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Parents of dyslexic children often take on additional parental responsibilities as they seek to ensure fair and equitable access to education for their children. Often framed as advocacy, this paper explores the ways in which the term allyship may be well placed to represent the complex primary adjacent and vicarious disability experiences parents of dyslexic children have within schools. Drawing on interviews with 10 Australian parents, this study found that parents of dyslexic children felt they took on additional responsibilities to support their children within the school context and externally. This paper contributes a conceptual lens for viewing these activities as a form of allyship, rather than traditional understandings of advocacy. Findings highlight the need for greater recognition and understanding of the extensive responsibilities assumed by parents of dyslexic children and the ways in which their allyship roles within school settings can impact them.

In this position paper we consider the significance of global climate activism by children and young people in the light of ongoing western adult-centric policies and educational practices that largely continue to exclude Indigenous perspectives. Reflecting on the implications of this hegemony in the face of the convergent crises of climate and COVID-19 and concomitant exacerbations of social inequities, we acknowledge the impact of this reality on the emotional wellbeing of children, young people and Indigenous peoples, many of whom may be encountering an overwhelming sense of existential trauma and ecological grief. Drawing on our previous research we provide examples of early childhood pedagogies which resonate Indigenous values of relationality. These include trust in children's judgement in managing risks, fostering a sense of collective pride and identity, and affirming accountability to the wider collectivity of humans and more-than-human entities. We suggest that such grounding in local Indigenous onto-epistemologies can provide inspiration for educational programmes, including environmental education and education for sustainability, as well as for local governance.

Playgroups are a unique form of early childhood provision involving parents and their children attending together. Parents' attendance at playgroups provides opportunities for involvement in play. However, little is known about parents' practices of co-play in playgroups and the potential for these practices to enhance children's play experiences in early childhood. Drawing on practice architectures theory, this paper identifies parents' practices of co-play in a community playgroup, and the enablers and constraints on those practices. Data were collected through ethnographic methods, which included participant observation and informal individual interviews. The findings show that parents' practices of co-play consider the child's needs and interests in ways that support development and enhance children's play in the community playgroup. This research contributes new knowledge about the range of co-play practices engaged in by parents with children in community playgroups.

The purpose of this paper, is to invite health educators to see children as Country--to listen to, learn from and see the child spirit often not observed in academia. We do this by asking, 'What can we as academics and adults learn from Australian Aboriginal children's talk about culture?' To do this, we examine photos taken by Aboriginal children on what culture means to them. We also draw on interview data of the children speaking about their chosen photos. The data reported on in this paper is drawn from a multi-community (co-created) pre-test/post-test feasibility study (ACTRN12619001224112) of the 'Strong Culture, Healthy Lifestyles' afterschool cultural activity programme held on Yuin Country. In focusing on the children's spirit, perspectives, talk and photos about the place of culture in their lives, we aim to look, listen, and see Country [Harrison, M. D., & McConchie, P. (2009). "My People's Dreaming: An Aboriginal Elder speaks on life, land, spirit and forgiveness." Finch Publishing; McKnight, A. (2017). "Singing up Country in academia: Teacher education academics and preservice teachers' experience with Yuin Country" [PhD thesis]., University of Wollongong.]. In observing the photographs, it seems that care and connection are important dimensions to the place of culture in the lives of the children. For some of the children, there is a sense of pride and wonder in what they already know about the importance of family; what they learnt from the programme led by their own community members, the mentors; and the re-triggering of learning through Country. This demonstrates the power of learning/knowing/living/talking about/engaging with culture and Country through cultural programs such as the 'Strong Culture, Healthy Lifestyle programme'. It also demonstrates the importance of nourishing the curiosity of spirit in/with the children, through their (and your own) cultural journey with culture and Country.

Surf lifesaving in Australia is an iconic community volunteer service. Surf lifesaving members must attain their bronze medallion, which includes fundamental first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) techniques in order to patrol the beaches. Each year thousands of rescues and first aid procedures are conducted on the beaches of Australia as volunteer patrolling surf lifesavers carry out their community service. However, there is a sport attached to this community service, which has arguably become the 'face' of surf lifesaving in Australia. Some athletes are professional, and others gain a range of sponsorships. Many others are juniors and Masters competitors. The national championships each year draw anywhere between 5000 and 8000 competitors and spectators. Not without its critics, the masculinised nature of surf lifesaving has come under scrutiny in the past (Booth, 2001). Significantly, this is a paper about young males and the way in which masculinity is socially constructed within both a sporting and broader social and cultural context. It is also a paper that challenges the way in which the male body is endorsed, perceived, and used in a utilitarian manner from boyhood through to early male adulthood, across a range of settings thereby creating a normalised conception of the male body throughout life. Using surf lifesaving as vehicle through which young males can be explored, it identifies the role of sport in the creation of this normalisation and specifically highlights, through an autoethnographic account, the expectation placed on young males within the masculinised sporting setting of surf lifesaving in Australia.

Compelling international evidence illustrates the potential of reading for pleasure for enhancing student reading achievement along with other learning and wellbeing outcomes. Yet profound challenges exist for nations seeking to encompass attention to students' volitional reading. In this paper we critically review the growing research evidence in this area by drawing systematically on cognitive psychological studies of reading attainment and motivation, educational studies of classroom practice, and the work of literary scholars and medical professionals. We consider and critique the methodologies deployed and read between the lines, exposing contradictions and complexities across this interdisciplinary field before considering the demands of operationalising this agenda in education. Through a dual focus on England and Australia, where, exemplifying international trends, young people's voluntary reading continues to decline, we examine difficulties and dilemmas which play out in policy and practice contexts. Our points of commonality and comparison surface key issues for consideration in countries working to reconcile the push and pull of performativity and reading for pleasure agendas in order to nurture children's volitional reading. To conclude, we examine ways forward for research, policy and practice which deserve increased global attention, and offer future-focused recommendations to advance this significant social justice agenda.

Remote Education Tutors (RETs) enact crucial roles in Australian distance schooling, by living with families who reside in geographically isolated locations and supporting their school age children's learning. As part of a larger research project, this paper presents a study of four RETs derived from semi-structured interviews conducted in their respective home schoolrooms. Informed conceptually by Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological systems theory (1979, 1986), the thematic analysis generated four substantive themes related to the participants' lives and work: pedagogical competencies; healthy relational dynamics; optimism with a solution focus; and substantive occupation. More broadly, the RETs contribute indispensably to the educational success and the lifestyle sustainability of the school age children with whom they work, yet currently there is no formal recognition of that contribution, just as there is no viable career pathway for RETs seeking to become qualified teachers. Accordingly, they are as occupationally invisible as the remote living families whom they serve.

This paper considers experiences of speculative immersion as artists and children map the multilayered sonic ecology of Birrarung Marr, a traditional meeting place for Aboriginal language groups of the Eastern Kulin Nation. We explore how speculative practices of immersion shaped the mapping of precolonial, contemporary, and future soundscapes of Birrarung Marr, and the ceremonial burial of these sonic cartographies for future listeners. Bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous concepts of immersion in mutually respectful and purposeful conversation, we work to re-theorise immersive experience as a process of ecological multiplicity and affective resonance, rather than one of phenomenological containment. By approaching immersion as both a concept and a sensation that ruptures the boundary between body and environment, we follow how immersion 'drifts' across porous thresholds of sensing, thinking, dreaming, making, and knowing in situated environmental education contexts. In doing so, the paper stresses the importance of speculative immersive experience in cultivating liveable urban futures under conditions of climate change, and responds to the need for new understandings of immersion that take more-than-human ecologies of experience into account.

This paper proposes social living labs for informed learning as an innovative approach to interprofessional and community education. It presents a new conceptual model and practice framework suited to rapidly changing, information-intensive work and social environments. The proposed approach is theoretically informed and evidence based. It integrates concepts from three complementary fields: Informed learning as information literacy pedagogy that enables using information critically and creatively to learn (information science); interprofessional education as a professional learning model with a cross-disciplinary and community reach (health sciences/medicine); and social living labs as informal learning context and problem-solving process (community development). After reviewing relevant literature, the paper introduces the concepts and research that underpin social living labs for informed learning. Then it presents a new conceptual model and a practice framework to guide their design and implementation. To illustrate the practical application of this approach, a hypothetical scenario envisages health practitioners, librarians and community members collaborating in a social living lab to address health and social challenges related to child obesity. The paper concludes by discussing anticipated benefits and limitations of the approach and possible wider application. As a contribution to theory, the paper uncovers a previously unrecognised synergy between the principles of informed learning, social living labs and interprofessional education. Supporting information literacy research and practice, the paper identifies a significant role for informed learning in community and professional education, and a novel strategy for health information literacy development. The paper is of interest to educators, researchers, and practitioners across information literacy, community development, healthcare, and other professional fields.

The aim of this study was to compare bibliometric indicators of scientific productivity in physical activity (PA) in children and adolescents with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Down syndrome (DS) in the PubMed database. A bibliometric study was conducted for the last 5 years (2017 to 2021). The data collected for each article were: year of publication, language of publication, country, journal name, and type of paper. The results showed that there was higher scientific productivity in the population with DS (20 studies) relative to their counterparts with ASD (31 studies). The language of publication in both cases was English. There were 10 countries that published on PA in ASD and 14 countries that published on DS. Overall, the greatest interest in publishing on PA in children and adolescents with ASD was in North America (6 studies), followed by Asia (5 studies) and Europe (4 studies). In the DS population it was in Europe (13 studies), North America (9 studies) and South America (4 studies). Nineteen journals were identified that published in the ASD population and 29 journals in DS. Six experimental studies were identified in ASD and 7 in DS. There was a higher scientific productivity with original studies. There was a positive trend of increasing scientific productivity over the years in both populations. We suggest the need to promote research on PA in both populations, regardless of the type of study, as it is an indicator of overall health status.

The School Strike for Climate campaign led to public discussion about children's political participation. Children are generally excluded from formal political systems, however this campaign challenges mainstream attitudes that children are not sufficiently competent to participate in politics. This paper presents an analysis of Australian mainstream media representations of adult responses to the School Strike for Climate events held in Australia in March 2019. When analysed against theories of childhood, two primary narratives are reflected in what adults said about children's participation in the campaign. Anticipatory narratives focus on children appropriately developing into adults, and are represented by the notion that strikers should be in school, be punished for missing school, and are 'just kids' who should not be listened to. Protectionist narratives seek to shelter children from adult matters, suggesting strikers were brainwashed and raising welfare concerns. Neither of these narratives regard children as citizens capable of political voice, despite these children acting prefiguratively to create a world in which their civic participation is valued. Social movement theories of prefiguration are also explored in this paper, providing a counter argument to suggestions that children have no political agency and should be excluded from activism and discussions regarding climate change.

This article analyses the ways in which notions of student diversity and student voice are defined in five European countries, two terms directly related to notions of inclusion. In so doing, it examines links between the two terms, noting that, often, they are used in international research without acknowledging the ways that they are defined within particular national contexts. Using literature and policy documents from five countries (i.e. Austria, Denmark, England, Portugal and Spain), the article highlights similarities as well as differences in the various contexts. Through the analysis of these texts, the paper concludes that diversity is conceptualised in five ways, although there is occasionally overlap of different conceptualisations in some of the countries. Meanwhile, the term 'student voice' is a term that is not used in some of the countries' policies. Instead, other terms that relate to student voice, such as 'participation', are used. The paper discusses the implications of these varied understandings for the promotion of the inclusion of all students in schools.

The hierarchy in our educational institutions and services often mirror societal attitudes towards power and whose voices are privileged or ignored. Historically, those with power feel uncomfortable when marginalised voices are heard. There is a lot at stake when power is threatened and new voices demand changes within society. This discussion paper explores various instances of where that has happened and the backlash faced by those who are given a chance for their opinions to be heard or those who assist them to voice their narrative through research and reporting. Using publicly available data and our own experiences, we examine incidences where society has listened to children, the victims of sexual abuse in institutions and Indigenous Australians. For people to reach their potential, their voices need to be heard in matters that affect them, according to the United Nations Human Rights Declaration (United Nations, 1948). Using discourse and narrative analysis, the authors discuss the cost of exercising those rights within a neoliberal context and examine how this influences peoples' agency as they face media backlash, online trolling and death threats. Despite this, when marginalised people are bold enough and are allowed to tell their stories, societies, educational institutions, and services have the chance to adapt and improve. This will interest those who educate and research with marginalised people or who study social and institutionalised power.

Recent scholarship on universities explores how academics' families and partners restrict their careers and how academic labour limits these relationships, both in highly gendered ways. Such research less often considers how people's close relations might unevenly support them in continuously relocating; dedicating unpaid time to 'career development'; or taking on or influencing them to remain in short-term, poorly paid precarious roles. This paper explores precariously employed post-PhDs in Australia, investigating their gendered careers and personal lives. Drawing on interviews at three public universities, it shows how women with children and partners in particular raise concerns over how their relationships and work interact. Here, certain kinds of workers -- men and single women, unencumbered by family responsibilities and restrictions on travel, and with access to financial resources -- appear better able to navigate moves to more secure work. This paper argues that support from close relations is productive and restrictive for precarious academics' careers.

We examined the role of social motivation and motor execution factors in object-directed imitation difficulties in autism spectrum disorder. A series of to-be-imitated actions was presented to 35 children with autism spectrum disorder and 20 typically developing children on an Apple® iPad® by a "socially responsive" or "aloof" model, under conditions of "low" and "high motor demand." There were no differences in imitation performance (i.e. the number of actions reproduced within a fixed sequence), for either group, in response to a model who acted socially responsive or aloof. Children with autism spectrum disorder imitated the high motor demand task more poorly than the low motor demand task, while imitation performance for typically developing children was equivalent across the low and high motor demand conditions. Furthermore, imitative performance in the autism spectrum disorder group was unrelated to social reciprocity, though positively associated with fine motor coordination. These results suggest that difficulties in object-directed imitation in autism spectrum disorder are the result of motor execution difficulties, not reduced social motivation. [This paper was presented at the 2016 International Meeting for Autism Research.]

Can science curricula truly cultivate morals and values towards nature? This is the question that is raised by Carolina Castano Rodriguez in her critique of the new Australian Science curriculum. In this response to Castano Rodriguez's paper we ask two questions relating to: the influence of curricula on the relationships of children and other animals; and other models of science education regarding animals and nature that may be more relevant, just, or caring. In responding to these questions stimulated by the reading of Castano Rodriguez's paper, we reflect on our own experiences. We note the conflict between the values depicted in the curriculum priorities and the underlying anthropocentric view that appears to be embedded in the Australian Science Curriculum and in curricula generally. With this conflict in mind we encourage educators to examine our own practices regarding how the relationships between humans and other animals are promoted. We put forward the idea of science education that responds to the shifting views of science and its applications outside the confines of the laboratory to one that encourages both ethical and political discussion that is already taking place in the community relating to the role of science and technology in our lives and the lives of other animals. [This review essay addresses issues raised in Carolina Castano Rodriguez's paper entitled, "Which Values Regarding Nature and Other Species Are We Promoting in the Australian Science Curriculum?" (EJ1121573).]

Although teaching science outdoors is well established in global circles, its pedagogical value in Australia is less understood. This paper addresses this gap through its investigation of outdoor science teaching in a science method course in a teacher education program at an Australian regional university. As part of their coursework, pre-service teachers designed and delivered science lessons to primary school-aged children in small teaching groups in a wetland setting and wrote reflective essays about the experience. Data collection methods included document analysis of the essays as well as follow-up semi-structured interviews with pre-service teachers. Findings suggest that the outdoor science teaching experience improved pre-service teachers' general science teaching skills, and significantly contributed to their capacity to teach science outdoors. Considerations regarding how teacher education curriculum and pedagogy can be reconfigured to better equip graduating teachers with the relevant science skills, knowledge and confidence are discussed.

School communities face challenges in responding effectively to the rising incidence of student self-harm. Evidence-informed guidelines may provide a platform for schools to provide better responses and improve the outcomes of students who engage in self-harm. This paper critically reviews policies published in English targeted for schools or education settings on effective early identification and intervention for children and adolescent self-harm. A grey literature search was conducted using "Start Page" web search engine with a documentary analysis approach applied to review polices that met criteria. The review identified 16 policies that aim to help school and education staff to identify and respond to student self-harm. The key themes include identification and risk assessment, intervention, roles and responsibilities, as well as addressing issues surrounding evidence-based psychological education and intervention. An evidence-informed policy that addresses multiple aspects of responding to and reducing student self-harm may be a vital foundation of a school's response to this growing public health issue. This paper outlines key points that will help inform the development of evidence-informed guidelines for schools to respond to student self-harm and presents an exemplar policy framework for use by schools.

Purpose: This paper draws on the archival records of the Victorian Education Department, literature produced by the governing authority of Tally Ho (the Central Mission), and newspaper reports produced in the mid-20th century about school and education at Tally Ho. This paper also draws on material from the Victorian Aborigines Welfare Board and the Northern Territory Department of Welfare, as well as two historical key government inquiries into the institutionalisation of children. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses Tally Ho Boys' Training Farm as a case study to examine the intersection of welfare systems, justice systems and schooling and education for Aboriginal children in institutions like Tally Ho in the mid-20th century. Further, it provides perspectives on how institutions such as Tally Ho were utilised by governments in Victoria and the Northern Territory to pursue different agendas -- sometimes educational -- particular to Aboriginal children. This paper also explores how histories can be reconstructed when archives are missing or silent about histories of Aboriginal childhood. Findings: This paper demonstrates how governments used Tally Ho to control and govern the lives of Aboriginal children. By drawing together archives from a range of bodies and authorities who controlled legislation and policies, this paper contributes new understandings about the role of institutions in Victoria to the assimilation policies of Victoria and the Northern Territory in the mid-20th century. Originality/value: Scholarship on the institutionalisation of children in the post-war era in Victoria, including the ways that schooling and justice systems were experienced by children living in care, has failed to fully engage with the experiences of Aboriginal children. Historians have given limited attention to the experiences of Aboriginal children living in institutions off Aboriginal reserves in Victoria. There has been limited historical scholarship examining the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children at Tally Ho. This paper broadens our understandings about how Aboriginal children encountered institutionalisation in Victoria.

Refugee-background youth in the Australian context have long been confronted with a series of challenges surrounding their living and educational conditions. However, limited research has been conducted to examine the underlying factors of such problems. This paper critically explores possible factors that contribute to or intensify the challenges that refugee-background children and youth face in Australia by scrutinising related legal documents and education policies (e.g. inclusive and language transition policies). It is argued that the living and learning crisis among refugee-background youth in Australia is a result of: (a) restrictive refugee law; (b) incomplete education policy; and (c) deep-rooted political and historical views on refugees.

Humans are living in damaged landscapes within a new geographical epoch known as the Anthropocene. The COVID-19 outbreak fuels uncertainty, instability, and ambiguity for humans. This viral disaster has been blamed for losing and further exacerbating ecological imbalance, and prompts a need to re-examine multispecies relations and, in particular, human exceptionalism. The authors, by applying a new theoretical assemblage that brings the new materialist turn entangled with Buddhist philosophies into our stories and diffractions of child-virus bodies, have been prompted to raise two questions about how multispecies justice could disrupt environmental sustainability education. The questions we will engage with in the paper include: Can we explore these new theoretical assemblages (east-west) with child-virus relations as a means for raising multispecies justice that critiques the universalisation of human forces in the Anthropocene? What possibilities does the pandemic offer to rethink multispecies relations as an entangled ecological crisis by exploring what a 'new normal' in post-COVID-19 sustainability education could emerge?

Background and aims: Participatory research involves academic partners working together with the community that is affected by research to make decisions about that research. Such approaches often result in research that is more respectful of, and responsive to, community preferences -- and is vital in the context of autism research with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Whilst participatory approaches are becoming more commonplace within CALD autism research, no studies have explored the experiences of being involved in autism research from the perspectives of CALD community partners over the course of a study. This paper intended to address this gap by reporting on the experiences of CALD parents of autistic children who were community partners in a 1-year Australian research project exploring home-school partnerships for CALD parents of autistic children. We aimed to: (1) report on how parents' involvement in the research process shaped the home-school partnerships study over time and (2) understand their experiences of being community partners on the home-school partnerships project. Methods: Using key principles of participatory approaches, we established Chinese and Vietnamese parent advisory groups to contribute to a project exploring home-school partnerships for parents of autistic children from CALD backgrounds in Australia. Advisory groups included parents of autistic children from Chinese/Vietnamese backgrounds, as well as interpreters, professionals and researchers. We documented how parents' participation as community partners shaped the home-school partnerships study over the course of the project. We also elicited parents' own views and experiences of being community partners through informal, open-ended questions at the beginning and end of the study. Results: We found that parents' input fundamentally shaped the broader home-school partnership study, from meaningful, accurate translation of interview schedules through to making decisions regarding community-specific recommendations and dissemination plans. Parents themselves reported being keen to collaborate and to hear and share opinions for the purpose of the home-school partnership study -- although they noted how emotionally difficult sharing their stories could be. While they initially had some concerns about combining being involved as a community partner with their existing responsibilities, ultimately, parents were surprised by the scope of the home-school partnership study and their level of involvement as community partners. Through hearing others' stories and sharing their own in advisory group meetings, parents reported ancillary benefits of their involvement, including increased self-advocacy and well-being. Conclusions: These findings show how research that is conducted in partnership "with" diverse members of the autism community has the capacity to improve the quality of the research and benefit community partners. Implications: This study clearly documents the benefits and potential challenges of participatory approaches with CALD communities. These findings emphasise to researchers and funders the importance of including extra time and money within budgets in order to produce meaningful research that is respectful and responsive to communities.

This paper reports on a study which focused on surveying children and young people (aged 4 to 17) regarding their experiences of childhood, schooling, family, and community. Participants focused on the importance of their connections to fellow children and young people, their families, and their educators. They identified ways for adults to care for them and to create connectedness and belonging whether at home or school. Participants also spoke to the value of their voices and views, and expressed a desire to be respected and recognised, whether on a personal level or with reference to broader systems such as government. Throughout the study, participants expressed appreciation regarding the opportunity to engage in research that explicitly focused on seeking and honouring their voices and views. For instance, one secondary-aged student stated, "Children can make a difference by sharing their perspective and expressing the way the world feels to them." Recommendations are posed which have heightened relevance for educators, school leaders, and parents/carers. These relate to school culture, learning and teaching, caring for children, and relating to children.

Inclusive education is enshrined in law and supported by the literature as best practice in education. Inclusive education has been shown to provide better academic, social and behavioural outcomes for children with disabilities than segregated learning environments. In the Northern Territory, Australia, however, the dual system of mainstream and special education persists and so too does segregation and exclusion. The Northern Territory education strategy commits to strengthening inclusion and empowering families in educational decision-making by listening to their voices. In this paper, we highlight some of these voices, examining the experiences and perspectives of caregivers of children with disabilities as they participate in education in the Northern Territory. Caregivers' experiences were coded into categories of inclusion and exclusion. Those that were not clearly inclusion nor exclusion were identified and the theme of non-inclusion was created. Non-inclusion was analysed thematically and is discussed as a nebulous space that exists for caregivers, presenting significant challenges that threaten their child's inclusion at school as they navigate this dual system. If Australian education systems are to provide genuine inclusive education, we need to understand the experiences of caregivers better so we can remediate the issues creating non-inclusion for children with disabilities and caregivers.

In this paper, I explore the importance of incorporating principles of social justice and cultural awareness in 21st century education. Specifically, I explore the utilization of autoethnographic research as a powerful tool for non-Indigenous teachers to enhance their cultural awareness. To illustrate this, I present a vignette featuring an Australian Indigenous child deeply connected to his culture to describe how a culturally insensitive school counsellor misdiagnosed him with a global developmental delay. In contrast, the child's teachers strived to avoid cultural insensitivity and challenge institutional racism by assessing the child and taking into account local funds of knowledge. To enrich the understanding of cultural competence, I integrate Bronfenbrenner's (1979) social ecological model, a global framework, with the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). The EYLF, developed based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, reinforces the importance of international children's rights and may support non-Indigenous teachers' understanding of Indigenous children. By combining these approaches, educators can foster a culturally aware and inclusive environment for their students.

This paper addresses a gap in research regarding the efficacy of software programs to help children with reading difficulties. Forty-two children aged 5-13 years identified as poor readers participated in a study over twelve weeks using ReadingDoctor, a software program targeting phonemic awareness, orthographic-phonemic mappings, decoding ability and sight word recognition. Measures were taken using the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test - Revised (SPAT-R), the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), and the graphemes and decoding subtests of the Phonological Awareness Test 2 (PAT-2). A quasi-experimental one group study with three multiple baseline measures was used. The dependent variables/measures were assessed seven times over a period of 32 weeks, allowing the research to be completed in the school-allocated timeframe. Significant improvements were found on all three measures of phonological/phonemic awareness and word-reading efficiency. These improvements were maintained when assessed three months later, during which time the software program was not used.

The United Nations (UN) asserts that children and young people should have access to human rights education (HRE) and that schools are one of the key means through which HRE should be made available. However, there is currently limited knowledge about the presence and form of HRE in school contexts, and there is no established means through which HRE provision within schools is evaluated. This paper proposes a theoretical framework to support the classification of teachers' responsibilities in relation to HRE and argues that systemic change is needed within education systems if HRE provision is to be realised in more extensive and consistent ways. The curriculum documents of three nations -- Australia, England and Sweden -- were analysed to determine teacher responsibilities for educating pupils about human rights. The viability of the developed framework was then tested through applying it to the outcomes of these analyses. The theoretical contribution made by the paper deepens knowledge and understandings about the nature of responsibilities placed on teachers to educate pupils about human rights, and provides a foundation from which to stimulate debate about what constitutes effective school-based HRE practices.

Background: Research into parents' experiences of living with a family member with intellectual disability and challenging behaviour does not specifically address what parents say about themselves and their lives. This paper explores "I-statements" parents made about their day-to-day actions in life with their family member. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 parents, of which 91% were mothers. "I-statements" were analysed using process analysis from systemic functional linguistics and thematic analysis. Results: "I-statements" showed that parents enacted a range of complex and sometimes extreme activities across a variety of life domains. Parents spoke about: managing relationships with services; educating themselves and others; seeking support; resisting poor service delivery; assisting others; and making both small and significant changes. Conclusion: The paper provided insights into the complex lives of these families and offered observations on the implications of the potential misalignment between the supports the data suggests are needed and those that, in reality, are available to them.

A problem-based immersive virtual environment (IVE) about bushfire safety was developed as a learning tool for children aged 10-12. Its effectiveness was assessed in relation to children's ability to determine how to be safer in a bushfire incident. A series of experiential activities were developed in the IVE with digital storytelling and two-stage embedded assessments providing children with an opportunity to engage with tasks and solve problems while receiving feedback on their performance. Changes from pre- to postsurvey results showed positive learning outcomes as evidenced by significant improvements in children's knowledge of bushfire safety and confidence in their ability to contribute to decisions during a bushfire incident. The significant change in children's knowledge as well as their performance at two-stage embedded assessments was independent of their gender, background knowledge and perceived ability in responding to bushfire hazards. This suggests that when appropriately designed and implemented within educational settings, immersive virtual learning tools can effectively engage children and enhance learning outcomes associated with bushfire safety. The paper also argues that such immersive problem-based learning can improve self-efficacy amongst children in relation to coping with a bushfire situation. Implications of the findings are also discussed.

The influential role of parents has long been acknowledged as a key contributor to children's bilingual development. Parents' home-based informal efforts to foster children's bilingual abilities are described as family language policies (FLPs). The important connection between bilingualism and FLP has been established, but to date there are few studies concerning Korean immigrant families in Australia, highlighting their unique cultural values. According to traditional Korean cultural values, mothers play a central role as An-hae (the sun inside) to facilitate their children's language development (Kim, 2006). This study aimed to create a clearer picture of Korean mothers' beliefs about bilingualism and their FLPs. The participants were six Korean mothers with their children attending a community language program in Sydney. There are two data sets for this study: a six-weeks' FLP daily log of each family and a focus group interview. A thematic analysis of these data revealed the richness and specificity of FLPs for bilingual development. This paper concludes with implications for a future research agenda.

The article focuses on the application of participation-focused therapy in children with cerebral palsy for improvement in physical activity goal performance, satisfaction, and confidence.

Most families can access a range of health information and advice. Information and advice sources often include nurses, the Internet, social media, books, as well as family and friends. While the immediate aim may be to find information, it can also be to assist with parenting skills, solve parenting problems or as part of decision-making processes about their child’s health. These processes are strongly influenced by the parent’s level of health literacy. Health literacy describes a person’s capacity to obtain and utilize health related information. Although there are numerous health literacy definitions all have clearly defined steps. These steps are: obtaining relevant information; then understanding this information; and finally being able to use the information to achieve the expected outcome. Previous research has linked low levels of parental health literacy with poorer child health outcomes. Given this link, increasing health literacy levels would be advantageous for both families and health services. Nurses working with families are in a position to support the family to increase their health literacy through the use of a variety of strategies. This article outlines how health literacy can influence the way parents seek help when they are concerned about child health issues, the relevance of parental health literacy for nurses and suggests some tools that could be used to support the increase of health literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides an analysis of Australia's legal provisions and policies regarding truancy. We examine how low frequency truants feature in Australia's truancy law and policy and highlight similarities and differences in the cultural-legal context between Australian states and territories. Similarities include requirements to attend school from about six to 17 years of age and the legal culpability of (predominantly) the parents for children's non-attendance. Differences include little consistency in the threshold at which schools in different Australian states and territories are required to intervene once truancy has been identified and disparities in prosecutions and fines. We conclude that harmonising truancy laws in Australia is likely to increase parental understanding and thereby compliance with school attendance laws.

The emotional aspects of children's social relations have generally been marginalised in social science discourse. Children, who participated in the Australian segment of the Children's Understandings of Well-being (CUWB) project used various media to 'voice' the importance for their well-being of emotional relatedness with family, friends, animals and places. In this paper we place our construction of children's discussion of emotional relatedness in the context of the 'emotional turn' in research and briefly describe how the methodology for our project facilitated an understanding of the importance of children's emotions for their lives in the present. We then focus on the significance for child protection policy and practice, of what children tell us about feeling safe, as this relates to the importance of agency and relatedness with people and also with places.

While Australian evidence suggests that the Private Rate of Return (PRR) to a university degree in Australia has gradually declined with increases in the cost of higher education, these studies have only measured the PRR for the average male and average female. This paper uses income data from the ABS Income and Housing Survey (2003-04) CURF to measure the impact of the 2005 increase in HECS fees on the PRR based on gender and marital status. This paper shows that the return to a university degree is largely affected by both gender and marital status and studies that measure the PRR to a university degree for single males and single females with no dependent children underestimate the PRR for most male graduates and overestimate the PRR of female graduates.

Participatory, rights-based methodologies in childhood studies have explored conditions that realise children's rights to participation. One avenue of investigation has been to explore assent procedures that respect children's rights to make informed decisions about participation. Less attention has been directed towards the ways in which children indicate their dissent. This paper highlights children's self-chosen ways to participate (or not) in a study that explored their perspectives of play in an Australian early childhood education setting. The study analysed the design of ethical spaces in research with children's expressions as departure points for their participatory experiences. This highlighted three concepts that characterised their choices: agency; privacy; and relationships. The outcomes informed the development of a framework of ethical research spaces, incorporating physical, creative and social-emotional spaces. How the concepts of agency, privacy and relationships are anchored in the three spaces is addressed.

Self-report is seen as important in assessments of psychopathology but individuals with intellectual disability may have difficulty with standard questionnaires. This paper reports on the administration and subsequent modifications to several established self-report measures of mental health. Methods: The participants were 57 children with intellectual disability aged 10 to 13 years. They completed the Children's Depression Inventory, Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, Intellectual Disability Mood Scale, and Moods and Feelings Questionnaire. Results: Difficulties with the instruments were identified, including complex wording and item structure, ambiguity and working memory demands. Adaptations were made to the instruments and administration procedures. In a second administration there were improvements in children's ability to respond. The modified questionnaires demonstrated acceptable to good internal consistency and were strongly correlated. Conclusions: Self-report measures of mental health can be completed by children with intellectual disability but may need pilot testing and modifications to make them more appropriate for this population.

Background: The construct of physical literacy is gaining traction internationally and yet measurement of physical literacy is in its infancy. This paper describes the development of a pictorial child report scale of perceived physical literacy based on the comprehensive Australian Physical Literacy Framework, which includes 30 elements within four domains (physical, psychological, cognitive and social). Methods: An expert reference committee with academic and industry representatives from physical education, sport and education was formed to provide input to each stage of the process. Qualitative research methods were used to (a) determine a character that was gender neutral, not representative of a particular race or ethnicity and appealing to children, and (b) the content (i.e. relationship between item images, wording and format with the intended construct) and response processes (i.e. interpretation of items) of the Physical Literacy in Children Questionnaire (PL-C Quest). A total of 17 children aged 4-12 years were interviewed as part of the study. Results: A 'bunny' character was preferred by children. Overall, children interpreted most images as intended by the researchers, and, in many cases, without having to hear the words that went with the images. Some of the image scenarios were amended and redrawn according to the suggestions received from children and the expert reference group. Discussion: This study has provided qualitative evidence based on the content of the PL-C Quest elements and domains, on the ways respondents understand, and interpret the items. This is the first step towards the development and testing of a pictorial instrument to comprehensively measure children's self-perceived physical literacy.

This paper reports on findings of the Sex Ed Dads survey which sought Australian fathers' perspectives on communicating with their young children about relationships and sexuality, as informal sexuality educators. Given the majority of existing family-based sexuality education research draws on the experiences of mothers, gaining insights from fathers is a much needed first step in designing resources to support paternal engagement in sexuality education. A diverse sample of 612 Australian fathers completed an online survey about their views on sexuality education and their role within it. Participating fathers valued sexuality education for their children and believed that their own informal contribution to its provision was important. Fathers reported high levels of comfort discussing a wide range of topics with their child at the age they deemed appropriate, although a gap between what fathers believed they should discuss and what they actually discussed was found. Findings offer insights for schools, resource developers and sexuality education providers seeking to support increased engagement of fathers in the sexuality education domain.

The context of this paper is a university-based teacher education course in Melbourne, Australia. The assumption underpinning the course is that it is crucial for trainee teachers to examine the lenses they typically use in terms of common-sense understandings of children and adolescents. We point to the 18th century Western enlightenment period as the source of this thinking. I argue that it is important to be aware of other enlightenments that have shaped the traditions of students in our multicultural mix. In this paper, I explore the writings of the Mahabharata and other early Indian texts to see how they have also influenced ways of thinking about childhood and adolescence. Data for this paper have been drawn from course materials, student responses, translations of early Indian texts and popular stories depicting childhood and adolescence. (Contains 7 notes.)

This paper reflects on the current state of research in early childhood education and proposes that there is a renewed interest in research evident at present. Multiple perspectives of viewing early childhood are increasing, with research stretching the comfortable boundaries wider than seen before in Australia. This paper discusses how early childhood research is changing the way we consider childhood, and how its methods are now beginning to really embrace the child. Also discussed are some of the thought-provoking initiatives recently taken in such research and how the early childhood sector can benefit from its richness.

This paper aims to explore young Chinese girls' aspirations and ideal environments for engagement in Health and Physical Education (HPE) and physical activity (PA) in Greater Western Sydney. Interviews are used to elicit these girls' perceptions of their future and ideal environments in relation to HPEPA. Their data offer insights into key influences regarding what is thinkable, desirable and achievable in their HPEPA environments. Results showed dimensions of environments, such as social and pedagogical aspects, that are conducive to these girls' aspirations in HPEPA (e.g. social support from parents, and functional built environment for HPE). This paper aligns with a strengths-based approach to understanding and recognising young Chinese girls' perceived aspirations within their socio-cultural environment. In doing so, we discuss how feminism and femininity are positioned from a Chinese perspective that may provide alternative views to a post-feminist panorama in promoting advancement of "all" young girls in HPEPA. Results invite us to take into account some of the girls' ambivalence towards being an 'autonomous' and 'dependent' modern Chinese young girl. This paper calls for a rethinking of how aspirations that shape young people's future in HPEPA in much of the contemporary Western world are conceptualised in academic research.

Flexible learning programs (FLPs) provide a place for students who have disengaged and disconnected from mainstream schools. Despite the legislative framework in Australia supporting the participation of students with disability in their local mainstream schools wherever possible, very little research focusing on whether students with disability are being excluded from, or dropping out of, mainstream schools into these FLPs has been conducted. In this paper, we report on the findings of an online cross-sectional survey of FLP leaders about their student populations, with a focus on the 10 most prevalent disabilities among Australian children. Data from the 22 participants who completed all items of the survey were analysed. The participants' (n = 22) schools represented a total enrolment of 2,383 students in FLPs across Australia: Tasmania (n = 3), Victoria (n = 5), New South Wales (n = 5), Queensland (n = 4), Western Australia (n = 3), and South Australia (n = 2). We found that while there was an apparent overrepresentation of students with certain types of disabilities in FLPs, others were not overrepresented at all. The findings of this preliminary study are discussed, with an exploration of issues relating to why students with some disabilities may be more likely to disengage, or be excluded, from mainstream schooling while others are not, as well as recommendations for future research.

Adam Wright, Michael A. Gottfried, and Vi-Nhuan Le demonstrate empirically that minority teachers have a positive impact on the "social-emotional development" of American minority kindergarten children. Their analyses of 2010-2011 data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study focus on measurable effects in four social and affective domains: self-control, externalizing behaviors, interpersonal skills, and approaches to learning. This is a significant contribution to decades of qualitative and quantitative evidence on the effects of minority teachers and minority hiring policies, which have a difficult and politically charged history over the six decades since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education". As Wright and colleagues observe, while the school-age population of minority children and youth--African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and migrant and refugee communities-- continues to grow beyond majority in many urban schools, districts, and states, the teaching workforce remains predominantly White. In another recent analysis of a national longitudinal database on effective teaching, Cherng and Halpin (2016) show that minority students consistently rate Black and Latino teachers higher across a range of measures. Both studies cite the extensive empirical literature that makes the case for what Wright et al. here refer to as "cultural synchrony": aggregate educational benefits of alignment of the cultural and racial backgrounds of teachers with those of their students. In relation to the Australian context where the author lives and works, several findings of a large-scale empirical study of school and leadership reform in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education (Luke et al. 2013) are relevant to questions of cultural synchrony--or indeed, to questions of "cultural asynchrony" (Carbaugh, 2014): where intercultural communication and exchange breaks down, fails, or where it is institutionally or systemically precluded or blocked. [This article offers a commentary on "A Kindergarten Teacher Like Me: The Role of Student-Teacher Race in Social-Emotional Development" (EJ1155312).]

Whilst early childhood education is regarded as important for young Indigenous Australians and it has been a feature of policy since the 1960s, it does not receive the same attention as compulsory schooling for Indigenous Australian students. A serious lack of large-scale research contributes to the devaluing of early childhood education for young Indigenous Australians by some stakeholders such as governments, academics and research, but not for the main stakeholders, namely young Indigenous Australian children and their parents. This paper aims to address this by drawing on large-scale qualitative and quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. First, it will analyse data pertaining to the experiences of Indigenous Australian children to uncover what they believe to be special about their early childhood education. Second, it will analyse data pertaining to the specific choices made by their parents regarding their early childhood education. The paper concludes by discussing the role of research in strengthening areas within Indigenous Australian early childhood education and identifying areas where it is valued to the same level as compulsory schooling.

University programs are currently faced with a number of challenges: how to engage students as active learners, how to ensure graduates are "work ready" with broad and relevant professional skills, and how to support students to see their potential as agents of social change and contributors to social good. This paper presents the findings from a study that explored the impact of an authentic, interdisciplinary project with health, architecture and landscape students. This project facilitated students' entrée into the lived experience of women and children requiring refuge services as a result of homelessness and/or domestic violence. Students collaborated with stakeholders from the refuge sector, visiting sites, undertaking individual research, exchanging ideas and problem-solving, to develop a design guide for a women's refuge. Focus groups were conducted at the conclusion of the activity to gauge students' perceptions of the value of the activity. Results indicated that the "hands-on" and collaborative nature of the learning experience in a real-world context was valued, primarily due to its direct relevance to professional practice. Architecture and landscape participants reported an increase in their understanding and knowledge of refuge clients, and many expressed a commitment to further learning and contribution to the sector. Nursing students felt that the authentic learning experience helped prepare them for the "real world" of practice and that it aided development of their professional identities and capacity to effect real-world change. The learning activity had a positive impact on knowledge acquisition and students' confidence to act as agents of social change.

This research examined the role of touch in creative media production in the context of educational and community makerspaces. Touch, while only recently explored in digital media production, is a crucial perceptive sense through which to experience the world, particularly in two- and three-dimensional making, and to explore texture, temperature, and vibration. As an embodied experience through the hands, fingers, and other body parts, touch affords knowledge and agency. This paper describes research that investigated how students, ages 8-13, used touch to make media. The findings illustrate how different touch types--explorative, creative, auxiliary, evocative, orchestrated, and transformative--emerged as central to the students' media practices for making products. These findings are important given the recent applications of embodiment theory and its relevance to creative digital media making in education and society.

Notions of creativity are increasingly central to educational scholarship and policies, but few studies attend to the intersection between "Health and Physical Education" (H/PE) and "creativity." In this paper we explore the literature on creativity in education and identify how creativity is represented across a broad spectrum of enquiry yet limited in relation to specifically H/PE. Writing from an Australian context, we examine how the key ideas and propositions from the "Australian Curriculum for Health and Physical Education" and the "Critical and Creative Thinking" capability raise important questions regarding the social emergence of educative creative purpose and potential in H/PE. We outline the utility of a 'creative ecologies' conceptual framework to consider contemporary practices in H/PE, and apply this to two purposively selected resources; to showcase their contextual eminence for creative learning in H/PE pedagogy and practice. The first resource, "Phenomenom!," was funded by Horticultural Innovation Australia to develop food literacy and is linked to cross-curriculum learning outcomes. The second resource, "Fitter. Faster. Better," is a St Martin's Youth drama-arts performance where students were prompted to design and perform a fitness programme for adults. Utilising the creative ecologies framework we illustrate the complexity of interconnected creative processes in H/PE as a series of networked elements and cultural flows (policies, practices, products, process, material environments, and partnerships). This framework is then used to identify how the two educational resources exemplify and open up a socially creative practice in both H/PE and everyday life. Our theoretical developments offer new ways to identify, design and enact quality creative and contemporary socio-cultural H/PE curriculum within a broader creative ecology.

Despite being increasingly popular within broader educational discourse, place-responsive pedagogy is less apparent in science teacher education. This paper investigates the perspectives of pre-service teachers in a science education course informed by place-responsive pedagogy in a Bachelor of Education (primary) program at an Australian regional university. The place-based study belongs to longitudinal research that examined the impact of the modified science course hallmarked by university-school partnerships and science lessons conducted by pre-service teachers with children from rural and regional schools in Gippsland, Victoria in a wetland and school ground setting. The study and science course were framed by a place pedagogy framework. Using this framework, we examine how pre-service teachers view and understand the affordance of places for teaching science. The study employed a document analysis of coursework essays as well as follow-up semi-structured interviews with two pre-service teacher cohorts (wetland and school ground). Findings indicate that pre-service teacher's exposure to place-responsive frameworks helped build their awareness about the affordance of place for science teaching. Challenges associated with taking science beyond the conventional classroom are also identified and discussed.