The impact of racism on parenting and the outcomes of Victorian Aboriginal children and young people

 Commissioned by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

Primary Science Specialist Learning Program – Report of Delivery

The purpose of this report is to describe the 8 day Deakin professional learning program and to examine the outcomes of the program based on feedback from participants, using a variety of data sources within the program. This evaluation of the Deakin professional learning program for primary science specialists is conducted for formative purposes, using mainly teachers' perceptions of the 5 day Professional development with science content and pedagogy focus (day 2-4, day 6-7) and the 3 day leading change focus (day 11-13). Feedback was acted on over the period of the professional development program.

New directions in education? A critique of contemporary policy reforms

This paper draws on facets of Foucault's theoretical resources to critique current education policy reform from within the Australian State of Victoria, namely the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's (DEECD) discussion paper New directions for school leadership and the teaching profession. Implicit in the reform effort is decentralization, including penalties for “underperforming” classroom teachers and “ineffective” teacher education courses. Principals will hold a pre-eminent rank in the reforms proposed as they are charged with their oversight and implementation, including intervening in the education and preparation of pre-service teachers.

Longitudinal Teacher Education Workforce Study [LTEWS] final report. November 2013

The Longitudinal Teacher Education Workforce Study (LTEWS) investigated the career progression of graduate teachers from teacher education into teaching employment in all states and territories across Australia in 2012 and the first half of 2013, and tracked their perceptions, over time, of the relevance and effectiveness of their teacher education programs. Specifically, it investigated: The career progression of the 2011 teacher education graduates from teacher education into, andpossible exit from, teaching employment, including their utilisation into teaching, their retention and attrition in teaching in their early years, and their geographic and schools sector mobility; and, The views of teacher education graduates over time on the relevance and effectiveness of their teacher education for their teaching employment, including the relationship between their views of their teacher education and their early career teaching career.LTEWS was conducted concurrently with the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project, which is a three-year project investigating these issues in Queensland and Victoria. SETE is funded by the Australian Research Council, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (QDETE), the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), and the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT). LTEWS focused on data collection in states and territories other than Queensland and Victoria. The findings from the SETE study were incorporated with the LTEWS findings to provide a national data set.

A associação entre variáveis sócio-demográficas e plumbemia em crianças

Na busca de compreender a dimensão dos efeitos da plumbemia (nível de chumbo no sangue), este estudo investigou as variáveis sócio-demográficas de crianças residentes em uma região contaminada por chumbo. Para isto, foi realizada uma anamnese junto às mães de 40 crianças entre 7 e 13 anos, sendo 20 com baixa plumbemia (<10 µ/dl) e 20 com alta plumbemia (>20 µ/dl). Os resultados foram categorizados e submetidos à análise estatística, que indicou diminuição da concentração de crianças na classe de alta plumbemia para baixa plumbemia no decorrer dos anos, sendo este declínio mais acentuado para os meninos do que para as meninas. Para as crianças com alta plumbemia, as mães relataram mais problemas de desenvolvimento, queixa escolar, problemas de saúde, de socialização e motricidade. Constatou-se ainda que as crianças filhas de mulheres cuja gestação ocorreu longe das fontes de contaminação apresentavam menor nível de plumbemia.

Função dos jogos e brinquedos na vida da criança

The author first describes the role of playing games and toys on physical, intellectual, emotional and social development of children. He further discusses how they should be selected in relation to the various stages of child growth.

O lugar do afetivo no desenvolvimento da criança: implicações educacionais

This study, of theoretical nature, aims to analyse some propositions of Historic and Cultural psychology about human psyche, especially regarding the constitution of affective processes in relation to child development. Therefore, brings together some principles of Spinozist philosophy that underlie the Vigotskian thought about affections and postulates that, for this school of psychology, on the basis of human development are the social experience and subject-object relation, constitutive of cognitive and affective processes. The analyses developed over the text indicate that social mediators - signs and instruments - subsidize the formation of activity and consciousness in a process that legitimizes the historic and social origin of affective functions. The paper aims to highlight the role of education as a privileged place of access to knowledge capable of transforming ways of thinking, feeling and acting of children through the processes of teaching and learning.

Criança não é manga, não amadurece: conceito de maturação na teoria histórico-cultural

The idea of "mature development" is based, frequently, on explanations of school failure: the student does not learn because he is immature and the school has to wait until he gets "mature". When one says that a child is not mature compared to the development already attained by an adult, one focuses only the quantitative differences between them and forgets that these new qualities of the adult did not arise by the maturation, but by the permanent appropriation process of the human culture. Thus, this idea of "maturity of development" expresses a deep biologization of the human being, reducing social and educational problems explanation to the biological apparatus of the individual. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the relationship between maturation and development, pointing out the limits of biologists’ explanations of human phenomena and the possibilities of explanation formulated by the historical-cultural theory to the organization of pedagogical work. This concept gives a new configuration to the role of maturation in the learning process and gives the school education a central role in the development of higher psychological functions. Thus, the school does not have to wait for the child’s maturation. Rather, it is its duty to create conditions for his/her maturation to become effective.

A 15-year study on the treatment of undernourished children at a nutrition rehabilitation centre (CREN), Brazil

Objective: To build a life table and determine the factors related to the time of treatment of undernourished children at a nutrition rehabilitation centre (CREN), Sao Paulo, Brazil. Design: Nutritional status was assessed from weight-for-age, height-for-age and BMI-for-age Z-scores, while neuropsychomotor development was classified according to the milestones of childhood development. Life tables, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox multiple regression models were employed in data analysis. Setting: CREN (Centre of Nutritional Recovery and Education), Sao Paulo, Brazil. Subjects: Undernourished children (n 228) from the southern slums of Sao Paulo who had received treatment at CREN under a day-hospital regime between the years 1994 and 2009. Results: The Kaplan-Meier curves of survival analysis showed statistically significant differences in the periods of treatment at CREN between children presenting different degrees of neuropsychomotor development (log-rank = 6.621; P = 0.037). Estimates based on the multivariate Cox model revealed that children aged >= 24 months at the time of admission exhibited a lower probability of nutritional rehabilitation (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.49; P = 0.046) at the end of the period compared with infants aged up 12 months. Children presenting slow development were better rehabilitated in comparison with those exhibiting adequate evolution (HR = 4.48; P = 0.023). No significant effects of sex, degree of undernutrition or birth weight on the probability of nutritional rehabilitation were found. Conclusions: Age and neuropsychomotor developmental status at the time of admission to CREN are critical factors in determining the duration of treatment.