Opportunities and challenges for global education in social education curriculum

This paper will explore understandings about global education as expressed in national and local curriculum statements. Despite curriculum statements in Studies of Society and Environment area including ‘global’ in their rationale, slippage occurs between policy documents and the translation to standards statements. The curriculum area - Studies of Society and Environment is - changing as new titles describe the field and a more integrated approach is being developed in some states – Tasmania and Victoria, this presents challenges for global education.

My work in global education is a result of many years as a Geography teacher, nine years at the Asia Education Foundation, a leader of teacher study tours to Asia and pre-service teacher education students to Canada and Northern Territory. I am a passionate believer in the power of travel to unsettle, to educate, and to be reminded of all I have, and to be thankful.

Teacher perceptions of the role and value of excursions in years 7-10 geography education in Victoria, Australia

Excursions are extremely important to the education of students in the geography curriculum. However, personal observations demonstrated a lack of readiness to conduct excursions in secondary schools. This apprehension of the teachers in this school to implement excursions in geography education was the basis for this study. The study addresses the importance of excursions in education and the roles and values that teachers place on excursions in years 7-10 geography curriculum. Quantitative research was conducted in the form of a questionnaire on a wide range of Study of Society and Environment (SOSE) teachers in secondary schools. The research population consisted of 60 teachers from both rural and urban schools across Victoria. The findings of this study showed that teachers conduct on average one to two excursions per class per year, teachers understand the importance of excursions in geography education and they find planning difficult, but work collaboratively with other teachers to overcome these issues. Other barriers include transportation, student behaviour and cost. With a firm grounding in the conceptual theories and state-level policies of geography education, the conduct of excursions was found to be both difficult and rewarding by teachers in Victoria.

Constructing globalisation in international higher education

The discourse of internationalization is well established but it appears that globalisation has crept ‘by stealth’ (Currie, 1998) into our international programs resulting in an apparent domination by a neoliberal economic discourse. Clyne, Marginson and Woock (2001), drawing on research regarding globalisation and internationalization in Australian universities, suggest that this domination is so pervasive that the term is “irretrievably lost” to cultural usages of globalisation. This paper arises from a case study of the understandings of globalisation within an international higher education program. Understandings of globalisation were sought from both Australian  and Thai policymakers and participants in an international higher education program. It is argued that domination by the neoliberal discourse is evident and predominant but that, in the use of metaphors of globalisation by these  educators, a repositioned understanding from lived experience exists alongside the economically dominated experience of international higher  education. It is here that divergent understandings of globalisation are  constructed. These findings are of value to those involved in the  internationalization of higher education.

Assume the position: reconfiguring the spatial in the pre-service education classroom

Current understandings of the practice of education locate pedagogy in the public domain through the articulation of the personal domain (Pinar, 2004). Critical literacy has provided teachers and teacher educators with a means of transforming subjectivity and relocating the personal through writing (Kamler, 2001). The emphasis in a critical literacy approach on the spoken and written word sits comfortably in the academic discourse of tertiary education, although it's engagement with the personal meets with some resistance. However, to engage the personal through arts based approaches meets far greater resistance. When used as the medium for core educational studies it provokes passionate responses of both dissent and accord. The authors argue the possibilities for an arts based pedagogy in pre-service education which provides a space for learning outside the accepted academic discourse and which supports the possibilities of imaging and knowing the positioned teacher. This research (dis)locates (Laclau, 1990; Edwards and Usher, 1997) the spatial configuration of the tertiary education classroom: reconfiguring the physical, positional, and epistemological.

Bridging the gap between anecdotal and empirical evidence in the international education market : insights from the US and UK

Education is an industry which has seen rapid growth in its trade over a short period of time. From the import and export of textbooks to international examinations such as the British Advanced and Ordinary levels and the American GMAT, GRE, LSAT, TOEFL and others, international trade in education has truly become a multidimensional phenomenon (Liston and Reeves, 1985). While all these aspects have largely contributed to the development of the so called “academic trade” (McMahon, 1988), it is the cross-border migration of international students which however remains the most visible aspect of this trade (Bourke, 2000). Indeed, recent estimates by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggest that nearly 1.9 million students were abroad in 2002 (OECD, 2004). There are probably thousands more foreign students involved in lower level education, language training and the like, but at the time of writing, no comprehensive statistics is yet available on international students enrolled in non-tertiary level institutions (Knight, 2002). As a result, it is vital to stress at the outset that this paper focuses exclusively on cross-border tertiary education but parallels can be drawn for lower level education.

Declining participation in computing education : an Australia perspective on the "gender and lT" problem

Participation in post-compulsory computing education has declined over recent years, both in the senior years of secondary school and at university. This trend has been observed in most developed countries, despite reported and projected skills shortages in Information Technology (IT) industries. Within the computing education enrollment mix, girls and women continue to be under-represented and recent years have seen female participation fall even more rapidly than that of males. This article reports on findings of an Australian study which explored secondary school students’ beliefs about and attitudes towards computing education and careers in IT. Factors that might discourage girls in particular from pursuing post-compulsory computing education and careers are discussed, along with broader implications for school education in an era when information and communication technologies are an integral part of our daily lives. Findings include the persistence among both boys and girls of inaccurate and outdated views of the field of IT and low expectations of both school IT curricula and pedagogy in terms of their relevance and interest for students. Many of the issues identified as discouraging students in general from pursuing computing education appear to have a greater discouraging effect on girls, and this is compounded by stereotypical views of the field as male-dominated and unwelcoming to women and girls.

Dancing on a moving floor : lay women and the principalship in Catholic education

Female disadvantage has been the explanation given in previous studies to explain the under-representation of laywomen who achieve principalships in Catholic Education. Women, themselves, have overcome many of the barriers that disadvantage them. These include an apparent inability to cope with financial management and time constraints due to family commitments. The introduction of Equal Opportunity legislation and related programmes has assisted this process, but as my research shows the under-representation of women in principalship in proportion to the numbers of women teachers in Catholic Education still remains. This thesis examines the phenomenon in three dioceses in three Australian states. I have investigated this problem using a feminist research approach which is characterised by an emphasis on the significance of everyday life. Statistical material as to percentages of teachers in comparison with percentages of female principals was collected; dates of formulation and acceptance of relevant policies at diocesan levels were checked and questionnaires compiled. The questionnaires were distributed to appropriate stakeholders. Following the compilation of data from the questionnaires, themes emerged which provided the initial questions for focus groups made up of male and female principals and potential principals. These focus groups were then conducted in all three dioceses. Through all stages I carried out cross-referencing with my own journal sentries (Power, 1993—1999) . The qualitative and quantitative data generated from the focus groups was examined and analysed drawing on feminist concepts. I have found two major features emerging from the materials that I have generated. The first was the unpredictable, ambiguous and often contradictory relations that occur within Catholic Education, and how they were experienced by lay women. This aspect gave rise to the title of my thesis: 'Dancing on a Moving Floor' as many women felt the rules changed the closer they got to achieving principalship. Then both male and female participants highlighted 'male advantage' in terms that have been identified in other education systems, but this factor emerged as being further heightened in Catholic Education and occurring at systemic, organisational and individual levels. I have made a number of policy recommendations that could possibly change attitudes and practices for each of these levels. I conclude with some suggestions for further research.

Critical teachers as early adopters of technology : agency and structures of indifference in higher education

No abstract

Investigation into the diffusion of innovation in technical and further education : implementing e-mail through action research

This research project examined the diffusion of change within one Victorian TAFE Institute by engaging action research to facilitate implementation of e-mail technology. The theoretical framework involving the concepts of technology innovation and action research was enhanced with the aid of Rogers's (1983) model of the diffusion of the innovation process. Political and cultural factors made up the initiation phase of innovation, enabling the research to concentrate on the implementation phase of e-mail Roger's (1983) model also provided adopter categories that related to the findings of a Computer Attitude Survey that was conducted at The School of Mines and Industries Ballarat (SMB), now the University of Ballarat—TAFE Division since amalgamation on 1st January 1998. Despite management rhetoric about the need to utilise e-mail, Institute teaching staff lacked individual computers in their work areas and most were waiting to become connected to the Internet as late as 1997. According to the action research reports, many staff were resistant to the new e-mail facilities despite having access to personal computers whose numbers doubled annually. The action research project became focussed when action researchers realised that e-mail workshop training was ineffective and that staff required improved access. Improvement to processes within education through collaborative action research had earlier been achieved (McTaggart 1994), and this project actively engaged practitioners to facilitate decentralised e-mail training in the workplace through the action research spiral of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, before replanning. The action researchers * task was to find ways to improve the diffusion of e-mail throughout the Institute and to develop theoretical constructs. My research task was to determine whether action research could successfully facilitate e-mail throughout the Institute. A rich literature existed about technology use in education, technology teaching, gender issues, less about computerphobia, and none about 'e-mailphobia \ It seemed appropriate to pursue the issue of e-mailphobia since it was marginalised, or ignored in the literature. The major political and cultural influences on the technologising of SMB and e-mail introduction were complex, making it impossible to ascertain the relative degrees of influence held by Federal and State Governments, SMB's leadership or the local community, Nonetheless, with the implementation of e-mail, traditional ways were challenged as SMB's culture changed. E-mail training was identified as a staff professional development activity that had been largely unsuccessful. Action research is critical collaborative inquiry by reflective practitioners who are accountable for making the results of their inquiry public and who are self-evaluating of their practice while engaging participative problem-solving and continuing professional development (Zuber-Skerritt 1992, 1993). Action research was the methodology employed in researching e-mail implementation into SMB because it involved collaborative inquiry with colleagues as reflective practitioners. Thoughtful questions could best be explored using deconstructivist philosophy, in asking about the noise of silence, which issues were not addressed, what were the contradictions and who was being marginalised with e-mail usage within SMB. Reviewing literature on action research was complicated by its broad definition and by the variability of research (King & Lonnquist 1992), and yet action research as a research methodology was well represented in educational research literature, and provided a systematic and recognisable way for practitioners to conduct their research. On the basis of this study, it could be stated that action research facilitated the diffusion of e-mail technology into one TAFE Institute, despite the process being disappointingly slow. While the process in establishing the action research group was problematic, action researchers showed that a window of opportunity existed for decentralised diffusion of e-mail training,in preference to bureaucratically motivated 'workshops. Eight major findings, grouped under two broad headings were identified: the process of diffusion (planning, nature of the process, culture, politics) and outcomes of diffusion (categorising, e-mailphobia, the survey device and technology in education). The findings indicated that staff had little experience with e-mail and appeared not to recognise its benefits. While 54.1% did not agree that electronic means could be the preferred way to receive Institute memost some 13.7% admitted to problems with using the voice answering service on telephones. Some 43.3% thought e-mail would not improve their connectedness (how they related) to the Institute. A small percentage of staff had trouble with telephone voice-mail and a number of these were anxious computer users. Individualised tuition and peer support proved helpful to individual staff whom action researchers believed to be 'at risk', as determined from the results of a Computer Attitude Survey. An instructional strategy that fostered the development of self-regulation and peer support was valuable, but there was no measure of the effects of this action research program, other than in qualitative terms. Nevertheless, action research gave space to reflect on the nature of the underlying processes in adopting e-mail. Challenges faced by TAFE action researchers are integrally affected by the values within TAFE, which change constantly and have recently been extensive enough to be considered as a 'new paradigm'. The influence of competition policy, the training reform agenda and technologisation of training have challenged traditional TAFE values. Action research reported that many staff had little immediate professional reason to use e-mail Theoretical answers were submerged beneath practical professional concerns, which related back to how much time teachers had and whether they could benefit from e-mail. A need for the development of principles for the sound educational uses of e-mail increases with the internationalisation of education and an increasing awareness of cultural differences. The implications for conducting action research in TAFE are addressed under the two broad issues of power and pedagogy. Issues of power included gaining access, management's inability to overcome staff resistance to technology, changing TAFE values and using technology for conducting action research. Pedagogical issues included the recognition of educational above technological issues and training staff in action research. Finally, seventeen steps are suggested to overcome power and pedagogical impediments to the conduct of action research within TAFE. This action research project has provided greater insight into the difficulties of successfully introducing one culture-specific technology into one TAFE Institute. TAFE Institutes need to encourage more action research into their operations, and it is only then that -we can expect to answer the unanswered questions raised in this research project.

Knowledge, identities and dilemmas of the self in physical education teacher education

The purpose of this study was to understand how becoming a physical education teacher is shaped by personally and socially constructed knowledge and is affected by the rules and resources of the structural systems in which physical education teacher education (PETE) takes place. The study was influenced by the traditions of Personal Construct Theory (Kelly 1955), the theoretical tenets of social constructionism (Gergen 1991), and Giddens’s work on structuration (1984) and self-identity (1991). Ten PETE students participated in the study over almost three years. They undertook repertory grid sessions periodically through their study, followed by ‘learning conversations’, in which the grid itself was discussed, reworked and collaboratively analysed. All conversations were audio taped and were fully transcribed. The data were analysed in three ways, all of which were used to construct a story of the study. First, the grids were analysed for patterns, consistencies across students and for consistencies within students. These grids provided the first level story that related to constructions of knowledge. These constructions were then content analysed using analysis categories developed from Gergen’s notion of the saturated self and Giddens’ ideas of identity in late modernity. These analyses represented what Giddens calls a double hermeneutic since to all intents and purposes, the story of the study was constructed from the participants’ constructions of what it is to be a physical education teacher. The data suggests that during the process of constructing professional knowledge the student experienced a series of dilemmas of professional self-identity. It seems that to become a PE teacher, the dilemmas must be worked through until a position of what Giddens calls ontologist security has been achieved. Some students in this study had not managed to reach such a point before they left university and entered the teaching profession. In spite of this, the methods of the study allowed the participants to begin to articulate their theories and visions of teaching physical education. The therapeutic qualities of Kelly’s theory encouraged a number of the students to ‘see it differently’ (Rossi, 1997) and to begin to develop a rationale for physical education based on educational practice that considers the needs of individuals and the promotion of a socially just community. I have argued however that this ‘critical’ approach to physical education pedagogy was considered risky and as such students who were prepared to engage in such risk strategies also had other strategic relational selves (Gergen, 1991) to minimise risk at key times during their teacher education.

Community school teacher education and the construction of pedagogical discourse in Papua New Guinea

Pedagogical discourse in Papua New Guinea (PNG) community schooling is mediated by a western styles education. The daily administration and organisation of school activity, graded teaching and learning, subject selection, content boundaries, teaching and assessment methods are all patterned after western schooling. This educational settlement is part of a legacy of German, British and Australian government and non-government colonialism that officially came to an end in 1975. Given the colonial heritage of schooling in PNG, this study is interested in exploring particular aspects of the degree of mutuality between local discourses and the discourses of a western styled pedagogy in post-colonial times, for the purpose of better informing community school teacher education practices. This research takes place at and in the vicinity of Madang Teachers College, a pre-service community school teachers college on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. The research was carried out in the context of the researcher’s employment as a contract lecturer in the English language Department between 1991-1993. As an in-situ study it was influenced by the roles of different participants and the circumstances in which data was gathered and constituted, data which was compatible with participants commitments to community school teacher education and community school teaching and learning. In the exploration of specific pedagogic practices different qualitative research approaches and perspectives were brought to bear in ways best suited to the circumstances of the practice. In this way analytical foci were more dictated by circumstances rather by design. The analytical approach is both a hermeneutic one where participants’ activities are ‘read like texts’, where what is said or written is interpreted against the background of other informing contexts and texts, to better understand how understandings and meanings are produced and circulated; and also a phenomenological one where participants’ perspectives are sought to better understand how pedagogical discursive formations are assimilated with the ‘self’. The effect of shifting between these approaches throughout the study is to build up a sense of co-authorship between researcher and participants in relation to particular aspects of the research. The research explores particular sites where pedagogic discourse is produced, re-produced, distributed, articulated, consumed and contested, and in doing so seeks to better understand what counts as pedagogical discourse. These are sites that are largely unexplored in these terms, in the academic literature on teacher education and community schooling in PNG. As such, they represent gaps in what is documented and understood about the nature of post-colonial pedagogy and teacher training. The first site is a grade two community school class involved in the teaching and early learning of English as the ‘official’ language of instruction. Here local discourses of solidarity and agreement are seen to be mobilised to make meaningful, what are for the teacher and children moments in their construction as post-colonial subjects. What in instructional terms may be seen as an English language lesson becomes, in the light of the research perspectives used, an exercise in the structuring of new social identities, relations and knowings, problematising autonomous views of teaching and learning. The second site explores this issue of autonomous (decontextualised) teaching and learning through an investigation of student teachers’ epistemological contextualisations of knowledge, teaching and learning. What is examined is the way such orientations are constructed in terms of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ epistemological and pedagogical alignments, and, in terms of differently conceived notions of community, in a problematisation of the notion of community schooling. The third and fourth sites examine reflective accounts of student teachers’ pedagogic practices, understandings and subjectivities as they confront the moral and political economies and cultural politics of schooling in School Experiences and Practicum contexts, and show how dominant behaviourist and ‘rational/autonomous’ conceptions of what counts as teaching and learning are problematised in the way some students teachers draw upon wider social discourses to construct a dialogue with learners. The final site is a return to the community school where the discourse of school reports through which teachers, children and parents are constructed as particular subjects of schooling, are explored. Here teachers report children’s progress over a four year period and parents write back in conforming, confronting and contesting ways, in the midst of the ongoing enculturation of their children. In this milieu, schooling is shown to be a provider of differentiated social qualifications rather than a socially just and relevant education. Each of the above-mentioned studies form part of a research and pedagogic interest in understanding the ‘disciplining’ effects of schooling upon teacher education, the particular consequences of those effects, what is embraces, resisted and hidden. Each of the above sites is informed by various ‘intertexts’. The use of intertexts is designed to provide a multiplicity of views, actions and voices while enhancing the process of cross-cultural reading through contextualising the studies in ways that reveal knowledges and practices which are often excluded in more conventional accounts of teaching and learning. This research represents a journey, but not an aimless one. It is one which reads the ideological messages of coherence, impartiality and moral soundness of western pedagogical discourse against the school experiences of student-teachers, teachers, children and parents, in post-colonial Papua New Guinea, and finds them lacking.

Investigating the pedagogical process in physical education teacher education

The study investigated two main questions: the first focused on the factors that enabled and constrained student teachers' engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in physical education teacher education (PETE); the second centered on gaining insight into the usefulness of knowledgeability as a concept for analysing student teachers engagement of a socially critical pedagogy. At the time of writing this thesis empirical analyses of socially critical pedagogies in physical education were rare in the educational literature. The study provided an alternative way of analysing student teachers’ engagement of a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. Alternative in that it avoided recycling and reproducing the dualism between agency and structure (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1985) that is prevalent in much of the physical education literature. Conversational interviews were conducted with four student teachers and their teacher educators throughout the duration of a one-semester PETE unit in an Australian university. Observations were made of the lecture and practical sessions and a document analysis was conducted of all unit learning resources. The analytical frame used in the study was structuration theory (Giddens, 1979, 1984). This framework was useful because it gave primacy to the duality of structure which recognised ‘the structural properties of social systems are both the medium and outcome of practices that constitute those systems’ (Giddens, 1979, p.69). The pedagogical intentions of the teacher educator co-ordinating the PETE unit were to change the orientations of the student teachers towards primary school physical education by encouraging them to adopt different ‘lenses’ through which to examine pedagogical practices. These ‘lenses’ highlighted the questions central to those with socio-critical intentions, eg. power, social injustice and diversity. Data generated from conversations with, and observations of, the student teachers, indicated that the actualisation of the teacher educator's intentions were somewhat limited. Despite this, adopting structuration theory as the explanatory framework for the study proved generative at a number of levels. Broadly, structuration theory was useful because it highlighted the way that student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy is contingent upon particular (idiosyncratic) dialectics of agency and structure. Using the duality of structure as an analytical tool illustrated the way student teachers' were influenced by structural factors as well as the way these structural factors were in turn constituted by the action of the student teachers. Also, by utilising structuration theory as an explanatory framework, the concept of knowledgeability was identified as a useful concept for analysing student teachers' engagement with a socially critical pedagogy in PETE. What is more, the study highlighted the reflexivity of the self and social knowledge, both characteristics of late modernity, as being integral to the way the student teachers engaged with the socially critical pedagogy of EAE400. Not only did the study highlight the reflexivity of the self but it also provided insight into the reflexivity of social knowledge. Much of the socially critical work in physical education implicitly adopts a linear approach to change. Given the findings of the study it might be useful for future developments to consider change as circular. The thesis concludes by suggesting that given the reflexivity of social knowledge, socially critical perspectives might be more readily engaged if the PETE content was incorporated into student teachers existing knowledge frameworks rather than viewed as a replacement for such frameworks.

Ongoing colonial legacy : contemporary education beliefs and practices in Papua New Guinea

In the late 1980ˇ¦s, a realisation that the western education system bequeathed to Papua New Guinea at the time of Independence had functioned to devalue and marginalise many of the traditional beliefs, knowledge and skills students brought with them to education, led to a period of significant education reform. The Reform was premised on the report of a Ministerial Review Committee called A Philosophy of Education. This report made recommendations about how education in Papua New Guinea could respond to the issues and challenges this nation faced as it sought to chart a course to serve the needs of its citizens on its own terms. The issues associated with managing and implementing institutionalised educational change premised on importing western values and practices are a central theme of this thesis. The impact of importing foreign curriculum and associated curriculum officers and consultants to assist with curriculum change and development in the former Language and Literacy unit of the Curriculum Development Division, is considered in three related sections of this report: „P a critical review of the imported educational system and related practices and related issues since Independence „P narrative report of the experience of two colleagues in western education „P evidential research based on curriculum Reform in the Language and Literacy Unit. How Papua New Guinea has sought to come to terms with the issues and challenges that arose in response to a practice of importing western curriculum both at the time of Independence and currently through the Reform, are explored throughout the thesis. The findings issues reveal much about the capacity of individuals and institutions to respond to a post-colonial world particularly associated with an ongoing colonial legacy in the principle researcherˇ¦s work context. The thesis argues that the challenges Papua New Guinea curriculum officers face today, as they manage and implement changes associated with another imported curriculum are caught up in existing power relations. These power relations function to stifle creative thinking at a time when it is most needed. Further, these power relations are not well understood by the curriculum officers and remained hidden and unquestioned throughout the research project. The thesis also argues that in the researcherˇ¦s work context, techniques of surveillance were brought to bear and functioned to curtail critical thinking about how the reformed curriculum could be sensitive and respectful of those beliefs and traditions that had sustained life in Papua New Guinea for thousands of years. Consequently, many outmoded beliefs and practices associated with an uncritical and ongoing acceptance of the superiority of western imports have been retained, thereby effectively denying the collective voices of Paua New Guineans in the current curriculum Reform.

Barriers to indigenous education and educational research reform in Australia

Across all Indigenous education sectors in Australia there continues to be extensive debate about the appropriateness of proposed assessment criteria, curriculum content, language of instruction, pedagogical approaches, research practices and institutional structures. Until relatively recently, policy initiatives targeting these issues have been developed and implemented separately and without reference to the interrelated nature of the barriers that confront Indigenous peoples in their attempts to challenge mainstream educational and research practices that potentially marginalise their individual and collective interests. Increasingly, these issues are being linked under the banner of 'Indigenous education reform', and the potential for collective Indigenous community action is being realised. The current Indigenous education reform process in Australia is concerned with reversing the trend associated with patterns of academic underachievement by Indigenous students in the nation's school systems. Concurrently, reforms in the area of Indigenous education research are concerned with achieving fundamental changes to the way Indigenous education research is initiated, constructed and practised. Mainstream institutions. Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples have different interests in the outcome of the resolution processes associated with proposals to reform Indigenous education and research practices. It is through investigation of stakeholder positioning in relation to key issues, and through reference to stakeholder interests in the outcome of negotiated resolutions, that a critical approach to analysing Indigenous education and research reform initiatives can be achieved. The three case studies contained within this portfolio represent an attempt to investigate the patterns of contestation associated with the delivery of primary school education for Aboriginal students in the Northern Territory and the problems associated with implementing reformed Indigenous education research guidelines. This research has revealed pervasive mainstream community and institutional support for assimilatory policies and a related lack of support for policies of Indigenous community 'self-determination1. This implies insufficient support within the Nation-State for Indigenous proposals for education and research reforms that legitimise the incorporation of Indigenous languages and cultural knowledge and that aim to re-position Indigenous peoples as central to the construction and delivery of education and educational research within their own communities. Common barriers to the implementation of reformed institutional structures and educational and research practices have been identified across each of the three case studies. The analysis of these common barriers points to a generalised statement about the nature of the resistance by mainstream Australians and their institutions to Indigenous community proposals for educational and research reforms. This research identifies key barriers to Indigenous Australian education and research reforms as being: Resurgent mainstream community and institutional support for assimilatory policies implies a lack of support for increasing the level of Indigenous community involvement in the construction and delivery of education and educational research; Mainstream institutional commitment to the principles of economic rationalism and the incorporation of corporate managerialist approaches reduces the potential for Indigenous community involvement in the setting of educational and research objectives; The education and social policy agendas of recent Australian governments are geared toward the achievement of national economic growth and the strengthening of Australia's position in the global economy. As a direct result, the unique cultural identities and linguistic heritages of Indigenous peoples in Australia are marginalised; Identified 'disempowenng' attitudes and practices of educators, researchers and institutional representatives continue to impact negatively upon the educational outcomes of Indigenous students; Insufficient institutional support for the development of mechanisms to ensure Indigenous community control over all aspects of the research project continues to impede the successful negotiation of research in Indigenous community contexts; The promotion of 'deficit' educational approaches for Indigenous students reinforces the marginalisation of their existing linguistic and cultural knowledge bases; The relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Australia continues to be constrained by the philanthropically based 'donor-recipient' model of service delivery. The framing of Indigenous peoples as recipients of mainstream community benevolence has ongoing disempowering and negative consequences; Currently proposed national Indigenous education policies and programmes for the implementation of these polices do not adequately take into account the diversity in linguistic, political, cultural and social interests of Indigenous peoples in Australia; Widespread 'institutional racism' within mainstream educational institutions perpetuates the disadvantage experienced by Indigenous students and Indigenous community members who aim to derive benefit from education and educational research.

Mercantilist Cinderella : Deakin University and the distance education student in the postmodern world

This is a thesis presented on the position of the distance education student at a distance education university in the present era. Traditionally, the distance education student has been a sort of Cinderella: marginalised, being constructed as some form of lesser version of the on campus one. A largely invisible part of the higher education system in Australia since 1911, the distance education student has really only come to be foregrounded in university education discourses from 1983 onwards. It was not until then that the distance education student emerged from ‘hidden pools’ identified by Karmel (1975), and since then the construction of this student has undergone a number of modifications, mapped in this thesis. At the same time university education itself has undergone a series of modifications, not least of which has been its taking on mercantilist overtones as investments made by students in their own careers and professional development. The modifications, also mapped in this thesis, have progressed to the stage where the construction of the old distance education student is now one of a flexible learner in a mercantilist system of university education. The notion of distance education and the distance education student has undergone significant shifts, redefinitions and constructions, which are tracked in this thesis. My research has focussed on a number of pertinent questions, based on a study of Deakin University and its practice since its establishment. The thesis draws on a number of works which have been informed by those of Foucault, and I have framed my research questions accordingly. I have asked why and how Deakin University came into being as a distance education provider at tertiary level. What were the conditions of its establishment and progression in relation to the political events, economic practices and communication technology in use over time? To consider such questions, I needed to analyse the changes that I had seen occurring in the context of wider restructurings in university education. These had occurred in the context of government forging a closer interconnectedness between education and national economic aims and objectives at the same time as it demanded greater productivity in the face of commercial and industrial sector pushes for applied knowledge. Poststructuralist philosophical developments offer tools to explore not only questions of power, but the practical outcomes of questions of power, and how the complicity of individuals is established. This thesis explores ways in which such considerations helped to shape the changing constructions of the distance education student from a marginalised, disadvantaged and under-represented participant in higher education to a privileged, well catered for and advantaged learner. These same considerations are used to explore ways in which they have helped to shape university distance education courses from a perceived second-rate form of higher education to a prototype that better captures the essential elements of learning for what has been styled in a postmodern world as the Information Age. Overlaid on these considerations is a changing view of the economics of such provision of higher education. It is anticipated that this thesis will contribute to developing new understandings of the construction of subjectivities in relation to the distance education university student specifically, and to the university student generally, in the postmodern world. The implications of this examination are not inconsiderable for students and academics in a self-styled Information Society.