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Student voice and influence on employability in Australian higher education
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Higher education institutions are increasingly focussed on improving the capacity and potential of their graduates to gain employment. Attempts to develop employability skills through both mainstream and extra-curricular activities create new demands and expectations for students. Despite these demands, little attention has been given to student voice and influence in the employability sphere. Furthermore, the specific role of student unions in improving employability has been marginalised in Australian research. The research reported in this paper involved conducting a national survey of student groups and a comprehensive desktop review to capture student perspectives and investigate strategies to improve employability. From the research five broad student-centred approaches were identified: providing input into university employability strategies; placing students in positions of leadership and responsibility; delivering careers services; managing clubs and societies; and advocating for students from equity groups who have relatively poor completion rates and/or graduate outcomes. The findings are discussed and recommendations targeted to higher education institutions and student unions are provided.
 
Teenagers, Fandom and Identity
Get PDFThis paper analyses collective and individual identity construction processes in adolescent fan communities mediated by multimodal discourse. The theoretical framework relies on Jenkins, Itō, and Boyd (2015), Holland and Lave (2009), and Marshall, Moore, and Barbour (2015). Our approach is rooted in participant observation and supported by ethnographic work with teenage girls who belong to music communities built around One Direction, Justin Bieber, and Magcon. Firstly, we will show how participating in communities of practice such as through undertaking tasks which give meaning to group activities contributes to the construction of a social and cultural identity supported by the interpretation, production, and dissemination of texts. Secondly, we will examine how subjective and personal identities related to feelings, emotions, and situations are supported by the fan community, which is organised around the celebrity’s public persona.
 
Persona in MMO Games: Constructing an Identity Through Complex Player/Character Relationships
Get PDFStudies of online interaction involving identity can be divided into two distinct categories. On the one hand, there is the study of the players, which often asks questions of a psychological or economic nature. On the other hand, there is the study of characters, which looks at issues of language or culture, and critical theory topics such as gender, class, and race online. While these two approaches have created a field of digital games research that provides many valuable resources and research projects, the separation between these topics is also limiting due to the complex and intertwined nature of online and offline interaction in the modern age. This paper presents a new definition of persona as an additional methodological concept that can be used to observe interaction in the online world, particularly as it applies to the presentation of an identity to others. This construct serves as a joint identity of character and player, combining these otherwise separate topics to allow for a greater depth of understanding of the actions and reasoning behind the characters and players of digital games. It is also applicable to other online contexts, such as social networking, livestreaming, and forum use
Good WIL hunting: Building capacity for curriculum re-design
Get PDFIn response to government, industry, student and central University calls for initiatives to enhance graduate employability as a means for improved employment outcomes, a faculty within an Australian university formulated a five-year Work Integrated Learning (WIL) strategy (2015-2019). The Faculty goal was to re-new, develop, implement and evaluate scalable and sustainable intentional WIL-focused authentic curricula across every undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) course by the end of 2019. A ‘WIL Leadership Framework’ underpinned the whole-of-course team approach. This paper reports on the change-management processes and behaviours necessary to effect change from the bottom-up. Fostering academic staff capacity to build course-appropriate WIL curriculum has been slow and subtle and yet significant refinements to intentional and embedded WIL curriculum have occurred through a series of grounded research studies and curriculum renewal projects. WIL champions (the innovators), earmarked as change agents for enabling scalable curriculum transformation and renewal, were ‘hunted-out’ and nurtured. Their role was to influence teachers to enact context-specific and discipline-based WIL experiences into the curriculum. The main research findings to date reveal that STEM-specific WIL frameworks, concepts and assessment examples, presented as scholarly curriculum choices by WIL experts, and then actively and collegially discussed amongst the WIL champions and WIL early adopters, has been the most effective process to date for developing a WIL centred curriculum. The paper concludes by addressing the current operational goals predicated to have an impact on graduate employment for the Faculty
The ‘person-in-between’ role of young graduates at INGOs in Vietnam
Get PDFIn Vietnam today one of the consequences of globalisation has been a proliferation of international non-government organisations (INGOs). These are intercultural work environments where individuals must seek to understand the culture of others and try to share and find common ground as they strive to fulfil the goals of the organisations. These individuals need high levels of intercultural competence, particularly cultural mediation, important for the role of cultural intermediaries. Drawing on theories of cultural mediation and cultural intermediaries, this research explores the intersection of different cultural worlds in the context of development projects at INGOs in Vietnam. The new graduates in the study reflected on their resources and skills to adapt development models to the local context, thus demonstrating important employability skills. This was particularly challenging given that in organisations such as universities, where the culture was described as rigidly hierarchical, skill training was restricted to following procedures to execute a particular task. However, in organisations like INGOs with high degrees of employee autonomy, decision making is left to the discretion of staff who are required to demonstrate their own means of developing the skills. Based on the findings of the qualitative research into young Vietnamese graduates’ experiences of working at INGOs, this paper argues that young graduates play a significant role in disseminating information, and at the same time promoting mutual understanding, forming culturally relativistic attitudes, and demonstrating cross-cultural empathy. They were not just gaining employment, but adding value to an enterprise. Given increasing globalisation, this research makes an interesting argument for the inclusion of cultural literacy as a necessary employability skill for successful engagement in today’s world of work
Impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: A case study of associate degree freshmen in Hong Kong
Get PDFThis paper examines the correlation between curriculum reforms and the development of generic competencies among Hong Kong tertiary students (or secondary leavers who were admitted to Associate Degree and Higher Diploma). A total number of 3626 freshmen completed a set of self-assessment questionnaires, which were used to analyse the correlation between five generic competencies, across three academic years from 2010 to 2012. Five of the generic competencies, which were highlighted in the proposed new three-year New Senior Secondary (NSS) academic structure, were measured and compared between students from different academic backgrounds. The finding of the study indicated significantly higher scores in generic competencies for the traditional Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) secondary school curriculum in 2012 compared to earlier cohorts, whilst in general no significant difference was found between students from the traditional curriculum and the new academic structure of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) in the mixed ‘double cohort’ year of 2012. The result points to the potential early impact of NSS on students’ generic skill development across both the old and new curriculum
A focus on collaboration: Fostering Australian screen production students’ teamwork skills.
Get PDFRecent research undertaken in Australia and abroad suggests that the development of effective collaboration skills is a significant factor affecting the successful employment of graduate screen practitioners. This article outlines the results of a study that examined student response to the explicit teaching of collaboration skills in an Australian screen production course. The authors report on an empirical research project undertaken in 2015 and 2016 in the Department of Screen Arts at Curtin University, Western Australia. This involved two cohorts of second year screen production students (83 in total), and aimed to foster students’ teamwork skills. The activities and resources shared with students encouraged an interrogation of contemporary models of filmmaking collaboration, the use of group contracts to identify shared values of teamwork and the implementation of activities designed to improve students’ awareness of various collaboration styles. Outcomes were measured by both qualitative and quantitative means through student surveys administered at both the beginning and end of the unit of study. The results of these surveys suggest a change in student attitudes towards collaboration, particularly in regards to the value of communication. The authors aim to disseminate these findings and to encourage further discussion and study in this area. The article builds a case for more attention being placed on the explicit teaching of teamwork and collaboration skills in University screen production courses
Internationalising a school: teachers’ perspectives on pedagogy, curriculum and inclusion
Get PDFThe increase of internationalisation in Australian schools marks this as a significant teaching and learning experience for many teachers, specifically those in the secondary school. This case study of a secondary school investigated the concerns of teachers impacted by the implementation of an internationalisation policy. The study examined the teachers’ responses to issues often associated with internationalisation in schools: pedagogy, curriculum and student inclusion. Four key concerns emerged in the data: (i) feelings of being ill-prepared; (ii) questions about curriculum enactment and student participation; (iii) the need for greater intercultural competence; and (iv) a lack of clarity about the relationship between language and literacy. The paper explores the implications of these concerns for teachers’ practices and professional development as well as the place of international students in the school community. 
Constructing the Antichrist as Superstar: Marilyn Manson and the Mechanics of Eschatological Narrative
Get PDFThis article examines the moral crusade against Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, the various sign-vehicles that contributed to his persona, and the social construction of a folk devil. By fashioning his persona using previous claims concerning Satan’s influence in society - primarily, those employed during the 1980s Satanism scare - Manson ensured that Antichrist Superstar would incite panic as moral crusaders interpreted his pseudo-ostensive actions using collective memories and explanatory millenarianism. He achieved this aim by attacking middle-class Christian ideologies and connecting his persona to previous social problems and cultural scripts to delineate his deviant character. The pseudo-ostensive characteristics of Manson’s stage performances and blasphemous lyrics grant creditability to traditional folk beliefs concerning Satan’s influence in rock music therefore allowing conservative groups to interpret his persona using pre-existing rumours and narratives. By presenting himself as the Antichrist, Manson became a social problem for fundamentalist Christianity: a reiterated moral panic greatly blown out of proportion, and produced using traditional exaggerations and deviant stereotypes in a collective attempt to construct a folk devil. Because Manson’s image and lyrics are meticulously fashioned from various cultural symbols concerning evil and the Antichrist, he encourages his own demonization by enticing his audience to employ explanatory millenarianism and the knowledge of previous cultural scripts to interpret the traditional representations of evil he dangles before them
The Politician/Celebrity and Fan(Girl) Pleasure: The Line Between Queen Hillary and Presidential Candidate Clinton
Get PDFWhenever there is a major political event and the #TheBachelor live-tweeting continues, or popular online media outlets such as Jezebel go ahead with their pre-planned celebrity gossip coverage, there is outrage: seemingly, it is impossible to keep up with—and care about—both the Kardashians and election campaigns. During the 2016 United States’ election, however, this outrage emerged from within campaign coverage, drawing a line between “serious political supporter” (who is interested in facts and policy) and “emotional fangirl” (who is interested in memes, feelings, and “girl power” above all).
Despite Donald Trump’s history of reality TV and non-political celebrity, Hillary Clinton’s supporters were called “fangirls” and accused of celebrity-worship, of solely getting their news from “pop” media like BuzzFeed—where foreign policy coverage is found alongside discussions of how “dead” we are from a Clinton eye-roll—and of allowing fandom to cloud political judgment. This paper is not engaging in the “fake news” debate; rather, this paper explores the intersection of political celebrity and politician in a moment when governmental politics, celebrity, social media, and reality TV are overlapping in unprecedented ways, as well as the intersection of “serious” political campaigning and fannish pleasure in an historic moment for women in American politics