacy educator and researcher. Taking key insights from feminist sociologist, Dorothy Smith, including women’s standpoint, the everyday world as problematic, institutional capture, a sociology for the people, I revisit my research on literacy, poverty and schooling. I argue that understanding better the effects of what we do in educational institutions, through collaborative research with teachers, can lead us to generate positive alternative equity-driven practices.

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.

Teachers' work and pedagogy in an era of accountability

A great deal of educational policy proceeds as though teachers are malleable and ever-responsive to change. Some argue they are positioned as technicians who simply implement policy. However, how teachers go about their work and respond to reform agendas may be contingent upon many factors that are both biographical in nature and workplace related. In this paper we discuss the work of middle school teachers in low-socioeconomic communities from their perspectives. Referring to reflective interviews, meeting transcripts and an electronic reporting template, we examine how teacher participants in a school reform project describe their work - what they emphasise and what they down-play or omit. Using Foucaultian approaches to critical discourse analysis and insights from Dorothy Smith's (2005) Institutional Ethnography, we consider the 'discursive economy' (Carlson, 2005) in teachers' reported experiences of their everyday practices in northern suburbs schools in South Australia in which a democratic progressive discourse exists alongside corporate and disciplinary discourses.

Who wants to work in childcare? Pre-service early childhood teachers' consideration of work in the child care sector

Australia is currently witnessing considerable change in conceptualisation of the role of child care. This is a response to the strong evidence from developmental science that demonstrates the lifelong impact of early experiences. The recent commitment made by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) (Communiqué, December 2009a) to improved qualifications and quality of those working in child care is a manifestation of this shift and highlights the importance of the childcare workforce. This study focused on the considerations of a third year cohort of B.Ed (EC) pre-service teachers (n = 55), about entering the childcare workforce. It examines their willingness to work in child care and identifies barriers and incentives for so doing. Our results indicate that, although attitudes to maternal work and child care were largely positive, few would prefer to work in child care under the current conditions. Key barriers were the pay and work conditions, particularly as they compare to other forms of potential employment. Incentives were the opportunity for leadership, creativity and a commitment to advocate for the rights of children. Those more willing to consider work in child care were distinguished from those less willing by altruism—foregoing personal gain to advocate for improved quality as a child’s right.

Work-related road risks and legal liabilities : report for the Redland City Council

Workplace serious injuries and deaths due to unsafe work practices are a substantial health and socioeconomic burden to the community, particularly in industries such as construction, agriculture and fishing, and transport and storage. Some 2000 individuals die each year from work-related causes and tens of thousands of individuals incur permanent disabling work-related injuries and the direct (e.g., medical & legal) and indirect (e.g., lost productivity) cost to the Australian economy has been estimated between $32 billion and $57 billion annually. A common cause of workplace injuries and deaths is occupational driving and work-related fatal road crashes comprise between 23 and 32% of work-related fatalities each year. A major safety concern across the various industry groups therefore involve deaths and injuries associated with work-related driving. However, while organisations emphasise safety practices in most spheres of the workplace they often neglect work-related driving and lack appropriate policies to enhance safe driving practices.

Capability for infrastructure asset capacity management

Infrastructure capacity management is the process of ensuring optimal provision of infrastructure assets to support business operations. Effectiveness in this process will enable infrastructure asset owners and its stakeholders to receive full value on their investment. Management research has shown that an organisation can only achieve business value when it has the right capabilities. This paradigm can also be applied to infrastructure capacity management. With competing needs for limited organisation resources, the challenge for infrastructure organisations is to identify and invest their limited resources to develop the right capabilities in the management of their infrastructure capacity. Using a multiple case study approach, the challenges faced in the management of infrastructure asset capacity and the approaches that can be adopted to overcome these challenges were explored. Conceptualising the approaches adopted by the case participants, the findings suggest that infrastructure organisations must strengthen their stakeholder connectivity capability in order to effectively manage the capacity of their infrastructure assets.