Teacher education and the targeting of disadvantage

This paper outlines the Exceptional Teachers for Disadvantaged Schools (ETDS) project which began in June 2010 with the aim of developing and documenting an Australian university-based teacher education program specifically focusing on the preparation of high quality teachers for the disadvantaged school sector. ETDS constitutes a novel model of teacher education targeting disadvantaged schooling in that the selection of participating pre-service teachers has been based on their proven academic performance over the first 2 years of their 4-year Bachelor of Education degree. ETDS has established a modified curriculum that better supports the on-campus training of this cohort while also targeting the role of field experience within partner disadvantaged school settings. This paper offers a rationale for the model, unpacks its various phases and provides a justification of the model’s selection criteria based on high academic achievement.

Home sustainability policy and mandatory disclosure. a survey of buyer and seller participation and awareness in Qld

Sustainability Declarations were introduced by the Queensland State Government on 1 January 2010 as a mandatory disclosure measure for all dwelling sales in the State. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact this policy decision has had in the homebuyer decision-making process in the first year since its introduction and to consider the effectiveness of the legislation in meeting its policy objectives. This quantitative research comprised a two-part process: the first stage surveyed the level of compliance by the real estate industry with the legislative requirements. Stage two comprised an online survey of Real Estate Institute of Queensland members to determine what impact the Sustainability Declaration has had on home buyer decision making and how effective the legislative mechanisms have been in achieving the policy objectives. This paper assesses the initial impact of this initiative over its first year in operation. These preliminary findings indicate a high level of compliance from the real estate industry, however results confirm that sustainability is yet to become a criterion of relevance to the majority of homebuyers in Queensland. These quantitative findings support anecdotal evidence that the objectives of the legislation to increase homebuyer awareness and relevance of sustainability issues in the home are not being achieved. Sustainability Declarations are a first step in raising homebuyer awareness of the importance of sustainability in housing. Further monitoring of this impact will be carried out over time. This is the first research undertaken to assess the impact of this new mandatory disclosure legislation in Queensland, Australia. The findings will inform policy makers and assist them to assess the effectiveness of the current legislation in achieving its policy objectives.

Investigating higher education and secondary school web-based learning environments using the WEBLEI

Classroom learning environments are rapidly changing as new digital technologies become more education-friendly. What are students’ perceptions of their technology-rich learning environments? This question is critical as it may have an impact on the effectiveness of the new technologies in classrooms. There are numerous reliable and valid learning environment instruments which have been used to ascertain students’ perceptions of their learning environments. This chapter focuses on one of these instruments, the Web-based Learning Environment Instrument (WEBLEI) (Chang & Fisher, 2003). Since its initial development, this instrument has been used to study a range of learning environments and this chapter presents the findings of two example case-studies that involve such environments.

Becoming a 'Bastion Against Tyranny' : Australian legal education and the government of the self

Research into legal education suggests that many students enter law school with ideals about using the law to achieve social change, but graduate with some cynicism regarding these ideals. It is often argued that law schools provide a negative, competitive, and conservative environment for students, pushing many away from social justice ideals towards more self-interested, vocational concerns. This article uses Michel Foucault’s work on the government of the self to suggest another way of understanding this process. It examines a range of prescriptive texts that provide students with advice about how to study law and ‘survive’ law school. In doing so, it posits that this apparent loss of social ideals does not necessarily always signify that the student has become politically conservative or has had a negative educational experience. While these legal personae may appear outwardly conservative, and indeed still reflect particular gendered or raced perspectives, by examining the messages that these texts offer students, this article suggests that an apparent loss of social ideals can be the result of a productive shaping of the self. The legal persona they fashion can incorporate social justice ideals and necessitate specific ways of acting on those ideals. This analysis adds to the growing body of research that uses Foucault’s work to rethink common narratives of power and the shaping of the self in legal education, and provides legal educators with new ways of reflecting on the effects of legal education.

Legal education and the 'idealistic student': using Foucault to unpack the critical legal narrative

It appears that few of the students holding ‘socially idealistic’ goals upon entering law school actually maintain these upon graduation. The critical legal narrative, which explains and seeks to act upon this shift in the graduate’s ‘legal identity’, posits that these ideals are repressed through power relations that create passive receptacles into which professional ideologies can be deposited, in the interests of those advantaged by the social and legal status quo. Using the work of Michel Foucault, this paper unpacks the assumptions underpinning this narrative, particularly its arguments about ideology, power, and the subject. In doing so, it will argue this narrative provides an untenable basis for political action within legal education. By interrogating this narrative, this paper provides a new way of understanding the construction of the legal identity through legal education, and a new basis for political action within law school.

Education and training of medical physicists in south East Asia: Accomplishments and challenges

John Cameron has made significant contributions to the field of Medical Physics. His contributions encompassed research and development, technical developments and education. He had a particular interest in the education of medical physicists in developing countries. Structured clinical training is also an essential component of the professional development of a medical physicist. This paper considers aspects of the clinical training and education of medical physicists in South-East Asia and the challenges facing the profession in the region if it is to keep pace with the rapid increase in the amount and technical complexity of medical physics infrastructure in the region.

Successful outcomes in vocational education and training courses : how pedagogy and expectations influence achievement

This paper reports on a four year Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project titled Skilling Indigenous Queensland, conducted in regional areas of Queensland, Australia from 2009 to 2013. The project sought to investigate vocational education, training (VET) and teaching, Indigenous learners’ needs, employer cultural and expectations and community culture and expectations to identify best practice in numeracy teaching for Indigenous VET learners. Specifically it focused on ways to enhance the teaching and learning of courses and the associated mathematics in such courses to benefit learners and increase their future opportunities of employment. To date thirty-nine teachers/trainers/teacher aides and two hundred and thirty-one students consented to participate in the project. Nine VET courses were nominated to be the focus on the study. This paper focuses on questionnaire and interview responses from four trainers, two teacher aides and six students. In recent years a considerable amount of funding has been allocated to increasing Indigenous Peoples’ participation in education and employment. This increased funding is predicated on the assumption that it will make a difference and contribute to closing the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (Council of Australia Governments, 2009). The central tenet is that access to education for Indigenous People will create substantial social and economic benefits for regional and remote Indigenous People. The project’s aim is to address some of the issues associated with the gap. To achieve the aims, the project adopted a mixed methods design aimed at benefitting research participants and included: participatory collaborative action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988) and, community research (Smith, 1999). Participatory collaborative action research refers to a is a “collective, self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social and educational practices” (Kemmis et al., 1988, p. 5). Community research is described as an approach that “conveys a much more intimate, human and self-defined space” (p. 127). Community research relies on and validates the community’s own definitions. As the project is informed by the social at a community level, it is described as “community action research or emancipatory research” (Smith, 1999, p. 127). It seeks to demonstrate benefit to the community, making positive differences in the lives of Indigenous People and communities. The data collection techniques included survey questionnaires, video recording of teaching and learning processes, teacher reflective video analysis of teaching, observations, semi-structured interviews and student numeracy testing. As a result of these processes, the findings indicate that VET course teachers work hard to adopt contextualising strategies to their teaching, however this process is not always straight forward because of the perceptions of how mathematics has been taught and learned historically. Further teachers, trainers and students have high expectations of one another with the view to successful outcomes from the courses.

Alternatives to the World Bank’s strategies for education and development

Over the past several decades, policy has become increasingly global. In economics, for example, policy has followed the so-called Washington Consensus of privatization, liberalization, and deregulation. In education, global policy has included the proliferation of strategies including standardized testing, paraprofessional teachers, user fees, and privatization. There are many problems with these neoliberal policies. Foremost among them, is the havoc they wreak on the lives of so many children and adults. Poverty, inequality, and myriad associated problems have reached new heights in this neoliberal era. Moreover, these policies have been adopted uncritically and alternative policies have been ignored, which leads to our focus here.

Grenada, Education and Revolution, 1979-83

Grenada’s New Jewel Movement, led by Maurice Bishop, was the first indigenous political grouping in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean to overthrow an existing government by armed force. Yet most of the four and a half years of the Revolution (1979-83) were characterized by considerable popular support for the new People’s Revolutionary Government before it came to it’s tragic, unexpected and shocking end in October 1983. Social, economic and political change seems possible in the 1970s and ‘80s. People in newly decolonizing countries were encouraged by the beginnings of the Non-Aligned Movement of Third World nations demanding new international economic order that would win them some economic justice after the ravages of colonialism. People also saw that some radical regimes, such as that led by Michael Manley in Jamaica and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, were articulating and implementing basic rights that held the promise of countering the social and political oppression that they had endured throughout the centuries of colonial history. A majority of Grenadians committed themselves to fighting by the side of the People’s Revolutionary Government for such new goals. This chapter will analyse how the Grenada Revolution reconceptualised the education, planned new goals, and implemented bold new educational policies. It will discuss the extent to which the government and people were able to reshape education as a tool for national reconstruction and the raising of national consciousness.

The Cuban Revolution and Internationalism: Structuring Education and Health

The Capacity to Share is the first book to document how Cubans share their highly developed educational services with other low-income states, especially those in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. A variety of international and Cuban authors break new ground in presenting this research. They investigate the experiences of people who have studied in Cuba on scholarships from the Cuban government, the implications for their home countries, and the work of Cuban teachers and administrators to support education in other countries. The authors discuss how the Cuban "solidarity" approach prioritizes global educational cooperation for mutual support, rather than imposing conditional aid. The book offers original and unusual insights into issues of culture, education, aid, development, and change as they relate to low-income states.