Critical reflection: Part of everyday practices

Critical reflection is central to improving practices in early years services. It is also a learned skill.

Dioxin risk reduction programme at the most severe dioxin hot spot in Vietnam: Residual knowledge, attitude and practices five years post intervention

Bien Hoa Airbase was one of the bulk storage and supply facilities for defoliants during the Vietnam War. Environmental and biological samples taken around the airbase have elevated levels of dioxin. In 2007, a pre-intervention knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) survey of local residents living in Trung Dung and Tan Phong wards was undertaken regarding appropriate strategies to reduce dioxin exposure. A risk reduction programme was implemented in 2008 and post-intervention KAP surveys were undertaken in 2009 and 2013 to evaluate the longer term impacts. Quantitative assessment was undertaken via a KAP survey in 2013 among 600 local residents randomly selected from the two intervention wards and one control ward (Buu Long). Eight in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions were also undertaken for qualitative assessment. Most programme activities had ceased and dioxin risk communication activities had not been integrated into local routine health education programmes; however, main results generally remained and were better than that in Buu Long. In total, 48.2% of households undertook measures to prevent exposure, higher than those in pre- and post-intervention surveys (25.8% and 39.7%) and the control ward (7.7%). Migration and the sensitive nature of dioxin issues were the main challenges for the programme's sustainability

Kissing fish: Rex Hunt, popular culture, sustainability and fishing practices

Natural resource managers and scientists focus on the behaviour of individual recreational fishers to understand environmental problems associated with this leisure activity. They do this in an effort to identify ways to change attitudes in order to facilitate environmentally friendly choices. This applied use of ABC psychology (attitude, behaviour, choice) has not delivered the expected results. This article offers a different approach by investigating an emergent practice in diverse fishing communities, rather than looking to the responsibility of the individual recreational fisher. Using practice theory, I trace the change from take-all to catch-and-release fishing in Australia by analysing the texts of celebrity fisher Rex Hunt, who is an advocate for releasing fish. I combine this with oral history testimony from a sample of recreational fishers from the broader Australian community to show how change happened. The practice of catch-and-release fishing emerged through the combination of sociotechnical and historically specific elements present in popular culture, including the media. Paying attention to the way different elements catalyse provides a rich account of the changing modes of sustainability in recreational fishing communities.

Doctor’s knowledge and practices of traumatic brain injury management in Chinese prehospital settings

Objectives: The incidence and mortality of traumatic brain injury (TBI) has increased rapidly in the last decade in China. Appropriate ambulance service can reduce case-fatality rates of TBI significantly. This study aimed to explore the factors (age, gender, education level, clinical experience, professional title, organization, specialty before prehospital care, and training frequency) that could influence prehospital doctors’ knowledge level and practices in TBI management in China, Hubei Province. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in two cities in Hubei Province. The self-administered questionnaire consisted of demographic information and questions about prehospital TBI management. Independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze group differences in the average scores in terms of demographic character. General linear regression was used to explore associated factors in prehospital TBI management. Results: A total of 56 questionnaires were handed out and 52 (93%) were returned. Participants received the lowest scores in TBI treatment (0.64; SD=0.08) and the highest scores in TBI assessment (0.80; SD=0.14). According to the regression model, the education level was associated positively with the score of TBI identification (P=.019); participants who worked in the emergency department (ED; P=.011) or formerly practiced internal medicine (P=.009) tended to get lower scores in TBI assessment; participants’ scores in TBI treatment were associated positively with the training frequency (P=.011); and no statistically significant associated factor was found in the overall TBI management. Conclusion: This study described the current situation of prehospital TBI management. The prehospital doctors’ knowledge level and practices in TBI management were quantified and the influential factors hidden underneath were explored. The results indicated that an appropriate continuing medical education (CME) program enables improvement of the quality of ambulance service in China.

How talk and interaction unfold in a digitally enabled preschool classroom

The use of mobile digital devices, such as laptops and tablets, has implications for how teachers interact with young students within the institutional context of educational settings. This article examines language and participation in a digitally enabled preschool classroom as students engage with teachers and peers. Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis are used to explicate video-recorded episodes of students (aged 3-5 years) interacting while using a laptop and a tablet. Attending to the sequential organization (when, how) and the context relevance (where) of talk and interaction, analysis shows how the intersection of interactions involving the teacher, students and digital devices, shape the ways that talk and interactions unfold. Analysis found that the teacher-student interactions were jointly arranged around a participation framework that included: 1) the teacher’s embodied action that mobilizes an accompanying action by a student, 2) allocation of turn-taking and participation while using a digital device and, 3) the affordances of the digital device in relation to the participants’ social organization. In this way, it is possible to understand not just what a digital device is or does, but the affordances of what it makes possible in constituting teachers’ and students’ social and learning relationships.

Informed learning in the undergraduate classroom: The role of information experiences in shaping outcomes

This research aimed to inform the design of effective information literacy lessons in higher education. Phenomenography, a research approach designed to study human experience, was used to explore the experiences of a teacher and undergraduate students using information to learn about language and gender issues. The findings show that the way learners use information influences content-focused learning outcomes, and reveal an instructional pattern for enabling students to use information while becoming aware of the topic they are investigating. Based on the findings, a design model is offered in which learning outcomes are realized through targeted information literacy activities.

Understanding Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia: Practices and Perspectives

A foundational text for pre-service teachers explaining the theories, policies and pedagogies that shape the provision of early childhood education and care in Australia. In order to effectively practise as an early childhood educator it is essential to understand the theories, policies and pedagogy that shape the discipline. Understanding Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia provides core foundational knowledge that is critical for best practice. Part One looks at concepts of childhood and the development of mass education before examining influential theories including developmental psychology, sociology, feminisms and critical theory. Specific approaches are also analysed including Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Multiple Intelligences and HighScope. Part Two focuses on the guiding frameworks and policies in Australia and explores in depth issues affecting Indigenous children and provisions for recognising diversity and the practice of inclusion. The final section examines teaching and leadership and considers curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, building relationships between staff and families, the care of babies and infants, the environment in which early childhood education takes place and the responsibilities and professional development of teachers. This essential reference will ensure pre-service teachers develop a sophisticated understanding of how theory underpins effective practice in early childhood education.

Animal magnetism and curriculum history

This article elaborates the impact that crises of authority provoked by animal magnetism, mesmerism, and hypnosis in the 19th century had for field formation in American education. Four layers of analysis elucidate how curriculum history’s repetitive focus on public school policy and classroom practice became possible. First, the article surveys external conditions of possibility for the enactment of compulsory public schooling. Second, “internal” conditions of possibility for the formation of educational objects (e.g., types of children) are documented via the processes of différance that were generated from within the experiences of confinement. Third, the article maps how these were interpenetrated by animal magnetic debates that were lustered and planished in education’s emerging field, including impact upon behavior management practices, the contouring of expertise and authority, the role of Will in intelligence testing and child development theories, and the redefinition of public and private. Last, the article examines implications for curriculum history, whether policy- or practice-oriented, especially around the question of influence, the theorization of child mind, and philosophies of Being.

Place making facilitators of knowledge and innovation spaces: Insights from European best practices

Knowledge economy seeks its nourishment from diversity and dissemination of ideas and creativity of its talent base. This has led to the acknowledgement of place making as a major strategy to attract and retain the knowledge base into the emerging knowledge and innovation spaces. The study seeks to explore the adoption of place making in this context. Literature and practice provide information to understand the evolution of various spatial typologies and the specialised role of place making in such locations. This helps in determining the key facilitators of place making. The paper takes an interdisciplinary approach and develops an integrated conceptual framework considering dimensions and facilitators of place making. Through the lens of the framework, best practices across Europe—i.e., Cambridge Science Park (UK), 22@Barcelona (Spain), Arabianranta (Finland), Strijp-S (Netherlands), and Digital Hub (Ireland)—are scrutinised to highlight various approaches to place making. The findings provide insights and a discussion into the interplay of form, function, image and underlying processes in globally emerging spatial typologies of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces.

Breastfeeding duration and authoritative feeding practices in first-time mothers

Background Longer breastfeeding duration appears to have a protective effect against childhood obesity. This effect may be partially mediated by maternal feeding practices during the first years of life. However, the few studies that have examined links between breastfeeding duration and subsequent feeding practices have yielded conflicting results. Objective Using a large sample of first-time mothers and a newly validated, comprehensive measure of maternal feeding (the Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire1), this study examined associations between breastfeeding duration and maternal feeding practices at child age 24 months. Methods Mothers (n = 458) enrolled in the NOURISH trial2 provided data on breastfeeding at child age 4, 14 and 24 months, and on feeding practices at 24 months. Structural Equation Modelling was used to examine associations between breastfeeding duration and five non-responsive and four structure-related ‘authoritative’ feeding practices, adjusting for a range of maternal and child characteristics. Results The model showed acceptable fit (χ2/df = 1.68; RMSEA = .04, CFI = .91 and TLI = .89) and longer breastfeeding duration was negatively associated with four out of five non-responsive feeding practices and positively associated with three out of four structure-related feeding practices. Overall, these results suggest that mothers who breastfeed longer reported using more appropriate feeding practices. Conclusion These data demonstrate an association between longer breastfeeding duration and authoritative feeding practices characterised by responsiveness and structure, which may partly account for the apparent protective effect of breastfeeding on childhood obesity.

Observations of road safety behaviours and practices of motorcycle rickshaw drivers in Lahore, Pakistan

Motorcycle Rickshaws (MRs) are an informal paratransit mode in Pakistan. They are locally manufactured and very popular but there are concerns about their crash involvement and overall safety. The first study of the current PhD program revealed that rickshaws (both MRs and auto-rickshaws) were involved in 51,992 road crashes attended by emergency ambulances in Punjab province, Pakistan between 2011-2013. This study aims to examine the road safety behaviours and practices of Motorcycle Rickshaw Drivers (MRDs) that may be contributing to these crashes. MRDs were observed at 12 major signalised intersections in Lahore. Vehicle characteristics and driver behaviours were recorded using a paper-based survey between 9am-7pm for a full week in May 2015. Of the 500 MRDs observed, about 23.4% appeared to be younger than the minimum driver licensing age of 18 years. More than half (52.6%) of the MRDs entered on the red light and 17.4% crossed when the signal was turning from yellow to green or red. MR traffic conflicts were observed in 62.8% of cases and one crash and 15 near-miss crashes were witnessed. Additionally, about half of MRs were overloaded, no MRD wore a helmet, and 3.8% were using a mobile phone while driving. This study provides the first scientific evidence to substantiate public concerns regarding the safety of MRs. It demonstrates that about a quarter of MRDs are underage,almost half of MRs are overloaded and more than half disobey traffic signals. This research could inform authorities to manage MR related transport and road safety issues.

Improving Knowledge and Practices in Mango Supply Chains

Mangoes consigned to domestic markets suffered from fruit quality problems from 1997 to 2000. A high incidence of disease breakdown and green-ripe fruit resulted in loss of confidence by marketers, and reduced profits for everyone from grower to retailer. The ‘Better Mangoes’ project was initiated to identify where, and why quality was being lost, and to use this information to improve the knowledge and practices of supply chain businesses.

Book Review: "Language learning beyond the classroom"

Language learning beyond the classroom is part of a growing body of literature focused on teaching and learning in contexts that are informal and unstructured. Areas include so-called shadow education and informal pedagogies. Shadow education refers to the privatised tutoring supplementing school curricular that is a pervasive feature of education in parts of Asia (Bray & Lykins, 2012) and increasingly evident in Australia. Informal pedagogies refers to teaching in informal contexts and was the focus of a Special Interest Group (SIG) at the recent American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference in Chicago. Presentations in the SIG included designing tools for supporting learning in science classes after school and in sites such as zoos...

The right to a voice and the fight to be heard: The experience of being an ESL user in Australia

This paper focuses on the fundamental right to be heard, that is, the right to have one’s voice heard and listened to – to impose reception (Bourdieu, 1977). It focuses on the ways that non-mainstream English is heard and received in Australia, where despite public policy initiatives around equal opportunity, language continues to socially disadvantage people (Burridge & Mulder, 1998). English is the language of the mainstream and most people are monolingually English (Ozolins, 1993). English has no official status yet it remains dominant and its centrality is rarely challenged (Smolicz, 1995). This paper takes the position that the lack of language engagement in mainstream Australia leads to linguistic desensitisation. Writing in the US context where English is also the unofficial norm, Lippi-Green (1997) maintains that discrimination based on speech features or accent is commonly accepted and widely perceived as appropriate. In Australia, non-standard forms of English are often disparaged or devalued because they do not conform to the ‘standard’ (Burridge & Mulder, 1998). This paper argues that talk cannot be taken for granted: ‘spoken voices’ are critical tools for representing the self and negotiating and manifesting legitimacy within social groups (Miller, 2003). In multicultural, multilingual countries like Australia, the impact of the spoken voice, its message and how it is heard are critical tools for people seeking settlement, inclusion and access to facilities and services. Too often these rights are denied because of the way a person sounds. This paper reports a study conducted with a group that has been particularly vulnerable to ongoing ‘panics’ about language – international students. International education is the third largest revenue source for Australia (AEI, 2010) but has been beset by concerns from academics (Auditor-General, 2002) and the media about student language levels and falling work standards (e.g. Livingstone, 2004). Much of the focus has been high-stakes writing but with the ascendancy of project work in university assessment and the increasing emphasis on oracy, there is a call to recognise the salience of talk, especially among students using English as a second language (ESL) (Kettle & May, 2012). The study investigated the experiences of six international students in a Master of Education course at a large metropolitan university. It utilised data from student interviews, classroom observations, course materials, university policy documents and media reports to examine the ways that speaking and being heard impacted on the students’ learning and legitimacy in the course. The analysis drew on Fairclough’s (2003) model of the dialectical-relational Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyse the linguistic, discursive and social relations between the data texts and their conditions of production and interpretation, including the wider socio-political discourses on English, language difference, and second language use. The interests of the study were if and how discourses of marginalisation and discrimination manifested and if and how students recognised and responded to them pragmatically. Also how they juxtaposed with and/or contradicted the official rhetoric about diversity and inclusion. The underpinning rationale was that international students’ experiences can provide insights into the hidden politics and practices of being heard and afforded speaking rights as a second language speaker in Australia.

What counts as English in the internationalised Australian university: Implications for teaching and learning

English is currently ascendant as the language of globalisation, evident in its mediation of interactions and transactions worldwide. For many international students, completion of a degree in English means significant credentialing and increased job prospects. Australian universities are the third largest English-speaking destination for overseas students behind the United States and the United Kingdom. International students comprise one-fifth of the total Australian university population, with 80% coming from Asian countries (ABS, 2010). In this competitive higher education market, English has been identified as a valued ‘good’. Indeed, universities have been critiqued for relentlessly reproducing the “hegemony and homogeneity of English” (Marginson, 2006, p. 37) in order to sustain their advantage in the education market. For international students, English is the gatekeeper to enrolment, the medium of instruction and the mediator of academic success. For these reasons, English is not benign, yet it remains largely taken-for-granted in the mainstream university context. This paper problematises the naturalness of English and reports on a study of an Australian Master of Education course in which English was a focus. The study investigated representations of English as they were articulated across a chain of texts including the university strategic plan, course assessment criteria, student assignments, lecturer feedback, and interviews. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Foucault’s work on discourse enabled understandings of how a particular English is formed through an apparatus of specifications, exclusionary thresholds, strategies for maintenance (and disruption), and privileged concepts and speaking positions. The findings indicate that English has hegemonic status within the Australian university, with material consequences for students whose proficiency falls outside the thresholds of accepted English practice. Central to the constitution of what counts as English is the relationship of equivalence between standard written English and successful academic writing. International students’ representations of English indicate a discourse that impacts on identities and practices and preoccupies them considerably as they negotiate language and task demands. For the lecturer, there is strategic manoeuvring within the institutional regulative regime to support students’ English language needs using adapted assessment practices, explicit teaching of academic genres and scaffolded classroom interaction. The paper concludes with the implications for university teaching and learning.