Academics’ opinions and practices of education for sustainable development : reflections on a nation-wide, mixed-methods, multidisciplinary study

The Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development gives a systematic and comprehensive overview of existing and upcoming research approaches for higher education for sustainable development.

Élaboration d'un plan de gestion des matières résiduelles - Communauté de Long Point First Nation, Winneway

L’objectif de cet essai repose sur l’élaboration d’un plan de gestion des matières résiduelles pour la communauté algonquine de Long Point First Nation, située dans la Municipalité régionale de comté de Témiscamingue. La Politique québécoise de gestion des matières résiduelles n’établit pas clairement à qui revient la responsabilité d’une saine gestion dans le cas des communautés autochtones. Le flou législatif derrière cet enjeu ne fait qu’accentuer l’isolement de ces communautés dans leur aspiration à développer des actions précises et à les concrétiser. Pourtant, le milieu autochtone se doit de poursuivre la voie de l’amélioration continue de son administration à ce sujet puisque celui-ci participe également au bilan provincial. Cet essai s’inscrit dans le but précis d’accompagner Long Point First Nation dans son cheminement vers une gestion éclairée de ses matières résiduelles. La communauté de Long Point First Nation a introduit la collecte sélective depuis quelques années déjà et en assure elle-même sa gestion. Néanmoins, elle est aux prises avec des situations problématiques limitant la gestion adéquate de ses matières résiduelles. L’éloignement géographique, les partenariats laborieux, les coûts élevés reliés à la gestion et l’instabilité au niveau de la collecte hebdomadaire freinent sa facilité administrative et son déploiement. L’usage des dépôts sauvages pour éliminer les matières non collectées amplifie les problèmes environnementaux et de santé publique. La désuétude de certaines installations et l’absence de campagnes usuelles d’information, de sensibilisation et d’éducation n’assurent pas une gestion optimale ni sa pérennité. Un plan d’action a été réalisé dans le but ultime de contrer ces enjeux. Ce plan priorise deux objectifs fondamentaux, celui d’instaurer un système de récupération des matières organiques au niveau résidentiel et celui de développer des infrastructures pouvant accueillir les matières résiduelles non collectées par la collecte sélective actuellement en place. En plus de ces priorités, cinq autres objectifs sont mis de l’avant, soit le regroupement d’informations concernant la gestion des matières résiduelles et son suivi, la qualité de gestion de la collecte municipale, l’assurance de la qualité environnementale de son territoire, l’affinement du tri des matières recyclables et l’amélioration de la transmission d’informations auprès des résidents. Le tout représente un essai se voulant pragmatique colligeant objectifs et mesures afin d’élaborer un plan d’action réaliste à caractère environnemental.

Capturing Australian indigenous perception of virtual landscape

This short paper presents a means of capturing non spatial information (specifically understanding of places) for use in a Virtual Heritage application. This research is part of the Digital Songlines Project which is developing protocols, methodologies and a toolkit to facilitate the collection and sharing of Indigenous cultural heritage knowledge, using virtual reality. Within the context of this project most of the cultural activities relate to celebrating life and to the Australian Aboriginal people, land is the heart of life. Australian Indigenous art, stories, dances, songs and rituals celebrate country as its focus or basis. To the Aboriginal people the term “Country” means a lot more than a place or a nation, rather “Country” is a living entity with a past a present and a future; they talk about it in the same way as they talk about their mother. The landscape is seen to have a spiritual connection in a view seldom understood by non-indigenous persons; this paper introduces an attempt to understand such empathy and relationship and to reproduce it in a virtual environment.

Children's Fiction About 9/11: Ethnic, Heroic and National Identities

In this study, Lampert examines how cultural identities are constructed within fictional texts for young people written about the attacks on the Twin Towers. It identifi es three significant identity categories encoded in 9/11 books for children:ethnic identities, national identities, and heroic identities,arguing that the identities formed within the selected children’s texts are in flux, privileging performances of identities that are contingent on post-9/11 politics. Looking at texts including picture books, young adult fiction, and a selection of DC Comics, Lampert finds in post-9/11 children’s literature a co-mingling of xenophobia and tolerance; a binaried competition between good and evil and global harmony and national insularity; and a lauding of both the commonplace hero and the super-human. The shifting identities evident in texts that are being produced for children about 9/11 offer implicit and explicit accounts of what constitutes good citizenship, loyalty to nation and community, and desirable attributes in a Western post-9/11 context. This book makes an original contribution to the field of children’s literature by providing a focused and sustained analysis of how texts for children about 9/11 contribute to formations of identity in these complex times of cultural unease and global unrest.

Context and models for the analysis of individual and group needs

This paper summarizes the papers presented in the thematic stream Models for the Analysis of Individual and Group Needs, at the 2007 IAEVG-SVP-NCDA Symposium: Vocational Psychology and Career Guidance Practice: An International Partnership. The predominant theme which emerged from the papers was that theory and practice need to be positioned within their contexts. For this paper, context has been formulated as a dimension ranging from the individual’s experience of himself or herself in conversations, including interpersonal transactions and body culture, through to broad higher levels of education, work, nation, and economy.

Media Studies: "Media, History and Society", and "Thinking Popular Culture".

“When cultural life is re-defined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk.” (Postman) The dire tones of Postman quoted in Janet Cramer’s Media, History, Society: A Cultural History of US Media introduce one view that she canvasses, in the debate of the moment, as to where popular culture is heading in the digital age. This is canvassed, less systematically, in Thinking Popular Culture: War Terrorism and Writing by Tara Brabazon, who for example refers to concerns about a “crisis of critical language” that is bothering professionals—journalists and academics or elsewhere—and deplores the advent of the Internet, as a “flattening of expertise in digital environments”.

Education futures : transforming teacher education in the middle years

The young people who populate our classrooms live in a changed and rapidly changing society: a society where information is the most valued commodity and where traditional ‘truth’s such as nation and family are increasingly destabilized and fragmented. Educators at primary, secondary and tertiary level must, with some urgency, address issues relating the emergence of new citizenships and identities, the impact of new technologies and new economies. Our pedagogy and curriculums must be relevant to the need of students now and in the future. The School of Education, The University of Queensland is addressing issues of change, new technologies, new work places, critical citizenry and the need for pedagogical and curriculum innovation through the development of a new Middle Years of Schooling Dual Degree program. This program is designed to equip pre-service teachers to approach pedagogy and curriculum in innovative ways and to challenge them to embrace diversity and change. This paper outlines the key features of the Middle Years of Schooling Dual Degree, identifying a number of innovative approaches to pre-service teacher education.

Reading Squadron: Crossing borders in literacy experiences for preservice teachers.

Teaching literacy requires accurate and current knowledge in the field (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005). There have been persistent inquiries into what constitutes specialist knowledge and skills for teaching students to be literate. Preservice teacher education is fundamental to literacy development, which includes the approaches universities employ to prepare graduates for teaching literacy. Indeed, preservice teacher programs and literacy education also elicit insatiable media coverage. There is a continued push to improve literacy outcomes for school students across the nation and prepare the literacy knowledge and skills of Australian teachers. This study mainly focuses on 10 final-year preservice teachers attending a regional university campus who volunteered for further experiences to teach students to read traditional texts. These preservice teachers completed three university literacy units before commencing with practical applications. A literacy program, titled Reading Squadron, was developed in partnership between a local primary school and the university. Primary students were identified by the school as requiring literacy support. Preservice teachers attended a whole day training session run by school staff at the university and then visited the school for two one-hour sessions each week over a six-week period. Each preservice teacher was assigned two students and worked with each student for half an hour twice a week. The aim of this small-scale qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of the preservice teachers and school staff as a result of their involvement in the Reading Squadron program. The preservice teachers completed a questionnaire to determine their views of the program and ascertain how it assisted their development. Further data were gathered from the preservice teachers through individual face-to-face interviews. Three school staff involved in the program also completed a questionnaire to determine the value of the program. Results indicated that the preservice teachers made links between theory and practice, and felt they gained knowledge about teaching reading. Three preservice teachers noted it was difficult to work around timetable commitments but gained from the experience and suggested embedding such experiences into university literacy units. Data gathered from school staff indicated that six-weeks was not sufficient time to measure improvements in the school students, however, they were supportive of such a program, particularly for its continuation. Collaborations between schools and universities can provide opportunities for preservice teachers to use theoretical knowledge gained from core university subjects with application to assist primary students’ literacy development in schools. Teachers in this study were supportive of the Reading Squadron program, however, more data needed to be collected to understand the literacy improvement of students. Longitudinal studies are required to ascertain specific knowledge and skills gained by preservice teachers to teach reading and how these programs enhance students’ literacy levels.

Planning mobile futures : the border artistry of International Baccalaureate Diploma choosers

This paper reports on a study of students choosing the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBD) over state-based curricula in Australian schools. The IBD was initially designed as a matriculation certificate to facilitate international mobility. While first envisaged as a lifestyle agenda for cultural elites, such mobility is now widespread with more people living ‘beyond the nation’ through choice or circumstance. Beck (2007) and others highlight how the capacity to cross national borders offers a competitive edge with which to strategically pursue economic and cultural capital. Beck’s ‘border artistes’ are those who use national borders to their individual advantage through reflexive strategy. The study explored the rationales and strategy behind the choice of the IBD curriculum expressed by students in a focus group interview and an online survey. This paper reports on their imagined transnational routes and mobile orientations, and how a localised curriculum limits their imagined mobile futures.

Vision, functional and cognitive determinants of motor vehicle incidents in older drivers

Background: The proportion of older individuals in the driving population is predicted to increase in the next 50 years. This has important implications for driving safety as abilities which are important for safe driving, such as vision (which accounts for the majority of the sensory input required for driving), processing ability and cognition have been shown to decline with age. The current methods employed for screening older drivers upon re-licensure are also vision based. This study, which investigated social, behavioural and professional aspects involved with older drivers, aimed to determine: (i) if the current visual standards in place for testing upon re-licensure are effective in reducing the older driver fatality rate in Australia; (ii) if the recommended visual standards are actually implemented as part of the testing procedures by Australian optometrists; and (iii) if there are other non-standardised tests which may be better at predicting the on-road incident-risk (including near misses and minor incidents) in older drivers than those tests recommended in the standards. Methods: For the first phase of the study, state-based age- and gender-stratified numbers of older driver fatalities for 2000-2003 were obtained from the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau database. Poisson regression analyses of fatality rates were considered by renewal frequency and jurisdiction (as separate models), adjusting for possible confounding variables of age, gender and year. For the second phase, all practising optometrists in Australia were surveyed on the vision tests they conduct in consultations relating to driving and their knowledge of vision requirements for older drivers. Finally, for the third phase of the study to investigate determinants of on-road incident risk, a stratified random sample of 600 Brisbane residents aged 60 years and were selected and invited to participate using an introductory letter explaining the project requirements. In order to capture the number and type of road incidents which occurred for each participant over 12 months (including near misses and minor incidents), an important component of the prospective research study was the development and validation of a driving diary. The diary was a tool in which incidents that occurred could be logged at that time (or very close in time to which they occurred) and thus, in comparison with relying on participant memory over time, recall bias of incident occurrence was minimised. Association between all visual tests, cognition and scores obtained for non-standard functional tests with retrospective and prospective incident occurrence was investigated. Results: In the first phase,rivers aged 60-69 years had a 33% lower fatality risk (Rate Ratio [RR] = 0.75, 95% CI 0.32-1.77) in states with vision testing upon re-licensure compared with states with no vision testing upon re-licensure, however, because the CIs are wide, crossing 1.00, this result should be regarded with caution. However, overall fatality rates and fatality rates for those aged 70 years and older (RR=1.17, CI 0.64-2.13) did not differ between states with and without license renewal procedures, indicating no apparent benefit in vision testing legislation. For the second phase of the study, nearly all optometrists measured visual acuity (VA) as part of a vision assessment for re-licensing, however, 20% of optometrists did not perform any visual field (VF) testing and only 20% routinely performed automated VF on older drivers, despite the standards for licensing advocating automated VF as part of the vision standard. This demonstrates the need for more effective communication between the policy makers and those responsible for carrying out the standards. It may also indicate that the overall higher driver fatality rate in jurisdictions with vision testing requirements is resultant as the tests recommended by the standards are only partially being conducted by optometrists. Hence a standardised protocol for the screening of older drivers for re-licensure across the nation must be established. The opinions of Australian optometrists with regard to the responsibility of reporting older drivers who fail to meet the licensing standards highlighted the conflict between maintaining patient confidentiality or upholding public safety. Mandatory reporting requirements of those drivers who fail to reach the standards necessary for driving would minimise potential conflict between the patient and their practitioner, and help maintain patient trust and goodwill. The final phase of the PhD program investigated the efficacy of vision, functional and cognitive tests to discriminate between at-risk and safe older drivers. Nearly 80% of the participants experienced an incident of some form over the prospective 12 months, with the total incident rate being 4.65/10 000 km. Sixty-three percent reported having a near miss and 28% had a minor incident. The results from the prospective diary study indicate that the current vision screening tests (VA and VF) used for re-licensure do not accurately predict older drivers who are at increased odds of having an on-road incident. However, the variation in visual measurements of the cohort was narrow, also affecting the results seen with the visual functon questionnaires. Hence a larger cohort with greater variability should be considered for a future study. A slightly lower cognitive level (as measured with the Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE]) did show an association with incident involvement as did slower reaction time (RT), however the Useful-Field-of-View (UFOV) provided the most compelling results of the study. Cut-off values of UFOV processing (>23.3ms), divided attention (>113ms), selective attention (>258ms) and overall score (moderate/ high/ very high risk) were effective in determining older drivers at increased odds of having any on-road incident and the occurrence of minor incidents. Discussion: The results have shown that for the 60-69 year age-group, there is a potential benefit in testing vision upon licence renewal. However, overall fatality rates and fatality rates for those aged 70 years and older indicated no benefit in vision testing legislation and suggests a need for inclusion of screening tests which better predict on-road incidents. Although VA is routinely performed by Australian optometrists on older drivers renewing their licence, VF is not. Therefore there is a need for a protocol to be developed and administered which would result in standardised methods conducted throughout the nation for the screening of older drivers upon re-licensure. Communication between the community, policy makers and those conducting the protocol should be maximised. By implementing a standardised screening protocol which incorporates a level of mandatory reporting by the practitioner, the ethical dilemma of breaching patient confidentiality would also be resolved. The tests which should be included in this screening protocol, however, cannot solely be ones which have been implemented in the past. In this investigation, RT, MMSE and UFOV were shown to be better determinants of on-road incidents in older drivers than VA and VF, however, as previously mentioned, there was a lack of variability in visual status within the cohort. Nevertheless, it is the recommendation from this investigation, that subject to appropriate sensitivity and specificity being demonstrated in the future using a cohort with wider variation in vision, functional performance and cognition, these tests of cognition and information processing should be added to the current protocol for the screening of older drivers which may be conducted at licensing centres across the nation.

Is Doctor Who Australian?

As part of an ARC Discovery project to write a history of Australian television from the point of view of audiences, I looked for Australian television fan communities. It transpired that the most productive communities exist around imported programming like the BBC’s Doctor Who. This program is an Australian television institution – and I was thus interested in finding out whether it should be included in an audience-centred history of Australian television. Research in archives of fan materials showed that the program has been made distinctively Australian through censorship and scheduling practices. There are uniquely Australian social practices built around it. Also, its very Britishness has become part of its being – in a sense - Australian. Through all of this, there is a clear awareness that this Australian institution originates somewhere else – that for these fans Australia is always secondary, relying on other countries to produce its myths for it, no matter how much it might reshape them.

Globalist Fallacies, Fictions and Facts: The MAI and Neo-classic Ideology

There is little evidence, historical or otherwise, to suggest that the needs of people and societies change greatly over time. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of the many recent technological innovations that are part of the contemporary milieu, I am reluctant to see such advances as sufficient rationale for the dismantling of the social contract between a government and its citizenry. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) highlights the move amongst developed countries to replace a national policy focus with a multilateral approach to global policy formulation that transcends the sovereignty of nation states. The purpose of this paper is to refute the assumptions underpinning multilateralist assertions that government has a diminishing role to play in the global society, and that national sovereignty, due to the increasingly important role of multilateral agreements and the global economy, is ‘a thing of the past’ (Arthur Asher, background briefing interview, Radio National, February 1, 1998). The basic premises that underpin the globalist argument1 for the diminishing role of government are that: • Economic growth increases jobs, prosperity, and freedom. • Free trade is an imperative for successful globalisation because financial sector performance - which depends on deregulation - is integral to global economic growth. • Information technology is revolutionising global trade and making globalisation inevitable. • Globalisation through deregulation, makes national boundaries meaningless, and therefore, national regulatory policies anachronistic. This paper compares the aforementioned axiomatic premises of globalisation to actual outcomes, events, and trends in the real world.

Sustainable urban development : a quadruple bottom line assessment framework

Sustainable development has long been promoted as the best answer to the world's environmental problems. This term has generated mass appeal as it implies that the development of the built environment and its associated resource consumption can both be achieved without jeopardising the natural environment. In the urban context, sustainability issues have been reflected in the pomotion of sustainable urbanisation in a manner that allows future generations to repeat this process. This paper attempts to highlight an increasing urgency in formulating a suitable model for assessing sustainability at urban level, because this is where the bulk of a nation's population reside, and where sustainability problems mostly occur. It will also point out to the increasing importance of governance in facilitating urban sustainability research. This assessment involves the use of physical, social, environmental and goverance aspects in assessing the extent to which development of an urban settlement is sustainable. Specifically, this assessment model is carried out to determine whether or not sustainable urban development pratice is implemented in the provision of residential development, and in particular whether the development of master-planned residential communities have more desireable outcomes compared to traditional residential subdivision.