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).

Understanding the factors influencing safe and unsafe motorcycle rider intentions

The increasing popularity of motorcycles in Australia is a significant concern as motorcycle riders represent 15% of all road fatalities and an even greater proportion of serious injuries. This study assessed the psychosocial factors influencing motorcycle riders’ intentions to perform both safe and risky riding behaviours. Using an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB), motorcycle riders (n = 229) from Queensland, Australia were surveyed to assess their riding attitudes, subjective norm (general and specific), perceived behavioural control (PBC), group norm, self-identity, sensation seeking, and aggression, as well as their intentions, in relation to three safe (e.g., handle my motorcycle skilfully) and three risky (e.g., bend road rules to get through traffic) riding behaviours. Although there was variability in the predictors of intention across the behaviours, results revealed that safer rider intentions were most consistently predicted by PBC, while riskier intentions were predicted by attitudes and sensation seeking. The TPB was able to explain a greater proportion of the variance for intentions to perform risky behaviours. Overall, this study has provided insight into the complexity of factors contributing to rider intentions and suggests that different practical strategies need to be adopted to facilitate safer and reduce risky rider decisions.

Show

Script for non-verbal performance. ----- ----- ----- Research Component: Silent Treatment: Creating Non-verbal Performance Works for Children ----- ----- ----- The research field of theatre for young people draws on theories of child development and popular culture. SHOW explored personal and social development, friendship and creative play through the lens of the experience of girls aged 8-12. This project consolidated and refined innovative approaches to creating non-verbal theatre performance, and addressed challenges inherent in the creation of a performance by adults for young audiences. A significant finding of the project was the unanticipated convergence of creative practice and research into child behaviour and development: the congruence of content (Female bullying) and theatrical form (non-verbal performance: “Within the hidden culture of aggression, girls fight with body language and relationships instead of fists and knives. In this world, friendship is a weapon, and the sting of a shout pales in comparison to a day of someone’s silence. There is no gesture more devastating than the back turning away Simmons, Rachel (2002:3) Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture Of Aggression In Girls Schwartz Books The creative development and drafting process focussed on negotiating the conceptual design and practical constraints of incorporating diegetic music and video sources into the narrative. The authorial (and production) challenges of creating a script that could facilitate the re-mount a non-verbal work for a company specialising in text-based theatre . ----- ----- ----- Show was commissioned by the Queensland Theatre Company in 2003, toured into Queensland Schools by the Queensland Arts Council and in 2004 was performed at the Sydney Opera House.

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.

Addressing sustainable living using a collaborative approach and multi-disciplinary techniques

In order to achieve meaningful reductions in individual ecological footprints, individuals must dramatically alter their day to day behaviours. Effective interventions will need to be evidence based and there is a necessity for the rapid transfer or communication of information from the point of research, into policy and practice. A number of health disciplines, including psychology and public health, share a common mission to promote health and well-being and it is becoming clear that the most practical pathway to achieving this mission is through interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper argues that an interdisciplinary collaborative approach will facilitate research that results in the rapid transfer of findings into policy and practice. The application of this approach is described in relation to the Green Living project which explored the psycho-social predictors of environmentally friendly behaviour. Following a qualitative pilot study, and in consultation with an expert panel comprising academics, industry professionals and government representatives, a self-administered mail survey was distributed to a random sample of 3000 residents of Brisbane and Moreton Bay (Queensland, Australia). The Green Living survey explored specific beliefs which included attitudes, norms, perceived control, intention and behaviour, as well as a number of other constructs such as environmental concern and altruism. This research has two beneficial outcomes. First, it will inform a practical model for predicting sustainable living behaviours and a number of local councils have already expressed an interest in making use of the results as part of their ongoing community engagement programs. Second, it provides an example of how a collaborative interdisciplinary project can provide a more comprehensive approach to research than can be accomplished by a single disciplinary project.

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.

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

Working time alterations within the Australian construction industry

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a labour process theory interpretation of four case studies within the Australian construction industry. In each case study a working time intervention (a shift to a five-day working week from the industry standard six days) was implemented as an attempt to improve the work-life balance of employees. ----- ----- Design/methodology/approach: This paper was based on four case studies with mixed methods. Each case study has a variety of data collection methods which include questionnaires, short and long interviews, and focus groups. ----- ----- Findings: It was found that the complex mix of wage- and salary-earning staff within the construction industry, along with labour market pressures, means that changing to a five-day working week is quite a radical notion within the industry. However, there are some organisations willing to explore opportunities for change with mixed experiences. ----- ----- Practical implications: The practical implications of this research include understanding the complexity within the Australian construction industry, based around hours of work and pay systems. Decision-makers within the construction industry must recognize a range of competing pressures that mean that “preferred” managerial styles might not be appropriate. ----- ----- Originality/value:– This paper shows that construction firms must take an active approach to reducing the culture of long working hours. This can only be achieved by addressing issues of project timelines and budgets and assuring that take-home pay is not reliant on long hours of overtime.

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.

A comprehensive investigation into the hydrodynamic and capture/retention performance of a gross pollutant trap

A novel and comprehensive testing approach to examine the performance of gross pollutant traps (GPTs) was developed. A proprietary GPT with internal screens for capturing gross pollutants—organic matter and anthropogenic litter—was used as a case study. This work is the first investigation of its kind and provides valuable practical information for the design, selection and operation of GPTs and also the management of street waste in an urban environment. It used a combination of physical and theoretical models to examine in detail the hydrodynamic and capture/retention characteristics of the GPT. The results showed that the GPT operated efficiently until at least 68% of the screens were blocked, particularly at high flow rates. At lower flow rates, the high capture/retention performance trend was reversed. It was also found that a raised inlet GPT offered a better capture/retention performance. This finding indicates that cleaning operations could be more effectively planned in conjunction with the deterioration in GPT’s capture/retention performance.

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.