1,721,150 research outputs found
Looking back to look forwards: Expanding the sociology of education
No full textAs we write these lines, sociology celebrates 50 years of the French publication of the book ‘The Inheritors’, written by Bourdieu and Passeron in 1964. This ‘classic’ was followed by a series of works in the sociology of education (mainly published in England, France and the United States) devoted to the inequalities inherent within disparate projects revolving around school democratisation . From the 1960s to the mid-1970s, if the paradigms of educational sociologists do not all inscribe to that of critical sociology , several common factors are involved in researchers’ overarching lines of enquiry: the development of statistical data on schools, conferences and publication of reports on education (see Coleman, 1966 in the United States; Plowden, 1967 in the United Kingdom), and the structuration of school policies around democratisation underlying theories of human capital and the dependence of the school vis-à-vis the labour market, and the stratification and socio-economic organisation of societies
Teaching Spelling in the Middle Years: Reviewing Programs for Diverse Student Groups
No full textThis is the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for pub-lication in the following source: Exley, Beryl (2014) Teaching spelling in the middle years: reviewing pro
Empirical reference points for Bernstein's model of pedagogic rights: Recontextualising the reconciliation agenda to Australian schooling
No full textIn this chapter we use Bernstein’s (2000) model of pedagogic rights to examine the learning experiences for non-Indigenous teachers in two reconciliation projects. In the context within which we write, reconciliation is the process of establishing a culture of mutual respect between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians. In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody linked the continuation of racism in Australian society to the weak coverage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the school curriculum (Reconciliation Australia, 2010). Nearly two decades later, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians issued by the council of federal, state and territory ministers of education proclaimed that a curriculum should enable all students to ‘understand and acknowledge the value of Indigenous cultures and possess the knowledge, skills and understanding to contribute to, and benefit from, reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’ (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 9). Education holds out promise not only of better life chances for Indigenous young people, but also of replacing myths with understanding and tackling prejudice and racism within the non-Indigenous population. Bernstein’s (2000) model of pedagogic rights promises some purchase on this pedagogic work by providing concepts for looking systematically at the participation of non-Indigenous teachers in education. As observed by Frandji and Vitale (Chapter 2, this volume), the model is not sufficient to achieve a democratic reality, ‘but simply provides a basis for problematizing reality and considering possibilities’.No Full Tex
Australian Children Catch the Bug: Motivating Young Children to Engage in Reading
No full textTwo Australian educators, Deputy Principal Jan Burton, and Head of Curriculum Jayne Barnett, saw themselves as being in the 'business' of working with teachers to increase students' literacy outcomes. Despite an intensive three year whole school literacy renewal project which focused on classroom pedagogies for teaching reading, the 'market' was still unmotivated. With a budget of less that US771), Jan and Jayne developed a 'business plan' to motivate their student and parent community to engage with reading: a plague of red and black 'reading' bugs. The slogan was 'Catch the Reading Bug', the icon was ubiquitous and the gimmicks were endless. The program's outcomes helped Thornlands State Primary School to win the Australian 'National Literacy and Numeracy Week Excellence Award for Schools 2006' as well as a smaller NLNW celebration grant. This article recounts their successful program
Teachers' Professional Knowledge Bases for Offshore Education: Two case studies of Western teachers working in Indonesia
No full textThis research thesis set out to better understand the professional knowledge bases of Western teachers working in offshore education in Indonesia. This research explored what two groups of Western teachers said about the students they taught, their own role, professional and social identity, the knowledge transmitted, and their pedagogical strategies whilst teaching offshore. Such an investigation is significant on a number of levels. Firstly, these teachers were working within a period of rapid economic, political, cultural and educational change described as ‘New Times’ (Hall, 1996a). Secondly, the experiences of teachers working in offshore education have rarely been reported in the literature (see Johnston, 1999). \ud
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A review of the literature on teachers’ professional knowledge bases (Shulman, 1986a, 1986b, 1987; Turner-Bisset, 1997, 1999) concluded that, in general terms, teachers draw on three main interrelated and changing knowledge bases: knowledge of content, knowledge of teaching processes and knowledge of their students. This review also explored the notion that teachers had an additional knowledge base that was in a continual state of negotiation and closely related to the aforementioned knowledge bases: teachers’ knowledge of their own and students’ pedagogic identities (Bernstein, 2000). A theoretical framework appropriate to exploring the overarching research problem was developed. This framework drew on models of teachers’ knowledge bases (Elbaz, 1983; Shulman, 1986a, 1986b, 1987; Nias, 1989; Turner-Bisset, 1997, 1999), the sociology of knowledge (Bernstein, 1975, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2000), and notions of pedagogic identity (Bernstein, 2000). This framework theorised the types of knowledges taught, categories of teaching process knowledge, and the range of pedagogic identities made available to teachers and students in new times. \ud
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More specifically, this research examined two case studies (see Stake, 1988, 2000; Yin, 1994) of Western teachers employed by Australian educational institutions who worked in Central Java, Indonesia, in the mid-to-late 1990s. The teacher participants from both case studies taught a range of subjects and used English as the medium of instruction. Data for both case studies were generated via semi-structured interviews (see Kvale, 1996; Silverman, 1985, 1997). The interviews focused on the teachers’ descriptions of the learner characteristics of Indonesian students, their professional roles whilst teaching offshore, and curriculum and pedagogic design. \ud
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The analyses produced four major findings. The first major finding of the analyses confirmed that the teacher participants in this study drew on all proposed professional knowledge bases and that these knowledge bases were interrelated. This suggests that teachers must have all knowledge bases present for them to do their work successfully. The second major finding was that teachers’ professional knowledge bases were constantly being negotiated in response to their beliefs about their work and the past, present and future demands of the local context. For example, the content and teaching processes of English lessons may have varied as their own and their students’ pedagogic identities were re-negotiated in different contexts of teaching and learning. Another major finding was that it was only when the teachers entered into dialogue with the Indonesian students and community members and/or reflective dialogue amongst themselves, that they started to question the stereotypical views of Indonesian learners as passive, shy and quiet. \ud
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The final major finding was that the teachers were positioned in multiple ways by contradictory and conflicting discourses. The analyses suggested that teachers’ pedagogic identities were a site of struggle between dominant market orientations and the criteria that the teachers thought should determine who was a legitimate teacher of offshore Indonesian students. The accounts from one of the case studies suggested that dominant market orientations centred on experience and qualifications in unison with prescribed and proscribed cultural, gender and age relations. Competent teachers who were perceived to be white, Western, male and senior in terms of age relations seemed to be the most easily accepted as offshore teachers of foundation programs for Indonesian students. The analyses suggested that the teachers thought that their legitimacy to be an offshore teacher of Indonesian students should be based on their teaching expertise alone. However, managers of Australian offshore educational institutions conceded that it was very difficult to bring about change in terms of teacher legitimisation. \ud
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These findings have three implications for the work of offshore teachers and program administrators. Firstly, offshore programs that favour the pre-packaging of curricula content with little emphasis on the professional development and support needs of teachers do not foster work conditions which encourage teachers to re-design or modify curricula in response to the specific needs of learners. Secondly, pre-packaged programs do not support teachers to enter into negotiations concerning students’ or their own pedagogic identities or the past, present and future demands of local contexts. These are important implications because they affect the way that teachers work, and hence how responsive teachers can be to learners’ needs and how active they can be in the negotiation process as it relates to pedagogic identities. Finally, the findings point to the importance of establishing a learning community or learning network to assist Western teachers engaged in offshore educational work in Asian countries such as Indonesia. Such a community or network would enable teachers to engage and modify the complexity of knowledge bases required for effective localised offshore teaching. Given the burgeoning increase in the availability and use of electronic technology in new times, such as internet, emails and web cameras, these learning networks could be set up to have maximum benefit with minimal on-going costs
Exploring grammatical mood in the early years: Statements, questions, commands and offers
No full textHave you ever thought about the way we use statements, questions, commands and offers in our day-to-day interactions? These four language resources are examples of grammatical mood:\ud
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• Statements – providing information or marking remarks\ud
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• Questions – enquiring or requesting information\ud
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• Commands – getting things done by requesting information or asking for goods and services\ud
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• Offers – offering to provide goods or services (Derewianka, 2011, p. 112-113).\ud
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The way grammatical mood is used and understood varies across social and cultural groups and across time and place.\ud
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Those immersed in a particular social or cultural group may be so comfortable with the use of grammatical mood, they may not realise how people from other social and cultural groups use these same grammatical resources to create different understandings. Let me provide an example
Review of B. Burnett, D. Meadmore & G. Tait (Eds) (2004) ‘Contemporary Questions’. Pearson Education, Australia: Sydney.
No full textLiteracy & Education: Understanding the New Literacy Studies in the Classroom (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005) advances an approach to multiliteracies education that has application from the middle years of schooling. Pahl & Rowsell add to the call for teachers & curriculum planners to build programs around local & individual difference as opposed to a standardized, one-size-fits-all approach. The authors argue that commonplace autonomous models of literacy dictate terms for the reader, whereas in an ideological model of literacy the reader & the context dictate the terms of how a text is read & understood. ‘Such a shift in thinking gives more power to the reader & the context as carriers of their own meanings, discourses & ideologies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005, p. 79). As Jim Cummins (2005, p. 151) summarises in the afterwords, Pahl & Rowsell provide a radically different image of the literacy student, an image that is intelligent, imaginative & linguistically talented. This text also outlines pedagogies & strategies for building on students’ individual cultural & linguistic capital, promoting cognitive engagement & identity investment where students are able to employ a range of technical tools to be constructors & researchers of knowledge. As Allan Luke argues in the foreword, such provision is essential if we are to abide by our commitment to literacy as a means of social transformation
Communal Noun/Verb Poetry
No full textIn 2013, the Exley family escaped the rat race for 6 months, touring around Australia in a caravan. Alicia (aged 12) and Luke (aged 8) took turns to write blog posts, many of which turned into chronological recounts of one adventure or another. However, on Day Forty, after unhitching the caravan at the Ranger Station in Kakadu National Park and packing our pup tents, our early morning drive to Gunlom (93 km south from Mardugal) via the 4WD only track generated so much conversation, I thought it prudent to pen our first ever communal ‘Noun/Verb’ poem. To give this vignette some context, I have to explain that the road was in a state of relative disrepair after the unseasonably big rains in March, 2013. Each entry to the poem provides a noun, followed by an ‘ing’ verb. This form of poetry allowed observations and reflections to flow freely throughout the day, without the perpetual problem of finding a sentence starter, clause joiner or avoiding the habitual ‘Then we went…..’ when writing chronological recounts. As a community of poets, much of our discussion centred on limiting each line to four observations, finding some rhythm and careful vocabulary choice
Connecting communities - Contextualising literacies
No full textOver time, the Meanjin local council of ALEA, has been running a series of Key Teacher inservice days for teachers in the Brisbane and Ipswich area, and more recently further north in Yandina for Sunshine Coast teachers. Teachers who are ALEA members or whose schools are institutional members are able to attend up to three of these inservice days each year for a nominal cost. In the first part of this article Beryl Exley reviews the sessions presented on Friday 17 October, 2003 at Ipswich, a region mentored by ALEA Queensland State President, Nikki King. The sessions all dealt with the theme of connecting communities and contextualising literacies. In the second part Sandra Wright, a key teacher at Hatton Vale State School, details the experiences of her school’s attempt to connect with its community and to contextualise children’s multiple literacies
Indonesian education, PISA scores and 3 reading strategies that work
Full text linkThis presentation introduces me and my engagement with Indonesian contexts of teaching and learning. I then introduce the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA), noting the challenges facing Indonesia in this period of reform. Publically acknowledging the challenges is an important step in narrowing the agenda and effecting positive future changes. Based on this information from the PISA data, I introduce three effective reading strategies that can be used in all years of schooling: (i) summarising non-literary texts to get the main detail; (ii) reading figurative language in literary texts; and (iii) actively reading to make meaning from the unwritten ellipses
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