Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemSpeech-language pathology intervention for young offenders( 2017)Young offenders are a vulnerable and marginalised group with critical speech, language, and communication needs. Fifty to sixty percent of male young offenders have a clinically significant developmental language disorder. Despite this, little research has focussed on the efficacy and feasibility of speech-language pathology (SLP) intervention in youth justice settings. A year-long study in a youth justice facility in Victoria, Australia was undertaken. Following an assessment study (n = 27), a language intervention trial was conducted using a series of four empirical single case studies. The study evaluated the extent to which one-to-one speech-language pathology intervention improved the language skills of male young offenders. The feasibility of delivering SLP services was also investigated using quantitative service efficiency data, and qualitative data gathered from a staff focus group, and researcher field notes. Half of the sample in the assessment study qualified for a diagnosis of language disorder (> 1 standard deviation below mean on standardised measures), one third had social cognition deficits, and deficits in subskills of executive functioning ranged from one to three quarters of participants. Social cognition and executive functioning measures contributed significantly to variability in oral language skills. Individualised intervention programs were delivered for each of the four single case studies. There were medium-large improvements in the targeted communication skills, many of which were statistically significant. The data indicated evidence of the feasibility of SLP services, in spite of considerable barriers, including a high frequency of disruptions and cancellations. This research makes a substantial contribution to the evidence supporting the efficacy of one-to-one SLP intervention for young offenders. This research indicates that, despite substantial barriers, there are opportunities for effective and responsive SLP services with young offenders, as part of wider efforts to change the risk trajectories of these young people.
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ItemVideogames, distinction and subject-English: new paradigms for pedagogy( 2017)At a time when the proliferation of videogame ownership and practice has led to greater attention on the consequences of increased engagement with these texts, schools and educators are engaged in active debate regarding their potential value and use. The distinctive nature of these texts, especially in contrast to those texts which have traditionally dominated school environments, has raised questions about their possible affordances, as well as the pedagogies most appropriate for supporting teaching with and through these texts in the classroom. While much has been written about the learning benefits of videogames, especially in terms of opportunities for the negotiation of self (Gee, 2003), there has been less research addressing the impact of applying existing English subject-specific pedagogies to their study. In particular, there are few case-study investigations into the suitability of subject-English classrooms for the play and study of videogames. The project utilised a naturalistic case-study intervention involving eight 15-year-old students at a co-educational school in the outer-Northern suburbs of Melbourne. Data was collected during a five-week intervention in an English classroom context at the participants’ home-school. This involved the teacher-researcher leading a series of learning and teaching activities informed by dominant models of subject-English (Cox, 1989), Cultural Heritage, Skills, Personal Growth, and Critical Literacy, that focussed on several popular videogames. Data was analysed using Bourdieu’s theory of practice (1977) to reveal a social reality at the centre of this intervention co-created by a dialectical relationship between the habitus of students (especially in terms of their videogame, school and gendered identities) and the field of the classroom, with its own historically constituted and legitimised/authorised ways of being and doing textual study, as realised by the teacher. Mediating this relationship were the intrinsic features of videogames. The findings are presented through a Framework for Videogame Literacies in Subject-English which synthesises the relationship concerning past and present approaches to textual study in the subject, and the need to embrace what Locke terms, an “informed and critical eclecticism” (2015, p. 25). Firstly, the study found that the inclusion of videogames in subject-English provided the material for rich, rigorous and authentic learning experiences. Much of this can be achieved through the appropriation of existing paradigms of subject-English and their associated pedagogical practices, resisting the privileging of any single component of the framework and instead encouraging an awareness of the different purposes which each part serves. Secondly, analysis demonstrated the ways in which dominant approaches to the subject must evolve in response to the unique design features and intrinsic textual practices associated with these texts. Lastly, the study revealed that attempts to bring these texts into English classrooms will need to negotiate the disciplinary forces which organise these spaces, in terms of both the habitus of students, and the historically constituted structures which establish what is possible in such places. This work contributes to the field of research examining videogame literacies in classrooms, especially in terms of the impact of bringing technologies typically engaged for entertainment into subject-English learning contexts. The study suggests that future research is needed to test the efficacy of the Framework, and to identify ways for teachers to respond to inevitable developments in the design features of videogames so that current and future iterations of videogames can be incorporated into schools for rigorous learning and teaching.
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ItemBiliteracy development through early and mid-primary years: a longitudinal case study of bilingual writing( 1999)This thesis reports a five-year study of bilingual literacy development. Utilising Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday 1994) and genre and register theory (Martin 1992; Martin & Christie 1997), the study analyses daily literate production of a simultaneously bilingual child in the majority (English) and minority (Russian) languages, from pre-school through the first four years of schooling. The longitudinal case study is complemented with comparative analysis of texts written by the child's class peers. Until recently, bilingual studies have focussed on children's developing oral fluency, whereas emergent biliteracy has received marginal attention, being largely limited to learning to read. This study examines the patterns of early biliteracy development, including the influences of minority literate practices on the majority language writing. The study demonstrates that the child's control of writing developed significantly in both her tongues, showing a movement from early scribbles, to typically congruent choices, to emergence of abstraction and metaphor. The scope of fields explored included fictional and non-fictional (both personal and "researched") topics. The choice of themes was influenced by the school curriculum expectations, as well as by the child's interests and reading experiences in both her languages. Majority writing revealed considerable development of English genres promoted at school, whereas minority writing was more advanced in types of texts linked to family values and interests. The study thus establishes a taxonomy of the child's emergent written text types in English, and reveals her successful development of control over the genres characteristic of the English-speaking literate culture. In her minority language, the child constructed texts drawing on personal experiences, such as personal letters, as a means of maintaining personal communication with relatives and Russian-speaking friends. Also, the minority literacy came to be used as a tool for academic learning in familial contexts. It is argued that minority literacy learning has influenced the child's learning to write in English. Thus, the patterns of the child's familial language uses on some occasions stimulated the emergence and development of some English written text types. In addition, the topics explored in reading and talking in the minority language were sometimes drawn upon in English fictional and factual writing. The study also provides examples of direct scaffolding of English written genres in the process of child-parent conversation, by largely using the child's family language. It is argued that scaffolding resulted in more mature text construction, via the joint negotiation of meaning. The study shows that the child's English writing performance was comparable to, and on many occasions superior to, that of the better-achieving monolingual students in her class. It is therefore suggested that development in literacy in the child's minority tongue enhanced her English competency. Overall, it is argued that learning to read and write in both her tongues allowed the bilingual child to participate effectively in the literate practices of the majority and minority communities. Her progress in developing biliteracy was to a considerable extent a result of the cognitive and linguistic stimulation which the child had available in the home.
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ItemPolitics and prescription: an analysis of reading texts in Victorian government primary schools 1872-1970( 2007)For a period of almost one hundred years - from the 1872 Education Act until 1970 the Victorian Education Department prescribed the reading curriculum of children in government primary schools, using texts from Ireland and Britain, followed by three sets published by the Department. This thesis describes the procedures undertaken in the selection of these texts, and analyses their contents in the light of the educational thinking of the times and the prevailing political, social and economic conditions. The Irish Books of Lessons were components of a national system of education in Ireland designed to provide a non-denominational religious education for all children. Emphasis was placed on literary and moral values, Old Testament history and political economy. Transplanted to the colony of New South Wales, the Irish ideal of a common education failed because of intractable religious disputes between Anglican and Roman Catholic clerics. In Victoria there was discord in parliament relating to the contents of the books and the secular provision in the 1872 Education Act. In 1877 these books were replaced by the British Royal Readers, containing informational matter, English literature, and history related in terms of battles won and deeds of service for the Empire. Alterations to some items in the Royal Readers on the order of the Minister of Public Instruction because of their religious content caused further contention in parliament. Action from Roman Catholic sources succeeded in the banning of other books from schools on sectarian grounds, an outcome that had important ramifications for the administration of education in Victoria. Religious sensibilities were appeased with the Minister's decision to replace imported texts with the locally-produced School Papers in 1896. These monthly publications contained literature, informational items, stories for enjoyment and others of a moralistic bent. The Anglophile nature of the Royal Readers was maintained with material promoting loyalty to Britain and the Empire. Wide coverage of the Boer War and World War I was included. The inter-war period saw a growing emergence of an Australian identity in the School Papers, with fewer items calling for fealty to Crown and Empire, and local writers increasingly featured. The Victorian Readers, introduced in 1928, were the repository of the literature that remained an important element of the reading curriculum, much of it from Australian authors. Articles promoting peace in the reading material at this time foreshadowed the muted coverage of World War II in the School Papers. The new set of reading books published in the 1950s and 1960s continued in the literary style of their predecessors, with writing by current Australian and international authors. The capacity of the School Papers to respond to events as they unfolded enabled the readers to be kept informed of Australia's increasing involvement with Asia, the decline of old affiliations and the formation of new geopolitical alliances.