(2014). Examining the Impact of ABRACADABRA on Early Literacy in Northern Australia: An Implementation Fidelity Analysis. Journal of Educational Research, v107 n4 p299-311. To address students' poor literacy outcomes, an intervention using a computer-based literacy tool, ABRACADABRA, was implemented in 6 Northern Australia primary schools. A pretest, posttest parallel group, single blind multisite randomized controlled trial was conducted with 308 students between the ages of 4 and 8 years old (M age = 5.8 years, SD = 0.8 years). Findings suggested that computer-based instruction under controlled conditions can improve student literacy, especially for Indigenous students at risk of reading difficulties. The authors examine the fidelity with which the computer-based literacy tool was implemented and the impact of implementation fidelity measures on student outcomes. Student exposure to and use of the literacy tool, and quality of instruction and lesson delivery, were analyzed for their influence on students' literacy outcomes. Implementation fidelity measures accounted for between 1.8% and 15% of the variance of intervention students' scores…. [Direct]
(2012). Putting History in Its Place: Grounding the Australian Curriculum–History in Local Community. Australian Association for Research in Education (NJ1), Paper presented at the Joint Australian Association for Research in Education and Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association Conference (AARE-APERA 2012) World Education Research Association (WERA) Focal Meeting (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Dec 2-6, 2012). This position paper develops the case for a greater focus on the teaching of local histories in the Australian Curriculum: History. It takes as its starting point an Indigenous epistemology that understands knowledge to be embedded in the land. This connection between knowledge and country is used to examine recent literature on whether the teaching of history in schools can succeed in the context of the new history curriculum. Various [PDF]
(2012). Aborigines of the Imaginary: Applying Lacan to Aboriginal Education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, v40 n1 p5-14. This paper applies the work of Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, to decipher the desire of the teacher in Aboriginal education. It argues that the images of Aboriginal people represented in Australian classrooms are effects of the teacher's Imaginary, the Imaginary being one of the three psychoanalytic domains theorised by Lacan over a period of 30 years of teaching. The author questions whether it is possible for teacher education courses to move the student teacher beyond the Imaginary, and beyond the inventions of Aboriginal people that he or she has produced in his or her own mind. A possible way out of this endless cycle of romantic idealism and deficiency is proposed outside the usual approaches to cultural awareness training and professional development…. [Direct]
(2016). Proceedings 2016: Selected Papers from the Twentieth College-Wide Conference for Students in Languages, Linguistics & Literature (20th, Honolulu, Hawai'i, April 23, 2016). National Foreign Language Resource Center at University of Hawaii The theme for this year's annual Graduate Student Conference of the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature (LLL) was "Celebrating Voices — past – present – future." It reflected not only our goal of celebrating achievements of LLL graduate students, but also our intent of making this the biggest conference yet. The conference opened with an address from Dean Jeffrey Carroll, which was followed by an inspirational keynote by Dr. Samrat Upadhyay. Presentations followed from a group of 35 graduate students, who shared their research with approximately 136 attendees from the UH community. Following a preface from the editors and plenary highlights from Dr. Samrat Upadhyay, contents of these proceedings include: (1) Breaking Ground: Obviation As a Key Target for Assessing the Acquisition of Saulteaux, a Dialect of Ojibwe (Ryan E. Henke); (2) Place-Based Language Learning Using Mobile Technology: Redesigning a Mall Game for Help (Daniel Holden and Yang Liu); (3) The… [Direct]
(2013). Equality of Educational Opportunity, Merit and the New Zealand Education System. Current Issues in Language Planning, v14 n2 p244-253. Pacific students in New Zealand (NZ) quickly learn that they are not very smart. The statistics tell them this. They also come to believe that they do not try very hard. The talk of equal opportunities tells them this, especially when it is coupled with negative statistics. This is not surprising. Education in NZ has been embedded in notions of egalitarianism and merit throughout its history, and this has been accepted in a "common sense" way. Many New Zealanders still believe that an individual's ability to be successful is based on their merits, generally viewed as a combination of factors including innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity. New Zealanders not only tend to think that is the way the system should work, but most actually accept uncritically that this is how it does work. This paper discusses the historical understandings of merit and equality of educational opportunity in NZ and how these… [Direct]
(2013). Social Work Experience and Development in China. Chinese Education and Society, v46 n6 p79-91 Nov-Dec. This article presents the experience and limitations of government-run social work and the nonprofessional nature of social work, and suggests that the rapid development of social work and its professionalization are the inevitable results of the reform in the system. The author maintains that under market socialism, social work requires the cooperation of government and society. Moreover, social work is confronted with the dual task of indigenization and innovation…. [Direct]
(2013). Gifts of Time and Space: Co-Educative Companionship in a Community Primary School. Studies in Philosophy and Education, v32 n3 p297-311 May. Family-focused community education implies a relational pedagogy, whereby people of different ages and experiences, including children, engage interdependently in the education of selves and others. Educational projects grow out of lived experiences and relationships, evolving in dynamic conditions of community self-organisation and self-expression, however partial and approximate, as opposed to habitual and repetitive actions. In developing educational activities through radical listening, community educators aim to reflect the character of the neighbourhood and build on local knowledge and expertise. The paper reports on ways in which one community school invited, encouraged and supported children as co-educators through projects that promoted collaborative leadership and unfolded, rather than being delivered through planned and scripted lessons. These were creative projects of cultural significance, characterised by attentive listening and aiming to promote intergenerational… [Direct]
(2011). Fractured Connections: Migration and Holistic Models of Counselling. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, v39 n5 p471-486. In this article we aim to explore those points at which migrant identity and landscape intersect. We also consider implications for holistic models of counselling with migrant groups. The New Zealand migration literature was the starting point to consider how and why the experience of migration has been studied. We asked how collective biography might work as a way to research questions about our relationship with this new land and its indigenous people. Following feminist and post-structural influences, we shared a sequence of memories of geographical transitions in a structured sequence. We used poetic representation and photographs, in addition to prose, to express what was often experience beyond words. Subsequently we have reflected on how memory work in collective biography and indigenous, holistic models of wellness might add to ways of working therapeutically with migrants. (Contains 3 figures.)… [Direct]
(2015). Evaluation of a Digital Story Pedagogical Module for the Indigenous Learners Using the Stake Countenance Model. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET, v14 n2 p63-72 Apr. This study involved the development of a literacy pedagogy for the indigenous people in Malaysia. The Developmental Research Approach was used where insights about the indigenous people and their lifestyle were gathered and analysed for content in developing a literacy pedagogical module. Several principles emerged from the data collected and these principles formed the basis for the module. The module encompassing a digital story was implemented in two schools for indigenous students situated in Peninsular Malaysia. The Stake Countenance model was used to analyse and conclude the evaluation of the module. Both teachers and students who participated in the module implementation were directly involved in the evaluation process. Findings showed that there was strong engagement between the Indigenous students and the lessons in the module. The teachers found that the module was able to respond to the needs of the indigenous students. This paper will discuss the evaluation process in… [PDF]
(2021). Education and New Developments 2021. Online Submission This book contains the full text of papers and posters presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2021), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.), that this year had to be transformed into a fully Virtual Conference as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic. Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and acts. One of the most important contributions resides in what and how we learn through the improvement of educational processes, both in formal and informal settings. The International Conference seeks to provide some answers and explore the processes, actions, challenges and outcomes of learning, teaching and human development. The goal is to offer a worldwide connection between teachers, students, researchers and lecturers, from a wide range of academic fields,… [PDF]
(2015). Does Immigration Crowd Natives into or out of Higher Education? Working Papers. No. 15-18. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston This paper investigates the impact of immigration on the college enrollment of U.S. natives. Many studies have focused on the effect of increased demand for schooling by immigrants on the enrollment of natives. However, changes in immigrant labor supply may also affect native enrollment by changing local market prices. Using U.S. Census data from 1970 to 2000, I find that state-level increases in the number of immigrant college students do not significantly lower the enrollment rates of U.S. natives. On the contrary, state-level increases in the ratio of unskilled immigrant workers to skilled immigrant workers significantly raise native enrollment rates. These findings suggest that the demand for college is sensitive to wage rates and that college slots are flexibly supplied over a decadal time horizon. An appendix presents "Theory: A Model of Immigration and Native College Enrollment."… [PDF]
(2012). To Be Transformed: Emotions in Cross-Cultural, Field-Based Learning in Northern Australia. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, v36 n3 p355-368. Students undertaking field-based learning, in which they work with Indigenous people in Northern Australia, describe a profound learning experience redolent with emotion. Inspired, challenged and transformed, the students are compelled in ways that require them to interrogate their own selves and taken-for-granted beliefs. In this paper, we draw on empirical work with undergraduate students in geography and development studies to investigate what these cross-cultural experiences add to experiential learning models and recent work on emotional geographies. We find that an understanding of the sensory and emotive is imperative if we are to encourage students to build understanding across difference and connect with diverse people, places and experiences in fundamentally new ways. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)… [Direct]
(2011). Festival of Pacific Arts: Education in Multi-Cultural Encounters. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, v20 n4 p273-280. Can acts of support and/or revival of Pacific cultures serve to educate international tourists about Indigenous cultures? This paper examines, from a postcolonial perspective and using a qualitative methodology, whether the Festivals of Pacific Arts, to which all nations send delegations, can educate visitors about Indigenous cultures of the Pacific. These Festivals occur every four years, at a different venue each time, to spread the costs of organisation. The paper argues that the vibrancy and the sincerity of the performances are not sufficient to overcome the structural and cultural biases in the world of tourism. Attitudes towards such cultures have been patronising, keeping them at a timeless distance as visitor performance remains mired in the dictates of their social "habitus". The size and facilities at venues along with the modest air links mean that the Festivals can accommodate only a small number of visitors. The visitors, however, could discover the… [Direct]
(2011). Supporting Young Adolescent Students from Minority Cultural Groups Who Are Underachieving in Learning. Support for Learning, v26 n3 p122-126 Aug. Establishing appropriate learning environments for culturally diverse underachieving students continues to challenge educators across a range of international contexts. A synthesis of findings from our studies in New Zealand indicated that teachers and students from Pasifika and Maori backgrounds considered that learning is facilitated by the establishment of positive student-teacher relationships in which their culture and language is acknowledged and valued. Collaboration and co-operation within small groups also supported learning, which influenced engagement as well as achievement. We contend that developing effective and culturally sensitive pedagogical practices that are informed by research offers a way forward, not only for practitioners, but also for teacher education…. [Direct]
(2016). Aspiring to Quality Teacher-Parent Partnerships in Vietnam: Building Localised Funds of Knowledge. International Research in Early Childhood Education, v7 n3 p49-68. Collaborative and reciprocal teacher-parent partnerships have been established in prior research as vital in empowering ethnic-minority children to be competent learners who value their home background, culture, and language and also learn the language used by teachers as the medium of education. Such collaborative relationships may be challenging to imagine and achieve in countries that have complex political, cultural, social, and economic histories. This paper demonstrates, through a case study in Vietnam, how partnership relationships might be reconceptualised. The research team, comprising both international and local researchers, sought to collectively identify teacher-parent partnership practices that foregrounded local funds of knowledge, and generated a zone of potential development for dialogue about quality practices for teacher-parent partnerships. Through a transformative collaborative workshop process, a tool for aspiring towards quality teacher-parent partnerships was… [PDF]