Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemConceptualising multilingualism in higher education in Timor-Leste: the case of petroleum studies(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-05-19)In this paper I present a critical discussion of the ways that multilingualism is conceptualised in the context of higher education in Timor-Leste, a small, developing nation in South-East Asia. Drawing on a range of ethnographic data collected at multiple Timorese tertiary institutions from 2015 to 2018, I focus especially on the language-related beliefs and practices of a small group of petroleum studies lecturers, who are at the meeting point of diverse ideological forces that impact their teaching. I discuss their conceptualisations of both the ‘language problem’ facing them, and their own hybrid classroom communication practices, examining how these conceptualisations are shaped by wider political discourses favouring Portuguese, Indonesian and English. I argue that these discourses not only complicate due recognition of the considerable resourcefulness these lecturers display in communicating disciplinary knowledge to students, but also weigh heavily on their own perceptions of their everyday work as tertiary educators.
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ItemTetun akademiku: University lecturers' roles in the intellectualisation of Tetum(Springer, 2021-02)In this article I examine lecturers’ beliefs about the use of Tetum for academic, scientific and vocational communication at university in Timor-Leste and discuss the discursive and performative language planning roles that they play in the intellectualisation of the language. Drawing on analysis of recorded discussions among university lecturers from different disciplinary areas and distinct institutional settings, I identify a range of discursive and ideological forces being brought to bear on the use of Tetum to communicate disciplinary and professional knowledge. I focus especially on lecturers’ value-laden explanations for how and why they ‘mix’ Tetum with Portuguese, English and Indonesian in particular contexts of classroom communication. Lecturers’ statements about the limitations of Tetum for academic and scientific communication, while grounded in the real need for coordinated intellectualisation of the language, also mask lecturers’ individual preferences for (and greater confidence in) the use of more established ‘academic languages’, stemming from their own past experiences of language socialisation. I argue that these negative beliefs about the potential reach of Tetum reinforce hegemonic discourses that work against its coordinated intellectualisation. Meanwhile, significant individual efforts towards the intellectualisation of Tetum endure in the form of innovative translation and translanguaging work; efforts that I argue require greater attention and support. I conclude with a discussion about the need to recognise and value the expertise and contributions of multiple stakeholders in the development and intellectualisation of the Tetum language, including those who are not traditionally understood as ‘language experts’.
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ItemPencil or Keyboard? Boys’ Preferences in Writing(Nova Southeastern University, 2020)Handwriting is an important subject in primary schools, especially in the Early Years. The importance of writing skill is now seen as a debate with the increasing demand on children to learn technology skills to help them with 21st Century learning—how to write on the keyboard effectively. The topic is important because handwriting is an essential life skill to have with or without technology. In this study, I looked at the importance of both in the context of the qualitative case studies in three schools in Melbourne, Australia. The aim of the research is to explore how do students understand the learning of handwriting and keyboarding in schools? This qualitative case study employed a Thematic Analysis approach in which the central intention was to understand the lived experience of six Year 6 boys across three schools and their attitudes to writing and technology. In this article, I addressed the importance of teaching handwriting to primary school students, especially in the first four years of their school life from Foundation to Year 3. The findings suggest that teachers should continue explicitly teaching handwriting to their students despite the heavy reliance on technology in today’s lifestyle.
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ItemIn Jen’s Shoes – Looking Back to Look Forward: An Autoethnographic Account(Nova Southeastern University, 2019)This paper discusses the monumental events in my life that have shaped my two professional identities, teacher and researcher. I used autoethnography as a research methodology to traverse my personal life narratives across two different countries: Vietnam and Australia to seek and to examine my dual cultural identities, and how they shaped me. I am a passionate teacher who believes that teaching can change the world through the causes that I care about such as anti-racism and equity in education for students from all backgrounds. In this case study, data were collected by semi-structured interview and reflection on journals. Data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings are reported under four themes that reflected the stages of my life: designed in Vietnam, made in Australia was the first phase, growing up in Australia, my schooling years and professional years. By making sense of the narratives and involved, it helped me to understand myself better, who I am as a teacher and the causes that I believe in. As an Australian with hybrid cultural identities, I am the norm in contemporary culture.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableA 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(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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ItemEthics in neoliberalism? Parental responsibility and education policy in Chile and Australia(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2022-09)This article questions the diverse and, in some cases, contradictory ethical forms present in contemporary neoliberal policy frames. In particular, we analyse the demands of responsibility – as a form of ethical commitment – requested of parents by education policies in the contexts of Chile and Australia. Assuming neoliberalism as a contextualised and multivocal form of governing, we applied a policy sociology approach to study the ethical implications for parents of two recent educational reforms developed in the national contexts of this research. Our analyses show that the emerging demands on parents for responsibility in the educational field exceed univocal forms of individual responsibilisation, encompassing expressions of responsibility that respond to collective and public goals.
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ItemThe governing parent-citizen: dividing and valorising parent labour through school governance(Taylor and Francis Group, 2022-09-03)Internationally, major policy reforms seek to deepen parent and community engagement in schools. Whilst pervasive in policy documents, however, discourses surrounding ‘parent engagement’ are often elastic and imprecise, ultimately gaining meaning through the technologies of governance that shape policy enactments in schools. In this paper, we argue that contemporary schooling reforms are constructing a new ‘governing parent-citizen’ through which the parental labour of social reproduction is being extended, valorised and rearticulated. We examine how one major reform movement in Australia is articulating new roles for parents and community members in schools: the Independent Public Schools (IPS) initiative in Western Australia. Our analysis demonstrates the intensive policy intervention required to produce this new form of parental labour and the subsequent divisions of labour it is producing.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableStepping Inside an English Classroom: Investigating the Everyday Experiences of an English Teacher(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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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe mixed methods approach in a doctoral study about teaching for creativity and music education(Australian Society of Music Education Victoria, 2022-11-02)
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ItemOnline citizenship learning of Chinese young adults(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2022-07)This paper explores the citizenship learning of Chinese young adults through examining their participation on Weibo (the biggest micro-blogging service in China). Interview data collected from 31 young mainland Chinese adults contained their reflections on their everyday online participation on Weibo. Using the theory of communities of practice, this paper describes the citizenship learning that occurred in the context of their online participation in two intersecting dimensions. One dimension is their learning of digital citizenship in the Weibo community, manifested in their understanding and grasp of language, values, attitudes and shared commitment in this virtual space. The other is their learning of Chinese citizenship which is embodied in their understanding of Chinese society arising from their reflections of their internet-mediated social participation. This paper brings new insights into the concept of citizenship exhibited in the everyday online participation of Chinese young people, and the mutually constitutive relationship between their learning of citizenship and the forging of new citizenship. The implications of this informal learning for the content and pedagogy of formal citizenship education is discussed.