Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemProblematising the present: the historical contribution of consultancy to early childhood education in Australia: 1960-1985( 2017)Consultative approaches in Victorian state funded kindergartens operate presently as the Preschool Field Officer (PSFO) program. Described as a service delivery model (DET, 2015a), the PSFO program is designed to ‘ensure that early childhood teachers and educators continually improve their capacity to provide young children who have additional needs with the experiences and opportunities that promote their learning and development, and enable then to participate meaningfully in the program’ (DET, 2015a, p. 8). Contemporary documents detailing the PSFO program have been recently revised within the context of shifts and reforms to early childhood education in Australia. The provision of early childhood education has arguably changed since the Council of Australian Governments (COAG, 2009) endorsed ‘Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia’ (EYLF), the first national framework in Australia. Providing guidance to all practitioners working in early childhood education, including PSFOs, principles, practices and outcomes are framed within a model of collaboration with children, families and educators. Significantly, the EYLF advocates for practitioners to view children as competent learners (DEEWR, 2009). Currently, Victorian early childhood programs operate under both the national EYLF and the Victorian Early Years Learning Development Framework (VEYLDF), the Victorian State Government document introduced in 2009. This document guides early childhood professionals to work with children from birth to eight years through a focus on outcomes, practice principles and transitions. Positioned within these curriculum documents, early childhood educators’ practices thread between early years’ programs and also the school-based Victorian Curriculum and transition to school frameworks. Underpinned by Foucault's genealogical approach (1977) and ethnography, this study critically examines written and visual documents, by examining and rendering visible complex processes and discursive shifts from the 1960 – 1985 timeframe. Texts selected for examination included contemporary and past Victorian State Government documents and visual images authorised by the National Union of Australian University Students (Roper, 1971). By interpreting the complex processes and changes over this timeframe, an opportunity presents to understand by attempting to make meaning of what might be now known about contemporary consultative services operating in Victorian kindergartens. The findings in this study indicate that in contemporary times discourses of governmentality dominate consultative practices, compelling PSFOs to enact ‘techniques and procedures for directing human behaviour’ (Foucault, 1997, p. 81), in a myriad of complex and contradictory manners. Juxtaposed with practices in the past, I argue that (inter)relating multiple discourses have historically dominated early childhood education. Discourses include: health with supervision, additional needs education with developmentalism, and community organisations with welfare and arguably remain deeply embedded in contemporary consultative practices, forming part of current governing agendas. What may be missing is that children and families are often swept up in the governmentality of consultancy, both historically and currently. Under the guise of collaborative partnerships and capacity building, where children and families are viewed as capable and listened to, it may be argued that consultative practices appear inclusive of the voice of children and families. However, while it appears that this is a shift away from a deficit-based approach, it emerged through the analysis of the data that a lack of transparency and authenticity pervades in these relations. In contemporary times the PSFO program as a consultative body, has come to be an authoritative entity in preschools. Revealing discourses is one means to problematise what may be (un)known about claims which prevail as truth and the authority accorded to circulating privileged agendas and productive moments, but also points to times which are rendered silent. Examining power-knowledge relations producing dominant discourses can rupture certain truth claims and open possibilities to reconstruct new ways to conceive consultative practices in kindergartens and also for a reconceptualisation of ‘understanding of how to do things differently’ (Ailwood, 2004, p. 30).
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ItemStudent conceptions of effective classroom discourse( 2015)This thesis investigates students’ conceptions of effective discourse within the classroom. It establishes an alternative possibility to a classroom dominated by teacher monologue, and investigates the implications of student learning relating to the types of communication and interaction within the classroom from the perspective of the student. It seeks to find the most effective type of classroom discourse that has significant impact on student learning, examines the conceptions of the surface and deeper levels of dialogue, the power of teacher talk shaping student’s thinking to secure their engagement, and informs students’ expectations and levels of understanding within the classroom. The study explores the limitations of classroom monologue, particularly monologue that is primarily surface level, and the development of effective dialogue that aims to develop deeper thinking and maximise learning outcomes.
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ItemMolecules as tools: discourse, artefacts and children's meaning-making about particles of matter( 2013)This thesis reports on a discursive sociocultural research project exploring 6-12 year old children's use of 'molecules' as conceptual tools. Current curriculum guidelines for chemistry recommend delaying the introduction of 'molecules' until secondary schooling. The idea that matter is particulate is taken as 'too abstract' for young learners, who express only 'vague ideas' of unseen 'particles'. Three research question direct the study: . What everyday ideas of 'molecules' and 'atoms' do children today contact and what are the sources of these ideas? . How do children progress in their meaning-making with 'molecules', when given opportunities to explore particle ideas, including in virtual interactive visualisations? . What are young children afforded (Gibson, 1979) when explorations with all three levels of chemical thinking (Johnstone, 1991) are socially and materially supported? Twenty two dialectic-interactive teaching interviews were conducted with 24 participants in 2010, with this researcher performing the role of the more expert other. This cultural tool-use study tracked the young participants as they explored the offered signs in the materially and socially supported activity. Participants' speculations were supported, tracked and analysed using positioning theory (Harré, 2002a). Moment-to-moment changes in discourse identified ways in which these beginners began putting on their molecular spectacles (Kind, 2004). The research findings show that children today are contacting terms, images and chemical symbols of molecules in everyday life. A set of scientifically appropriate chemical learning themes were isolated as storylines in the data. Previously reported difficulties learner's have with using all the three levels of chemical thinking were re-interpreted as appropriate learner discursive work with the thinking tools when participating in a scientific cultural activity. Two suggestions are put forward to apply in re-considering current practices: 1. that young children be encouraged in their thinking with the three levels of chemistry when exploring matter, by offering them ideas of 'molecules', including the nanoscopic-world scale, using the hinge proposition 'molecules are built of atoms'; and 2. that available virtual interactives provide visualisations that can modify the learnability of 'molecule' concepts, by using the three levels of chemical thinking in combination, giving learners opportunities to experience movement between these frames in their developmental thinking.
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ItemThe discourse of ESL policy: the impact of the 'literacy crisis'( 2009)The silencing of English as a Second Language (ESL) has occurred concurrently with an alleged crisis in literacy standards that has concentrated funds into early years programs and foundational literacy. The ‘literacy crisis’ has focused teacher attention on standardized assessment and on meeting benchmarks, which shape classroom activities and distort learning activities. The ‘literacy crisis’ has also focused attention on literacy for mother tongue English speakers, at the expense of ESL students. Instead of bilingualism being seen as a resource that can be used to support English literacy development, it is presented as a deficit - a barrier to meeting outcomes in English literacy. This research focuses on how ESL has fared in this context. Drawing on methods from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the language of policy texts is examined to reveal the current status of ESL in Victorian schools where a self-managed school ‘system’ makes it difficult to as certain common practice in relation to ESL provision and programs. The thesis builds its theoretical conclusions using ideas from ‘grounded theory’ to connect the discourse of ESL policy to wider social issues as a way of understanding how policy has impacted on ESL in schools. Having examined policy texts and more positive forms of support for ESL in schools, some recommendations are made to right language wrongs and write language rights that support multilingual school students and encourage linguistic adaptability.
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ItemSustaining children's participation in early childhood settings? Discourse, power and the 'danger' of participation practices( 2009)This study explored the experiences of early childhood educators who sought to increase young children’s participation with the purpose of identifying how children’s participation can be made sustainable in early childhood settings. Increasing interest in young children’s participation rights as a result of the UNCRC, General Comment 7 and the new sociology of childhood, has led to a growing expectation that early childhood educators will enact participation rights in practice. There is a limited body of research on both young children’s participation and on the sustainability of early childhood practices. Of the available literature, the majority is framed within a modernist paradigm that fails to acknowledge the multiple and contradictory nature of early childhood practice. This study used Foucauldian discourse analysis and selected poststructuralist understandings of power, knowledge and truth to explore how socially constructed understandings of young children and of early childhood educators influence participation practices and their sustainability. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with four early childhood educators across three settings. The analysis of interviews showed particular discourses of childhood informing early childhood practices and creating and maintaining regimes of truth. It highlighted the need to recognise that early childhood educators work within and through multiple and conflicting discourses, each offering a particular subjectivity. The analysis also illuminates the micro-practices of power that limit the possibilities for children’s participation and illustrate the ‘danger’ of assimilating children’s participation into existing early childhood practices without critically reflecting on that process. The study raised the question of whether—rather than how—children’s participation should be sustained if it is operating within a singular dominant discourse. The study’s selected poststructuraist approach enabled it to fill a gap in the existing research, and has implications for practice, policy and training and provides direction for future research in the area of children’s participation.