Creating cultural change in education : A proposal for a continuum for evaluating the effectiveness of sustainable schools implementation strategies in Australia

Networks are increasingly recognised as advantageous when creating and embedding cultural change within organisations. This paper explores andproblematises ideas around networks for education for sustainability (EfS), Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), a national, whole-school approach to EfS. In three Australian states - New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland – AuSSI has been implemented in different ways. In examining the use of products, facilitators and networks to embed initiatives such as AuSSI in Australian schools, we propose a “continuum of cultural change strategies” as a framework for thinking about each of these approaches to creating organisational and cultural change for sustainability. We anticipate that such a framework may assist where choices need to be made in relation to the kinds of capacity building processes that might best achieve “deep and wide” change within schools hoping to engender significant cultural change.

"Criatividade na Educação e Formação de Talentos" (Creativity in Education and Development of Talent)

Historically, 'Creativity' has had a complex set of meanings. Not long ago, 'Creativity' had a kind of marginal or peripheral status, being seen as the province of a gifted few; in many cases it was associated almost exclusively with the arts and with artists. But these traditional attitudes to creativity are changing. Mainstream businesses are employing people with creative skills as diverse as writing, directing, graphic design and event management. So what we’re beginning to see is an innovation framework and creative content adding value not just to SMEs, but to traditional industries such as manufacturing and mining, and to wider service industries. And this is why Education is such an important element, particularly with a focus on innovation, and on creative people and the contributions they make across different parts of the economy.

Partners in education : the teacher education done differently (TEDD) project

There has been an abundance of education reform recommendations for teaching and teacher education as a result of national and international reviews. A major criticism in education is the lack of connection between theory and practice (or praxis), that is, how the learning at university informs practical applications for teaching in the classroom. This paper presents the Teacher Education Done Differently (TEDD) project, funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). It outlines how it has re-structured its offering of coursework in a Bachelor of Education (BEd) held at an Australian university campus to embrace praxis. Establishing partnerships was crucial to the development of this project. TEDD initially gathered a reference group of educators, which included university staff, school executives, and other key stakeholders, who formed an Advisory Group and Steering Committee. These groups formed a collective vision for TEDD and aimed to motivate others, foster team work, and create leadership roles that would benefit all stakeholders. The paper presents how university units changed to include a stronger praxis development for preservice teachers. Preservice teachers take their learning into schools within lead-up programs such as Ed Start for practicum I, III, and IV; Science in Schools, and Studies of Society and its Environment (SOSE). Findings showed that opportunities for undertaking additional real-world experiences were perceived to assist the preservice teachers’ praxis development. Additional school-based experiences as lead-up days for field experiences and as avenues for exploring the teaching of specific subject areas presented as an opportunity for enhancing education for all.

Performance recordivity : studio music in a live context

A broad range of positions is articulated in the academic literature around the relationship between recordings and live performance. Auslander (2008) argues that “live performance ceased long ago to be the primary experience of popular music, with the result that most live performances of popular music now seek to replicate the music on the recording”. Elliott (1995) suggests that “hit songs are often conceived and produced as unambiguous and meticulously recorded performances that their originators often duplicate exactly in live performances”. Wurtzler (1992) argues that “as socially and historically produced, the categories of the live and the recorded are defined in a mutually exclusive relationship, in that the notion of the live is premised on the absence of recording and the defining fact of the recorded is the absence of the live”. Yet many artists perform in ways that fundamentally challenge such positions. Whilst it is common practice for musicians across many musical genres to compose and construct their musical works in the studio such that the recording is, in Auslander’s words, the ‘original performance’, the live version is not simply an attempt to replicate the recorded version. Indeed in some cases, such replication is impossible. There are well known historical examples. Queen, for example, never performed the a cappella sections of Bohemian Rhapsody because it they were too complex to perform live. A 1966 recording of the Beach Boys studio creation Good Vibrations shows them struggling through the song prior to its release. This paper argues that as technology develops, the lines between the recording studio and live performance change and become more blurred. New models for performance emerge. In a 2010 live performance given by Grammy Award winning artist Imogen Heap in New York, the artist undertakes a live, improvised construction of a piece as a performative act. She invites the audience to choose the key for the track and proceeds to layer up the various parts in front of the audience as a live performance act. Her recording process is thus revealed on stage in real time and she performs a process that what would have once been confined to the recording studio. So how do artists bring studio production processes into the live context? What aspects of studio production are now performable and what consistent models can be identified amongst the various approaches now seen? This paper will present an overview of approaches to performative realisations of studio produced tracks and will illuminate some emerging relationships between recorded music and performance across a range of contexts.

Introductory Indigenous Studies in Education : Reflection and the Importance of Knowing

Although the demand for pre-service teachers to be better informed about Indigenous issues in Australia has been broadly articulated, it is reasonably new for universities to make Indigenous studies a compulsory area of study, or to define what is meant by 'Indigenous education'. This book was motivated by the growing necessity for an approach to Indigenous education that would include more than just a summarising of Indigenous history and traditional culture. It is useful for anyone with an interest in challenging their ideas about culture, identity and history in Australia.

Teacher professional standards : mirage or miracle cure - an archaeology of professionalism in education

This thesis is a problematisation of the development and implementation of professional standards as the mechanism to enhance professionalism and teacher quality in the teaching force within Australia and, more specifically, Queensland. Drawing on tools from Foucauldian archaeological analysis, the dominant discourses of professionalism from the academic literature, Australian federal and state policy documents and narratives from Queensland teachers are examined. These data sets are then cross referenced, analysing the intersections and divergences between the different texts. Findings suggest that through policy, political strategy and derisory statements from various authoritative voices, the managerial discourse of professionalism through professional standards documents has been unduly privileged as a means of regulating teachers, despite the fact that teachers themselves do not share this dominant notion of professionalism. The teachers in this study proffer ‘new classical-practical professionalism’ as a counter discourse, or discourse of resistance, to managerialism. However, an application of Foucault’s theorisations on power-knowledge reveals that their spoken discourses mean they are in fact yielding to the discourse of professional standards as docile bodies.

Holistic blended design studio model : potential implication in education of Iran

Iran as a developing country faces many considerable shortages of both physical learning environment and inefficient budget to resolve this shortage. Today, Iran needs a $28 billion budget to add 23,000 schools to the existing 120,000 schools to be able to omit two shifts schools [1], [2]. Moreover, the standard learning space is 6-8 square meter per student, while this rate for big cities in Iran is about one square meter per student [1]. This decrease the time students spend in schools. In addition, the education approach in k-12 and higher education is still teacher-centered based and needs to be contemporized with educational, cultural, and technological changes.

Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) : building the ICT in education capacity of the next generation of teachers in Australia

The Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) project is a unique nationally significant project funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations (DEEWR, Au$8.8 million) and the Information and Communication Technology Innovation Fund (ICTIF). This 2011-2012 project has ambitiously attempted to build the ICT education (ICTE) capacity of the next generation of Australian teachers through its focus on pre-service teachers, teacher educators and the new Australian Curriculum. This paper will provide an overview of the project including a description of its genesis in a changing educational and political landscape, its structure and operations, its grounding in contemporary theory, the research opportunities it has engendered and its tangible outcomes.

Postpositivist research in education : theorising social structure in critical and institutional ethnography

This chapter charts the theories and methods being adopted in an investigation of the 'micro-politics' of teacher education policy reception at a site of higher education in Queensland from 1980 to 1990. The paper combines insights and methods from critical ethnography with those from the institutional ethnography of feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith to link local policy activity at the institutional site to broader social structures and processes. In this way, enquiry begins with--and takes into account--the experiences of those groups normally excluded from mainstream and even critical policy analysis.

The ‘Russian doll’ approach : developing nested case-studies to support international comparative research in education

International comparison is complicated by the use of different terms, classification methods, policy frameworks and system structures, not to mention different languages and terminology. Multi-case studies can assist in the understanding of the influence wielded by cultural, social, economic, historical and political forces upon educational decisions, policy construction and changes over time. But case studies alone are not enough. In this paper, we argue for an ecological or scaled approach that travels through macro, meso and micro levels to build nested case-studies to allow for more comprehensive analysis of the external and internal factors that shape policy-making and education systems. Such an approach allows for deeper understanding of the relationship between globalizing trends and policy developments.

Narrative, education policy and the newsprint media : A critical discourse analysis of the construction of young people's participation in education or employment

This thesis used Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate how a government policy and the newsprint media constructed discussion about young people’s participation in education or employment. The study found that a continuous narrative across both sites about government as a noble agent taking action to redress the social disruption caused by young people’s disengagement. Unlike the education policy, the newsprint media blamed young people who were disengaged and failed to recognise the barriers they often face. The study points to possibilities for utilising the power of narrative to build a more fair and rigorous discussion of issues in the public sphere.

The Music Industry : Music in the Cloud, 1st edition

"The music industry is going through a period of immense change brought about in part by the digital revolution. What is the role of music in the age of computers and the internet? How has the music industry been transformed by the economic and technological upheavals of recent years, and how is it likely to change in the future? This is the first major study of the music industry in the new millennium. Wikström provides an international overview of the music industry and its future prospects in the world of global entertainment. He illuminates the workings of the music industry, and captures the dynamics at work in the production of musical culture between the transnational media conglomerates, the independent music companies and the public." -- back cover Table of Contents Introduction: Music in the Cloud Chapter 1: A Copyright Industry. Chapter 2: Inside the Music Industry Chapter 3: Music and the Media Chapter 4: Making Music - An Industrial or Creative Process Chapter 5: The Social and Creative Music Fan Chapter 6: Future Sounds

Leadership of public education : an exploration of executive leaders in education Queensland

Education reform aimed at achieving improved student learning is a demanding challenge for leaders at all levels of education across the globe. In Queensland, Australia, Assistant Regional Directors, School Performance (ARD-SP) of public schools are executive leaders at the forefront of this challenge, working with groups, clusters, or networks of schools and one-on-one with principals, focusing on the performance of their schools. The ARD-SP role was recently established to positively impact student learning across the entire public school system in Queensland. The proposed study aimed to capture how ARDs-SP conceptualise and enact their leadership role. The study utilised a micropolitical perspective of leadership to understand the way in which these leaders talked about their leadership practices, their challenges, and the wider contextual factors impacting upon their work. A case study methodology guided the study and allowed ARDs-SP to share their understandings and enactment of executive leadership. A conceptual framework drawing upon the micropolitical leadership framework of Blase and Anderson (1995) was employed to analyse the research data gathered. Data were collected from Education Queensland (EQ) (i.e. that sector of the Department of Education and Training in Queensland responsible for public schools) policy material and reports and two rounds of semi-structured interviews with 18 ARD-SP participants and two senior EQ executives. The findings of this study were initially presented as four themes: performance, supervision, professional challenge, and system sustainability. They were then considered in the light of the literature and explored through the macro, meso, and micro layers within the conceptual framework. The key findings of this study found that ARDs-SP referred to using two different leadership approaches (i.e. an adversarial approach and/or a facilitative approach) when supervising school principals and the approach employed depended primarily upon the perceived performance of the principal. It was also found that the notion of supervision embedded within the role was perceived by ARDs-SP as problematic. These findings imply opportunities to refine the role and in doing so harness other system improvement strategies for EQ. An important contribution of this study was a reconceptualised conceptual framework that showed leadership approaches used by ARDs-SP as falling upon a continuum.