(2013). A Task-Based Needs Analysis for Australian Aboriginal Students: Going beyond the Target Situation to Address Cultural Issues. International Journal of Training Research, v11 n3 p246-259. While needs analyses underpin the design of second language analytic syllabi, the methodologies undertaken are rarely examined. This paper explores the value of multiple data sources and collection methods for developing a needs analysis model to enable vocational education and training teachers to address the needs of Australian Aboriginal students from remote communities who speak Australian English as an additional language (EAL). Adopting a task-based approach to needs analysis, data were gathered from educators, students, potential employers and Aboriginal community members using interviews, observation and document collection. The findings highlight the benefits of a needs analysis for triangulating multiple data sources and methods to identify the actual target tasks, including social workplace interactions as well as cultural issues. These findings have implications for all language needs analyses, particularly for EAL students from non-Western cultures…. [Direct]
(2016). Pedagogies for Justice in Health and Physical Education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education, v7 n3 p235-250. In developed economies, such as Australia, schooling is heavily impacted by neo-liberal and neo-conservative agendas. Policies suggest a homogeneity in students that fails to reflect regional contexts of inequality. For the new Australian Curriculum, which includes Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE), this logic prioritises consistency in content and standards for students no matter location or socio-economic circumstances. Little is known about the "lived" realities of such aspirations as they relate to teaching students from disadvantaged regions. This paper reports on practitioner inquiry into a redesigned dance unit, as part of a broader investigation into the implementation of AC: HPE with disadvantaged students. We draw on literature around student engagement and Nancy Fraser's theorisation of justice to explore the pedagogical redesign. We conclude in arguing that enhanced learning outcomes for disadvantaged students are dependent upon rich and contextualised… [Direct]
(2017). Teachers' Knowledge and Views on the Use of Learners' Socio-Cultural Background in Teaching Natural Sciences in Grade 9 Township Classes. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, v21 n2 p176-186. This article explores teachers' knowledge and views on the role of learners' socio-cultural background when teaching Natural Sciences to Grade 9 learners at three South African township schools. Within a socio-cultural framework, the research investigated how teachers accommodate learners' cultural norms and values, religion and beliefs, socio-economic and political issues in their science lessons. In a qualitative case study, three teachers were interviewed five times using a semi-structured interview schedule. Through a constant comparative data analysis method, three themes emerged. Firstly, teachers were aware of the learners' poor socio-economic background, and they made accommodation in their practice so that these learners would not be disadvantaged. Secondly, it emerged that teachers use their knowledge about learners' socio-cultural practices and beliefs, to create learning opportunities to harmonise the conflict between learners' worldviews and science. Lastly, the findings… [Direct]
(2017). Protest as Pedagogy: Exploring Teaching and Learning in Indigenous Environmental Movements. Journal of Environmental Education, v48 n2 p96-108. This article reports on a recent study into the experiences of Indigenous and allied environmental activists with teaching and learning during and as a result of Indigenous environmental movements. This inquiry is grounded in a theoretical framework informed by decolonization and cultural revitalization, social movement learning, and repressive tolerance. Interviews with 10 participants across Canada produced rich insights related to significant life experiences, the tensions encountered by activist educators, the complexity of inter-activist relationships, interaction with police agencies, the plurality of protest, and the revitalization and sharing of Indigenous traditions as the ultimate form of resistance…. [Direct]
(2017). Queering Teacher Education Curriculum: A Case Study of Lessons Learned in the Transformation of a Teacher Education Program. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, v19 n1-2 p3-17. The University of Oregon Teacher Education Program (UOTeach) was created in response to local grassroots protests that forced the University to create new courses and degrees with an emphasis on promoting equity, diversity, and justice in schools. This case study examines the way institutional support was made more readily available for changes that addressed racial and cultural dimensions of education justice, and less readily available for gender and sexuality-based justice in schools. What follows is a story of both visibility and invisibility. At one level it is a story of a place and a context in which the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students and families have achieved a relatively high level of presence in a teacher education curriculum. On the other hand, it is a story of the precariousness of inclusiveness, of the way the need for LGBTQ-positive curriculum so easily slips from institutional memory, and of the difficulty of ensuring… [Direct]
(2018). A Community Development Approach Using Free Online Tools for Language Revival in Australia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v39 n6 p491-510. Australia is a 'hotspot' of Indigenous language endangerment, but has a growing number of language revival projects. We describe one such project which is using a community development approach for the revival of the Gamilaraay language in north-eastern New South Wales. As a result of colonisation there are now no fluent speakers of Gamilaraay and most use is restricted to formulaic phrases. However, there is community support for its revival, with courses being taught from pre-school to tertiary level. There is a lack of resources to support the revival, which this project seeks to address. A combination of free online tools is being used to develop digital-assisted language learning resources, through a partnership between academic researchers and Gamilaraay community members. We discuss issues relating to the context of the project and the pedagogies used in assessing whether this project is meeting the goals of an increase in Gamilaraay spoken in homes, schools, and the… [Direct]
(2018). Examining the Literature to Reveal the Nature of Community EE/ESD Programs and Research. Environmental Education Research, v24 n1 p26-49. Interest in community environmental education (EE) and community education for sustainable development (ESD) is increasing, as evidenced by the increase in studies examining community EE/ESD approaches and NAAEE's current development of the Community EE Guidelines for Excellence. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to: (1) provide a review of research which identifies as examining community EE/ESD issues from 1994 to 2013, (2) examine themes specific to community-oriented program implementation and outcomes, and (3) examine theoretical trends within this work. While no single framework emerged from the diverse studies on community EE/ESD, themes suggested greater success for programs that were rooted in community issues, involved multiple community partners, were oriented towards collaborative and civic action, and incorporated reflection on social institutions and power dynamics. These characteristics reflect an emancipatory approach to education which seeks to enhance human… [Direct]
(2013). Kicking the Bucket: It's All about Living. Educational Perspectives, v45 n1-2 p7-16. In Hawai'i there is a myth known as the alamihi crab syndrome. The myth is a creation of foreign origin used to explain a Western worldview of Hawaiians. It is deployed to explain everything from the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy to the reason why Hawaiians can never better their lives. Crabs in a bucket have a tendency to struggle and fight to escape early in their captivity. As time passes, the crabs in the bucket give in to their depressing state of affairs. Many are observed as docile, lifeless, and almost dead. Life in the bucket also has the potential to be dangerously comfortable because the crabs learn to become content with their captivity. Employing this analogy by considering the Hawaiians as the crabs, and the bucket as the perceived benefits of Western civilization, Perry illustrates his point that an imperial system of oppression that has been present in Hawaii for over 200 years is in no hurry to leave. He believes that the Hawaiian people should always be encouraged… [PDF]
(2017). Early Childhood Development over Time for a Cohort of Australian Aboriginal Children Living in an Urban Environment. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology, v15 p35-53. Child development for a cohort of urban Aboriginal children was assessed at three time points: 12 months, 3 years and 4.5 years. This paper reports developmental findings and explores the impact of child, family, home and community variables over time. Overall, child development at 4.5 years was significantly below the standardised mean. Female gender, preschool attendance, and having 10+ child-appropriate books in the home were significantly related to better performance. Over time the children demonstrated strengths in the locomotor and personal-social domains. Maternal factors were most predictive of performance at 3 years. These results are discussed in relation to their meaning within the Aboriginal community…. [PDF]
(2015). A Step on the Messy Path to Alignment: Developing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Intercultural Capability Framework. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, v14 n2 p78-89. Like many other Australian universities, Curtin University identifies intercultural capabilities in its list of graduate attributes. Within this mandate, Curtin is increasingly foregrounding the need for graduates to develop Indigenous cultural capabilities. It is widely recognised that in order to develop these capabilities in graduates, educators at the interface need to embody these capabilities. Similarly, what has become increasingly clear is that it is not only educators but staff across the university that need intercultural skills and understanding in order to move towards a "decolonised" academic environment that will truly support the development of cultural capabilities in graduates. Within the undergraduate curriculum, one of the core principles of developing cultural capabilities is that they are a journey, requiring students to engage with material through a graduated, progressive learning experience. At Curtin, the importance of mirroring this graduated… [PDF] [Direct]
(2015). Service Learning in an Indigenous Not-for-Profit Organization. Education & Training, v57 n7 p774-790. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of how service learning pedagogy assists in student and organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use case study reflection and ethnography approaches. Findings: The key to the success of the internship was time spent on relationship building between the parties, clear documentation of roles and responsibilities, the selection and matching process and open communication between all parties. Using Mezirow's (1991) transformational learning approach, and Kolb's (1984) learning framework, it demonstrates an example of perspective transformation where the "unfamiliar" helps participants to question the "familiar"; through embedding learning in relation to culture, values, ownership and identity. Service learning relies on collaborative pedagogy where reflection and relationships with community and educators provide a platform to test students' values and moral reasoning and build… [Direct]
(2015). Heliaki: Transforming Literacy in Tonga through Metaphor. SoJo Journal: Educational Foundations and Social Justice Education, v1 n1 p99-112. In this article, we discuss "heliaki," the use of metaphoric language in Tonga (Kaeppler, 2007), and its relationship to literacy. Viewing "heliaki" through the lens of critical literacy (Freire & Macedo, 2005), we argue that performances of "heliaki" not only represent an indigenous approach to reading and writing the word/world, but may also exist as a culturally relevant strategy for conducting critique. Recent reports on literacy in Tonga (The World Bank Group, 2012) define and assess Tongan students' literacy rates within a framework largely developed outside of indigenous onto-epistemological orientations to literacy, focusing nearly entirely on functional literacy. Acknowledging the cultural importance and critical potential of "heliaki" can nurture the development of pupils' and teachers' creative, critical literacies, and consciousness (Freire, 1985), providing the impetus for enhanced civic participation and greater social… [Direct]
(2013). The Place Where Waters Murmur: Taught and Learned Andean Space. Review of International Geographical Education Online, v3 n1 p26-55 Spr. This text studies the phenomenon of teaching and learning of space, particularly the one inhabited and produced by those who live in a place of the Andes known as "the place where waters murmur" (Lugar donde murmura el agua or Putre). Notions of Humanistic Geography and Sociology of Social Experience are used to understand education as an essentially space-related experience. Likewise, ethnography is used as a methodological tool for an effective interaction. In this respect, one can state that there is a profound and accelerated process of de-spacing, where space is predominantly considered as a mere pause in the passage of time. Teaching and learning are configured in a spatiality that tends to fragment individual and collective projects of socialization and subjectivation. The informal education of space is strained by the development of a dual model of identification that tears up the unique experience of being a Putre local (putre√±o)…. [PDF]
(2019). VET for Secondary School Students: Acquiring an Array of Technical and Non-Technical Skills — Support Document. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) This supporting document sets out the content analysis technique and detailed findings that underly part of the research conducted for the report titled "VET for secondary school students: acquiring an array of technical and non-technical skills." That report is the first in a set of studies that aims to understand the value of vocational education and training (VET) delivered to secondary school students. This supporting document reflects the detailed investigation of the extent to which training packages assist VET for secondary school students in the development of non-technical or generic skills. In this support document the authors provide detailed information on the findings of the content analysis technique they used to investigate the non-technical skills covered in selected training packages and Australian curriculum units reported on in the main report on "VET for secondary school students: acquiring an array of technical and non-technical skills." They… [PDF]
(2016). School Staff Perceptions of Factors Influencing Participation in a Whole-of-School Initiative in an Indigenous Community. Health Education Journal, v75 n7 p869-881 Nov. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' perspectives on factors influencing their involvement in a Whole-of-School initiative. Methods: A survey was administered to participating teachers/school personnel (N = 81) and 30 of the teachers/school personnel also participated in mostly individual interviews. The survey was informed by Lohrmann's Ecological Model of Coordinated School Health Programs focusing on individual, interpersonal, community, organisation and policy factors. Category mean values were calculated for the survey data (along with t tests to explore differences by participant role in the schools), and interview data were analysed via analytic induction using several trustworthiness measures. Findings: Findings revealed that all survey categories ranked 3.5 or higher on a 5-point scale and there were significant differences by participant role. Interview data provided specific examples of each of the school health ecology factors. Conclusion:… [PDF] [Direct]