Faculty of Education - Research Publications

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    Meaning Making in Early Childhood Research: Pedagogies and the Personal
    Iorio, JM ; Parnell, W ; Iorio, JM ; Parnell, W (Routledge, 2017)
    Meaning Making in Early Childhood Research asks readers to rethink research in early childhood education through qualitative research practices reflective of arts-based pedagogies. This collection explores how educators and researchers can move toward practices of meaning making in early childhood education. The text’s narrative style provides an intimate portrait of engaging in research that challenges assumptions and thinking in a variety of international contexts, and each chapter offers a way to engage in meaning making based on the experiences of young children, their families, and educators.
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    A Critical Review of D’Andrea, F. M. (2012). Preferences and practices among students who read braille and use assistive technology. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 106(10), 585-596
    White, E (South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI), 2015)
    Utilising research about the educational use of assistive technology by students with vision impairment to access computers (Corn & Wall, 2002: Farnsworth & Luckner, 2008; Fellenius, 1999) and recognising the importance of technology in school and personal life, D’Andrea investigated the current academic use of paper braille and assistive technology among twelve blind, braille-using students aged 16-22 in the United States, and their practice and attitudes regarding such use. Her results suggest a varying nature to how students used a range of high and low tech tools, and how their approaches to completing class work were largely influenced by their personal opinions and experiences of the technologies. The study also demonstrates the importance of students’ choice-making ability regarding the selection of tools and strategies.
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    Narrative Language and Literacy Education Research Within a Postcolonial Framework
    Doecke, B ; Anwar, D ; Illesca, B ; Mirhosseini, SA (Springer, 2017)
    This chapter explores the heuristic value of narrative as it might be applied to researching language and literacy education in postcolonial settings. We focus specifically on the importance of autobiographical writing as a means of enabling educators and researchers to engage with a ‘plurality of consciousnesses’ (Bakhtin MM, Problems of Dostoyevsky’s poetics (Emerson C, ed and trans). University of Minnesota Press, Minneaplois, 1984) and to explore the values and beliefs they bring to their work. In this way we challenge the pretensions to objectivity of the scientific research privileged by standards-based reforms. By locating autobiographical writing in a postcolonial framework, however, we also seek to differentiate our standpoint from the claims typically made on behalf of ‘narrative inquiry’ (Clandinin J, Connelly M, Narrative inquiry: experience and story in qualitative research. Jossey-Bass, San-Francisco, 2000). We argue that personal narratives should prompt analyses that investigate how our individual situations are mediated by larger social and historical contexts. This means combining storytelling with analytical writing in order to produce hybrid texts that challenge accepted forms of academic writing. Crucially, this also means embracing ‘trans-lingualism’ (Canagarajah S, Translingual practice: global English and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge, London/New York, 2013), working at the interface between English and other languages, and engaging with issues of language and socio-cultural identity vis-à-vis the globalization of English as the language of science.
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    Stepping Inside an English Classroom: Investigating the Everyday Experiences of an English Teacher
    Breen, L ; Illesca, B ; Doecke, B (Taylor and Francis Group, 2018)
    This essay presents an English teacher’s inquiry into her professional practice in an institutional setting that is heavily regulated by standards-based reforms. Rather than something external to her, she sees those reforms as part of an internal conflict that affects her capacity to be fully responsive to her students. In dialogue with a colleague, she writes stories that reaffirm the deeply relational character of her work, both as an ethically responsive stance and as a means to understand the socially mediated character of her everyday world. She attempts to find alternative ways of seeing and accounting for her work than the reified mentality of standards-based reforms, positing a world that is relational, rather than compartmentalised, where our chief responsibility as teachers is to cultivate a sensitivity towards others around us, rather than continually being compelled to classify and judge them.
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    Enhancing music integration through critical and creative thinking in Australian primary schools
    King, F ; Bowe, M-L ; Merrick, B (International Society of Music Education, 2018-07-12)
    Extended Poster presentation
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    To lead or not to lead? Gender disparity in the leadership of boys’ schools
    Acquaro, D ; Stokes, H (Gender & Education Association, 2015)
    This paper provides an analysis of gender disparity within Australian boys’ schools revealing a disproportionate number of men and the under-representation of women in senior school leadership roles. With women accounting for the vast majority of teachers worldwide and significant increases in women entering the teaching profession over the last two decades, they continue to be underrepresented in senior management roles in secondary schools (Yong-Lyun and Brunner, 2009). The pursuit of leadership in boys’ schools is more complex for women, with senior roles often beyond their reach. This marginalisation has left capable, enthusiastic female educators disenchanted, frustrated and resentful of a profession that sees them managing ‘soft’ roles, and making space for male counterparts who take up the top jobs. This paper draws on findings from semi-structured interviews with thirty-six female teachers across six boys’ schools. Drawing on feminist perspectives of leadership (Sinclair, 2014; Blackmore, 1999), this paper analyses teachers’ perceptions of factors that block them and lead to male domination within school leadership. Results show that career advancement in boys’ schools is not self-determined with sex discrimination and a lack of support or mentoring, diminishing female teacher’s aspirations for the top jobs. This research provides an important insight into the continuing yet under-researched operations of patriarchy within the feminized field of teaching. It challenges sex-role stereotyping and a deficit perspective of women in presenting boys with a fairer representation of gender within boys’ schools.
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    The problem with staffing rural schools: Attracting new teachers to country schools remains one of the biggest challenges in Australian education
    Cuervo, H ; Acquaro, D (University of Melbourne, 2018)
    Encouraging student teachers to complete placements in rural schools as a way to address the chronic shortage of teachers in the bush isn’t working. Our recent study found that, while pre-service teachers were keen to have a ‘rural’ experience, the reality of isolation and limited school resources makes teaching in these schools unattractive; particularly for students from metropolitan backgrounds.
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    A New Class of Teachers
    McKew, M ; Acquaro, D (University of Melbourne, 2015-09-24)
    The next generation of educators is being schooled in a different approach to the classroom.
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    Exploring the Self through Songwriting: An Analysis of Songs Composed by People with Acquired Neurodisability in an Inpatient Rehabilitation Program
    Baker, FA ; Tamplin, J ; MacDonald, RAR ; Ponsford, J ; Roddy, C ; Lee, C ; Rickard, N (Oxford University Press, 2017-03-01)
    Background: Neurological trauma is associated with significant damage to people’s pre-injury self-concept. Therapeutic songwriting has been linked with changes in self-concept and improved psychological well-being. Objective: This study analyzed the lyrics of songs composed by inpatients with neurological injuries who participated in a targeted songwriting program. The aim of this study was to understand which of the subdomains of the self-concept were the most frequently expressed in songs. Methods: An independent, deductive content analysis of 36 songs composed by 12 adults with spinal cord injury or brain injury (11 males, mean age 41 years +/– 13) were undertaken by authors 1 and 2. Results: Deductive analysis indicated that when writing about the past self, people created songs that reflected a strong focus on family and descriptions of their personality. In contrast, there is a clear preoccupation with the physical self, on the personal self, and a tendency for spiritual and moral reflections to emerge during the active phase of rehabilitation (song about the present self). Statistical analyses confirmed a significant self-concept subdomain by song interaction, F(10, 110) = 5.98, p < .001, ηp2 = .35), which was primarily due to an increased focus on physical self-concept and a reduced focus on family self-concept in the present song, more than in either past or future songs. Conclusions: The analysis process confirmed that songwriting is a vehicle that allows for exploration of self-concept in individuals with neurological impairments. Songwriting may serve as a therapeutic tool to target the most prevalent areas of self-concept challenges for clients undergoing inpatient neurological rehabilitation programs.