The outcomes, processes, and challenges of inclusive education in Victoria

A collaborative school culture is important to improve the learning of students with special education needs. This could be met through a consolidation of a school's understanding of students' learning difficulties as environmental causes and an increase of teachers' confidence and knowledge on addressing students' diverse needs.

Students' perceptions of academic and business dishonesty : Australian evidence

Publicly available information indicates that the collapse of the high-profile corporations during the recent past were due to the unethical actions of a number of major players, including high level managers in those corporations. These examples of the ethical misdeeds of corporate actors have influenced accounting professional bodies and academic institutions around the globe to revisit the issue of ethical training of business and accounting students—the corporate managers of tomorrow. However, little is known about the ethical perceptions of business and accounting students, and business academics are finding it challenging to develop and promote ethics-based accounting and business curricula. This study addresses the research gap. It explores the ethical perceptions of accounting and business students in two Australian universities using three paradigms, that is, whether there are differences between regional and metropolitan, male and female, older and younger accounting students with respect to their ethical perceptions. Empirical evidence provided in this study
suggests that while there are no differences in ethical perceptions of the regional and metropolitan accounting and business students, female and older students are found to be more ethical compared to male and younger students.

A model of organizational ethics education

Purpose – This paper aims to propose a model of ethics education for corporate organizations framed as an holistic approach to the problem of how to teach ethics.

Design/methodology/approach – As a conceptual/viewpoint piece, this paper recognizes that for ethics education to be successful, individuals and corporations must have an appreciation of their role in the society at large. In addition, there needs to be preparedness on the part of the corporation to engage in an ethical manner with the marketplace with which it interacts.

Findings – Ethics education should not exist in a vacuum, that is just within the organization, but it should reflect the values of the organization as they impact upon and are impacted upon by society in general.

Research/limitations/implications – This model is predicated on a belief that organizations must craft their ethics education program with as much care and enthusiasm as they craft their strategic plan. The employees are the organization's representatives and they need to be made as clear as one can make them as to the ethical philosophy of the company and what is expected of them. Adults have a capacity for greater reasoning and reflection on their life experiences than children and thus the concept of “andragogy” provides a more satisfactory method to fashion education programs for adults than some more traditional methods that focus on training and not education.

Practical implications – When considering the ethics education of its employees, corporations need to place that education in context as it relates to the organization and the wider society as a whole. It is suggested that an ethics education program needs to provide a framework for understanding the concepts of ethics and moral development. Using this framework as the basis for the education offered, the education program is then expanded into an examination of a range of ethical issues presented in a variety of ways.

Originality/value – This paper proposes an integrated way to approach ethics education that ensures that the antecedents of the program are considered in the context of the ethics of individuals, the society and in turn the organization, hence the holistic approach.

Ethics education in accounting curricula : evidence from Malaysia

This study reveals that the extent to which accounting academics integrate ethics in their teaching is significantly and positively associated with the belief in their ability to teach ethics, which is found to be a function of peer support, Head of Department leadership and their own attitudes towards ethics education.

Extractive transnational corporations, intrastate conflict and peacemaking : frameworks and best practice

This thesis explores the role of mining and oil transnational corporations in corporate peacemaking. That is, helping to bring together warring parties in intrastate conflict to enable them to conduct peace negotiations and then, supporting these negotiations. Key concerns, and new theory, frameworks and best-practice in corporate peacemaking are proposed.

Australian transnational higher education quality assurance in Singapore and Malaysia

This thesis investigates the nature of the mutual understanding of quality assurance between two importing countries and Australia, as an exporter, of transnational higher education. The findings highlight the risks for policy makers and the need for better communication and collaboration between importing and exporting institutions and their transnational higher education counterparts.

An Australian/UK comparison of contemporary teaching and learning technologies

The last decade has delivered substantial changes in construction and property education in Australia and the UK. There has been an increase in the number of courses offered in built environment education and the profile of a typical student has changed. In both countries students are under pressure to balance study and work due to the higher costs of living and education. This has placed demands on providers to deliver teaching and learning which meets student, industry and professional needs. Simultaneously there has been an increase in the application of technology in the business and corporate world which has resulted in increased efficiencies and new challenges. This paper evaluates changes in construction and property education courses to embrace new technology. The focus is on the delivery of innovative teaching and learning materials and the interaction between students, staff and the community. Results from questionnaires from new and existing students at Deakin University and Nottingham Trent University were used alongside examples of teaching and learning as illustrative case studies, the emphasis is placed on pushing the boundaries of the conventional built environment education process. The findings show that by embracing technology there can be a „win-win‟ scenario for students, staff and industry stakeholders. Whilst courses adopt varying levels of technology, it seems inevitable that educators must evolve the delivery of education to become efficient and effective as the century progresses.

Defining educational research : a perspective of/on presidential addresses and the Australian Association for Research in Education

This paper is concerned with the definition of the field of educational research and the changing and developing role of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) in representing and constituting this field. The evidence for the argument is derived from AARE Presidential Addresses across its 40-year history. The paper documents the enhanced complexity and diversity of the field over these 40 years, including the emergence of a global educational policy field, theoretical and methodological developments in the social sciences and new research accountabilities such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) measure. Specifically, the paper suggests that the evidence-based movement in public management and education policy, and the introduction of the ERA, potentially limit and redefine the field of educational research, reducing the usefulness and relevance of educational research to policy makers and practitioners. This arises from a failure to recognise that Education is both a field of research and a field of policy and practice. Located against both developments, the paper argues for a principled eclecticism framed by a reassessment of quality, which can be applied to the huge variety of methodologies, theories, epistemologies and topics legitimately utilised and addressed within the field of educational research. At the same time, the paper argues the need to globalise the educational research imagination and deparochialise educational research. This call is located within a broader argument suggesting the need for a new social imaginary (in a post-neoliberal context of the global financial crisis) to frame educational policy and practice and the contribution that educational theory and research might make to its constitution. In relation to this, the paper considers the difficulties that political representations of such a new imaginary might entail for the President and the Association, given the variety of its membership and huge diversity of its research interests.

Online role play stories, engagement and learning in higher education

This thesis studies online role plays as they are used in higher education. It finds that where students are able to develop engaging stories together, their story-building can promote a range of learning outcomes. It also identifies techniques to develop their critical awareness and skills, and makes design recommendations.

Above and beyond the bottom line

Education is BIG BUSINESS! Stakeholders are many—governments and governors, parents and students, employers and corporations, communities and nations—all with their own agendas, demands and expectations. The business surrounding education is hidden from public view, but is integral to education and student learning.

Above and Beyond the Bottom Line:The extraordinary evolution of the education business manager provides insights into the dynamic evolution and exponential expansion of education business and the rise of the education business manager—now an indispensable member of educational leadership teams.

No longer is the business manager an invisible back-office employee who balances the books. The role is highly complex and accountable and the scope of the work wide-ranging and changeable. Education business managers are professionals holding knowledge, skills and ideas that increase organisational capacity, viability and provision and enable other educational leaders to focus on learning and teaching. Building on research from around the world, this book fills a huge gap in our understandings about educational leadership in its most comprehensive sense, while discussing current issues and considerations for the future.

Above and Beyond the Bottom Line will be an invaluable resource for business managers from all education settings—schools, universities, kindergartens, training colleges—and their professional associations; educational leaders and councillors; education policymakers; advisors and auditors; and scholars and researchers interested in finding out about the extraordinary developments occurring behind the scenes in educational leadership, management and administration.

Family-centred practice : empowerment, self-efficacy, and challenges for practitioners in early childhood education and care

Family-centred practice has been included in the Victoria, Australia Early Years Learning and Development Framework as a key practice principle for professionals working across all early years programs in that state. While this model of partnership for engaging and collaborating with families has long been used in the early intervention sector, the efficacy of adopting this model more widely across the wider early childhood education and care sector has not been explored. This article presents a discussion on family-centred practice as a model for engaging with families in the care and education of their children. Through an analysis of the underlying philosophy and an examination of the core principles and characteristics, the article explores family-centred practice as it sits within a broader theory of partnership. This analysis identifies that while there are essential principles and characteristics that position the model within a partnership framework, it is the notion of empowerment, an underpinning philosophy guiding the model, that adds another dimension to the way practitioners in early childhood education and care settings collaborate with families. In examining the broader early childhood context, the capacity of many early childhood practitioners to effectively implement empowering behaviours is challenged.

Building capacity in sexuality education : The Northern Bay College experience : Report of the first phase of the sexuality education and community support (SECS) project

The Sexuality Education and Community Support (SECS) project aims to introduce a P-12 approach to sexuality education at Northern Bay P-12 College (NBC) through a collaborative partnership process between the schools within the College and local, regional, and state health and education agencies and has set out to change current sexual health education practice in the College and assist other schools in the region to do the same. The Project’s goal is a ‘sustainable, responsive, whole school, regionally consistent, best practice sexuality education’. During this first or establishment phase of the SECS project strategies have been implemented to begin the process of building capacity in sexuality education at NBC. These strategies are aimed at developing a sustainable approach during the next three and a half years.

Research mentoring on the edge : early career researchers and academic fringe-dwelling

Discourses of research leadership define not only what quality research leadership can and should be, but also identify those who speak and act with authority. Similarly, these discourses construct particular professional identities and idealised ‘ways of being’. They provide possibilities for research leaders as well as those categorised as 'Early Career Researchers' (ECRs) to create alternative identities and representations of themselves. This study reports the views of 32 academics across 16 Australian universities in four States about research mentoring and leadership for ECRs. The primary interest was to explore how research leadership is conceptualised, implemented and negotiated in the disciplinary fields of business, nursing and education. Whilst a number of ECRs viewed formal research mentoring as taking a ‘tick the box’ approach that they believed of limited value, a number of research leaders had different views. Most senior research leaders viewed the systemic provision of assistance their universities offered in a positive light. The dissonance in views centred on the subject positioning of academics in research. The dissatisfaction expressed by ECRs, a number of whom positioned themselves as fringe-dwellers ‘on the edge’ of their institutional research culture, raises questions about research sustainability and succession planning in Australian tertiary
institutions.

Constructions of education and resistance within popular feminist commentary on girls and sexualisation

We are currently witnessing a renewed vigour to ongoing concerns about the sexualisation of young women and girls in western popular culture. This paper takes up Angela McRobbie’s concerns that the commercial sphere has become a primary site for talking about, and educating, girls and young women (McRobbie, 2008). I first explore the growth in ‘expert’ commentary, on girls and sexualisation, drawing on the work of a number of commentators and authors from the USA, the UK and Australia, who have become ubiquitous media commentators on issues facing girls, including sexualisation. I then draw on feminist and education theory to explore the possible limitations of how education is conceived within this cultural site, particularly with respect to constructions of girls’ resistance. In the final part of the paper I show how girls’ resistance is complicated in postfeminist, neoliberal societies and I propose that education scholarship and practice must confront the ways in which girls’ resistance is bound up in their developing classed and raced identities.