Search

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explicate the links between public pedagogy, ethics of care and storying as a methodology and method in Oceania. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores the role of extended families as First Teachers in iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood contexts in Fiji. Using storying as methodology, the authors, three Australian and four Fijian academics, present three portraits to make visible the pedagogical entanglements of public pedagogy research in diverse community contexts. These portraits reveal the intersection and integration of extended family with the authors' community-family-child-informed pedagogical approaches, and the advantages of culturally located standpoints when working with iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities. This article's unique contribution lies in its demonstration of the importance of an ethics of care approach in site-specific and contextually emerging pedagogical encounters. Findings: The findings demonstrate the traditional role of First Teachers and carers in iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood contexts in Fiji who use arts-based approaches to teaching and learning within a public pedagogical framework. Research limitations/implications: The implications of the research highlight the need to address policy interventions that disrupt the value of First Teachers in community context and their role in values formations for young people in community. Practical implications: The implications of the research can be addressed at the policy and international level where considerations of educational arrangements need to be understood. Social implications: The social implications of this publication are the value of iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood educators in Fiji, and their voices being heard and understood via a published academic journal. Originality/value: This work is original and is a collaborative paper written between Australian and iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood educators.

A trend towards evidence-based practice has developed in policy and practice in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia in recent years, evolving to become a powerful hegemonic force. This paper considers this latest impetus to teach according to the mandates of a narrow evidence base as a symptom of the post-truth condition, one that elevates a limited body of evidence to an infallible position. Drawing on interviews with practicing teachers and critical discourse analysis of policy texts, this paper explores the homogenizing effects of a tyrannical evidence-based movement, using Antonio Gramsci's (1971) writing on the relationship between consent, coercion, and the maintenance of cultural hegemony. This paper argues that the contemporary policy landscape obtains consent from teachers to accept its claims through a coercive paradigm built from a powerful set of hegemonic discourses, such as "what works" and "evidence-based." These discourses, this paper suggests, need to be considered within the current post-truth context, where the dismissal of research claims is akin to scientific skepticism; a dynamic that places teachers in an impossible bind where the evidence underpinning policy is protected by a paradigm that makes it difficult to question.

For over a century, since Aboriginal children were permitted to access mainstream Australian schools, there has been a significant gap in academic achievement between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. Community engagement by schools is recognised as a key factor in Aboriginal student success, but school approaches to community engagement remain inconsistent and driven by deficit thinking. As part of the Aboriginal Voices Project, this paper explores community engagement at six New South Wales (NSW) public school sites and applies Decolonising Race Theory (DRT) as a critical Indigenous lens to interpret and understand the challenges that students, families, and schools face within their relationships. While we find evidence of school-community partnerships that prioritise Indigenous healing, for the schools in this paper, there is a complexity within relationships with community that reflects the interaction between assimilationist positioning of Aboriginal students that often contains positive and negative elements simultaneously.

Purpose: Adult student identities within EAL (English as an Additional Language) classrooms have often been positioned as static, homogenised and exoticised within scholarly literature. Within such positioning, teachers have embraced pedagogical practices which classify students by country of origin and represent student identities within binaries of Self and the Other, limiting these students' identity positionings for adoption within the EAL classroom. As a result, students are often rendered voiceless by essentialist discourses on culture and identity in the classroom that serve to replicate and reinforce dominant societal discourses and strengthen existing institutional power structures. Design/methodology/approach: By drawing on a postcolonial theoretical framework comprising theories of race, identity, power, representation, synecdoche and Third Space, this paper interrogates current literature to understand the complex multidimensional and dynamic cultural identities of adult EAL students. Findings: This paper reveals that adult EAL students are still being oversimplified within the classroom, not just disadvantaging students and institutions, but also hindering multicultural pedagogies. Originality/value: This paper suggests that teachers require opportunities for critical reflection incorporated within a critical pedagogy in decolonised classrooms that can not only build respectful and equitable awareness of their students' cultural identities and educational and historical backgrounds but provide important implications for effective pedagogical practices.

Initial teacher education programs regularly engage students in service-learning programs, providing an additional pathway to personal, professional and pedagogical transformation in their learning journey. One of those pathways is through service-learning placements in community arts projects. This paper reports on a study of arts-based service-learning programs at two universities. Eight initial teacher education (ITE) students were interviewed after their placements and a number of key themes emerged. These include the importance of productive discomfort as part of the service-learning experience and transformative pedagogy resulting from the art-based experience. This paper also explores some critiques of traditional service-learning models that have opened spaces for critical service-learning approaches. The analysis of ITE students' narratives led to findings about the path of transformation from traditional to critical service-learning approaches through arts-based projects, an area which has been largely unexplored in previous research. The paper concludes with discussion of future avenues for related research that orientate service-learning in the arts towards social and creative justice.

While the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic upon higher education institutions has been well documented, less is known about how academics themselves responded to these rapid changes. This paper analyses the experiences of teacher education academics from Australia and New Zealand (n = 13) who were interviewed during lengthy pandemic lockdowns. Whilst rarely using the language of resistance, participants revealed multiple ways they navigated these seemingly totalising forces of neoliberalism through working to maintain quality education, collegiality, criticality and care. Using theory to help inform our understandings of resistance, our study identified three forms of resistance that were underpinned by feminist, post-structural and critical pedagogy theories. In the face of likely ongoing uncertainty into the future, paying attention to how academics navigated the pandemic provides valuable insights into forms of emergent resistance in moments of extreme precarity in higher education, and the importance of these for continuity and hope.

Reflective practice in TESOL is widely used in pre-service and in-service teacher education contexts and is regarded as beneficial for ongoing professional learning. While models of reflective language teaching vary, they all aim to improve classroom outcomes for teachers and students. A holistic approach to reflective practice includes teachers' beliefs, philosophies and the interaction of their teaching practices with moral and social issues outside the classroom as part of the self-reflective teaching process (Farrell, 2015; Larrivee, 2000). Reflecting on the teaching journey in this way can help teachers make sense of how individual beliefs about teaching interact with professional experiences, and how these interactions inform decisions in the classroom. The aim of this narrative paper is to describe the developmental process I went through during my first year as a teacher of beginner, refugee-background students in an adult migrant English language teaching program in Australia. Self-reflective data primarily sourced from teaching journals kept during my first year of teaching were analysed using Farrell's (2015) Framework for Reflecting on Practice. Following a brief introduction of the framework, its application to this current study is discussed. Findings highlight the important roles philosophy, theory, critical reflection and mentors played in my pedagogical decision-making and overall learning processes. The paper concludes with a discussion about implications for ESOL teachers, graduate students and educators in TESOL teacher education programs.

This paper presents a critique of an article that explores the internationalisation of the curriculum. First, to facilitate critical reflection, the main Western paradigms of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory and postmodernism are described and the differences between them emphasised. The article focused on in this paper can be situated largely within an interpretivist paradigm. Big-tent markers, which are employed to evaluate qualitative research, are then critically implemented to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of this article and offer relevant suggestions regarding ways in which it can be improved.

Responses to COVID-19 impacts have shown how quickly universities can change, given the impetus. However, global disruptions to university learning and teaching have not yet been matched by any significant change to university leadership. Taking gender equity as our focus, we argue that pedagogical disruption should extend beyond the classroom to reshape academic leadership. In this commentary we critically reflect on the question 'How can university leaders share power to nurture caring and ethical academic leadership'? Taking some cues from disruptions to university learning and teaching, we call on the work of bell hooks to propose a holistic vision of university leadership as a form of critical pedagogy -- 'engaged pedagogy'. We draw on combined experience in professional and academic roles at six universities in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to share composite vignettes of holistic leadership practices grounded in integrity, collaboration and personal wellbeing. Our commentary concludes with practical suggestions for changing university governance in a time of disruption so that leadership as engaged pedagogy can be practised more widely.

The paper begins by drawing upon research to understand the genealogical position of dance within the school curriculum as a new 'entitlement' for all young Australians. Whilst dance is included within the Australian curriculum it has been historically marginalised as a 'soft' subject within curriculum hierarchy. This low position in the curriculum order has been questioned, with assertions that dance requires a high level of embodied intelligence not usually recognised by education systems. Ball's (1993) analytic framework for policy-making has been utilised to explore the context of influence through a genealogy of the dance curriculum; the context of policy text production through the process of writing about Dance for the Arts Shape paper in the Australian Curriculum; and the context of policy practice through a case study of pre-service teachers' lived experiences of dance in school. The findings revealed a series of complex factors which have impacted upon the implementation and practice of dance in schools including the relationship between teacher control, disciplinary power and student agency; the impact of dance competitions and their influence on the perceptions of dance; the interests of diverse faiths and cultures as well as the potential of dance to support growing interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and culture; and the twenty-first century proliferation of dance on screen via new technologies and access to highly sexualised performance are discussed. These factors prompt the need for critical approaches towards developing a more accessible and socially just dance curriculum that is culturally responsive and meaningful for diverse learners.

Human rights activists aim to create social and political change. This article analyses the factors which influence and motivate human rights activists in Australia to want to be a part of this movement. Human rights education is an important part of activism. The pedagogy about, through and for human rights education was used in this study to assess the processes that the activists engaged in prior to and through the experiences of their activism. The findings demonstrated that these human rights activists were motivated to be justice-oriented citizens by altruism, often through the influence of their families rather than their schooling. Some participants also experienced political socialisation through their families when they were children, which enabled them to have knowledge and agency as human rights activists. The study also found that belonging to a non-governmental organisation was an important part of maintaining the motivation of human rights activists. [Paper presented at the International Conference on Human Rights Education (ICHRE) (9th, Sydney, Australia, 2018).]

In neoliberal times, accountability measures and high-stakes testing further contribute to differentiated outcomes for young people. The way that knowledge is conceptualised in tests regularly fails to recognise the embodied knowledge and abilities of many young people and instead students are positioned as passive receivers of knowledge. Students who are located in structural disadvantage continue to be least successful. This paper offers a critical counter-narrative to the didactic habit inherent in education through the mobilisation of creative and embodied practices as a transformational pedagogical approach. These pedagogies signal an epistemological and pedagogical shift toward mobilising bodies as agents of knowledge production and creativity as cultural capital. This paper reports on research that investigates primary school teachers and teaching artists using creative and body-based pedagogies, with a focus on enhancing student engagement in mathematics through strategies of 'encounter' (MacKenzie, Sarah. 2013. "Poetic Praxis: Engaging Body, Mind, and Soul in the Social Foundations Classroom." "Journal for Learning Through the Arts" 9 (1): 1-27.). Findings highlight the cumulative affective responses and shifts in subjectivity for both students and teachers when working with the body's ability to move, feel, respond and imagine. In conclusion we argue for the potential of creative and body-based learning to build classroom communities and practices of inclusion.

The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial introduction to the issue, I not only summarise the various themes of the collection, but also offer a provocation that I hope will inspire new questions moving forward. As critical researchers, we have an obligation to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions -- not only by looking outwards at the policymakers, edu-businesses, and intergovernmental agencies (e.g., the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development [OECD]), but also by looking inwards and challenging our own assumptions about power, discourse and subjectivity. The authors in the special issue take up both challenges in their geographically diverse accounts of 'the teacher' and 'teaching', demonstrating what it means to do critical research well.

Teacher educators continue to debate the most effective strategies to assist teachers to become confident educators of Aboriginal students, and Aboriginal content and perspectives. Recently, pre-service teachers have begun to be taught cultural responsiveness with varying degrees of success. The paper is created from (1) data gathered from ethnographic research; (2) the existing literature; (3) my lived experience of being an Aboriginal teacher educator; and (4) my own experiences with racism and oppression. The therapy narrative technique of externalising conversations is used in this paper to facilitate a conversation with the identified problem of racism. The resulting script is a dialogue between an Aboriginal teacher educator and the Master Storyteller Racism, with the 'audience' consisting of pre-service teachers. The paper seeks to bring together, in one location, a number of socio-cultural and socio-historical events and narratives regarding Aboriginal peoples and their cultures. It is argued that if the many guises of racism that continue to perpetuate a system that works towards under-educating Aboriginal students are not revealed and disrupted, then a counterstory of Aboriginal education success will remain silent.

This paper presents a small-scale Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) study, investigating school leaders' efforts to enhance families' engagement in their children's learning, through classroom teachers' use of social media. The study occurred within three Australian primary schools, situated within a culturally and linguistically diverse community. Throughout two action research cycles the participating school leaders and classroom teachers critically reflected on family survey data and a sample of social media posts depicting student learning, so as to identify opportunities for enhanced family engagement. A practice lens was used to examine the sayings (words and language), doings (activities and resources) and relatings (relationships and power dynamics) featured within social media posts, to facilitate the participating leaders' critical self-reflection of current practice. Data were collected through surveys, semi-structured interviews, transcripts of reflective practice meetings and reflective practice tools utilised throughout the CPAR process. Analysis of practice architectures identified systemic features utilised by school leaders to support classroom teachers' practice change. Furthermore, this study highlights the significant role that school leaders have in facilitating classroom teachers' use of social media for family engagement.

Unfortunately our times are characterised by a serious dissonance between the logic of education policy and the challenges of the nation. In this context, we need to continue to reinvigorate critical pedagogy studies, both theoretically and practically. But to diagnose the times, following Nietzsche, we need "untimely meditations" -- we need to ensure that we neither perfectly coincide with it, nor adjust ourselves to its demands, but instead we adhere to it whilst keeping a distance from it. This paper takes up the task of rethinking critical pedagogy through affect studies. There are multiple reasonings for the "affective turn" that are of interest here, including the critiques of the Cartesian subject and its claims to Reason, and that lots of the action (experience) has little to do with rationality "per se," but instead occurs on a "terrain of affect". Put simply, critical pedagogy studies too often privileges making the better the argument, instead of engaging our capacities for affecting or being affected. The paper rehearses two recent attempts to think critical pedagogy through affect: remembrance learning, and sensation(al) pedagogies. The paper concludes with a short list of strategies.

Background: Contemporary scholarship calls for the Health and Physical Education (HPE) profession to pay attention to the practical translation of the critical agenda. Whilst invitations to criticality have featured in HPE scholarship for decades, there have been limited attempts to explore how the critical agenda translates into practice in HPE. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the nuance and liminality that characterises the inherently messy and complex process of curriculum transformation and enactment. Methods: We draw on teachers' perspectives, researcher observations, field notes and planning documents from an ongoing and longitudinal exemplifying case-study. The case-study focuses on one Australian Secondary School within the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The HPE department is relatively large (n = 20), with six being involved in the first three phases of the ongoing research (planning, pilot of curriculum enactment, and roll-out of curriculum enactment). Findings: The HPE teachers we worked with are becoming more critical practitioners. Three practices which they felt were sustained and had the most impact were: (i) questioning and critical dialogue as a focus in every lesson; (ii) student choice related to assessment; (iii) opportunity for critical reflection and creative thought and movement. The process of transformation could begin because the teachers had a range of resources available to them over time (e.g. clear vision, structural support, and strong leadership). Secondary data from the teachers suggest that student participation has increased from 75% to 100% since the new curriculum was introduced. Discussion: This paper offers a unique insight into the nuances of the liminal space between traditional and transformed ways of seeing and doing HPE. The multi-directional process of transformation was characterised by teachers crossing a threshold into a liminal space where they oscillated between traditional and more critical approaches, at times engaging in mimicry and 'getting stuck'. Transformation will never be linear, it takes time, and requires sustained resources. That said, our findings suggest that curriculum transformation as part of a broader critical agenda, can transform teachers' philosophies and practices, as well as increase student participation in HPE. Conclusion: Any attempt to transform curriculum, pedagogy and assessment will be characterised by periods of time where teachers experience tension as their philosophies on HPE are disturbed and potentially shifted, and thus liminality should be both expected and embraced.

People with an intellectual disability experience a protective regime when it comes to their sexuality. Families, carers, services and others mediate their experiences and act as gatekeepers through policies and practices that focus on the regulation and management of sexuality. Sex education has traditionally been 'for' people with intellectual disabilities provided 'by' health professionals, teachers and other professions who position themselves as experts with the power to shape the sex education, information and learning opportunities that people with an intellectual disability access. This paper presents an alternative programme developed in collaboration with people with intellectual disabilities, which uses the stories of people with an intellectual disability and is facilitated by people with intellectual disabilities as peer educators. Crip theory rejects approaches to understanding the disability experience that privilege particular characteristics of disability experience over others including cognition. This paper argues this idea can offer a 'way in' for people with intellectual disabilities to research, debate and progress sexual rights within the current sexual rights vacuum in international law and policy. The paper demonstrates how an Australian peer education programme provides a liberating sex education for those involved through a focus on rights and use of peer education.

This paper is about 'fat' kids in HPE classes. The motivation for this paper comes as a personal response to my reading of Roxane Gay's book "Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body." "Hunger" is thoughtful, passionate, articulate, sad and overall troubling. It also raised questions for me about whether health and physical education (HPE) is a safe space for fat young people and whether or not there is any possibility that HPE might be a transformative space that some scholars suggest. It raises issues regarding curriculum choice and pedagogy, but also about dispositional change such that all HPE teachers become more sensitive to the needs, feelings and capacities of young fat kids.

This paper reports on a qualitative research study that examined how 10 literacy teacher educators (LTEs) utilized children's literature to invite teacher trainees to critically engage with social issues, challenge their assumptions about literacy, and begin to develop the knowledge and dispositions to work alongside diverse learners (e.g., culturally, linguistically, socio-economically). The LTEs recognized that teacher trainees often entered their literacy courses with restricted conceptions of literacy and deficit assumptions about children from economically marginalized and/or culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Within their courses, the LTEs positioned literacy as a multifaceted social practice, wherein access to a variety of representational resources facilitates the active construction of knowledge and identities. The LTEs modeled instructional strategies and designed assignments that encouraged teacher trainees to use children's literature as a means to connect with issues relevant to the lives of young learners within contemporary classrooms. This research will be of interest to LTEs who endeavor to use children's literature as a springboard to support teacher trainees to develop a self-reflective stance and a critical cultural consciousness.

Agency, understood as the capacity to act independently and to make one's own choices, is considered central to children's development. Thus, education, and hence education curricula, have a role in the development of learner agency. While curriculum development is a key focus for educational theory, research, policy, and classroom practice, the potential implications of curriculum content selections for learner agency remain underexplored. Theoretically, this paper engages with critical realism, explaining how it can provide theoretical foundation for a more comprehensive view of learner agency and, by implication, more balanced curricula. Empirically, the paper draws on the findings from a content analysis of the national curriculum documents of four countries with relatively high scores in international comparative tables, England, Australia, Hong-Kong, and Canada, to develop a new typology of primary curricula. Based on the extent of emphasis placed on knowledge versus skills, values, and attitudes, three types of curricula were identified: knowledge-based, skills-oriented, and learner-centred. Due to its significant theoretical and practical influence globally, we focus on the knowledge-based model and its likely impact on students' agency. We conclude by highlighting the importance of making learner agency a key orientation of the curriculum and suggesting directions for future research.

This paper is prompted by the author's experience as a researcher of English literary education in three different geographies over the past three years: Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Affect theory, as discussed in this paper, concerns atmospheres, surfaces, bodies, emotions, moods, vicinities and capacities. Drawing on affect theory, critical race scholarship and discussions of whiteness, the author argues that despite continued local attempts at diversification of English literary education, whiteness continues to circulate through and cling to many of the core texts, narratives and messages that make up English literary education (Bacalja & Bliss, 2019; McGraw & van Leent, 2018; McLean Davies, Truman & Buzacott, 2020). This whiteness is general and specific, global and local, obvious and hidden. Rather than attempting to discuss the literary canon as a whole, the author focuses on a specific literary text as an example of how whiteness circulates as neutral or normal in literary education, even in a text that's often framed as helping (white) students learn "about" racism.

This paper evaluates the potential efficacy of using life writing to address mental health disparities and to promote health and well-being among young LGBTIQA+ persons. It examines the potential benefits of young LGBTIQA+ people engaging with life writing including memoir, autobiography, creative nonfiction, journaling and digital storytelling. These benefits include exploring identity and making sense of one's experiences, unifying and empowering marginalised communities, providing people with agency, illuminating common experiences, and facilitating the exchange of resources and support. It evaluates current developments in literacy and English education and identifies an increasing trend towards neo-liberalism and economic discourses, potentially at the expense of providing opportunities for young people to develop creativity and engage in self-exploration. It discusses the author's experiences in running life writing workshops with groups of LGBTIQA+ young people and offers suggestions on how to run similar workshops in educational and wider community settings, including possible prompts, modes of working and debriefing the participants. Overall, the findings suggest that life writing can be used to improve the health and well-being of LGBTIQA+ young people; however, the paper concludes that this sort of intervention needs to be run respectfully, strategically and with full awareness of how sensitive and traumatic the content may be that can emerge for young people. For this reason, the paper presents guidelines and recommendations to provide structure and support.

This paper explores the reception of Indigenous perspectives and knowledges in university curricula and educators' social responsibility to demonstrate cultural competency through their teaching and learning practices. Drawing on tenets of critical race theory, Indigenous standpoint theory and critical pedagogies, this paper argues that the existence of Indigenous knowledges in Australian university curricula and pedagogy demands personal and political activism (Dei, 2008) as it requires educators to critique both personal and discipline-based knowledge systems. The paper interrogates the experiences of non-Indigenous educators involved in this contested epistemological space (Nakata, 2002), and concludes by arguing for a political and ethical commitment by educators towards embedding Indigenous knowledges towards educating culturally competent professionals.

Little research exists about Indigenous-led teacher professional learning to improve skills in developing culturally responsive practices in schooling. This paper addresses a noticeable gap in the literature, that of Indigenous people mentoring non-Indigenous teachers to develop culturally responsive pedagogies. In the Australian context, the Decolonising Race Theory framework analyses the impact of an Aboriginal cultural mentoring programme for teachers, shifting the narrative away from racialised discourses about Aboriginal peoples to acknowledging Aboriginal educators as sovereign peoples. Key findings reveal that teachers' growing understanding of the ongoing impact of colonisation on Aboriginal families resulted in increased confidence in building relationships with Aboriginal communities, Country and students and implementing culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogies. The DRT analysis also raises serious questions about systemic challenges to be addressed if Aboriginal student outcomes are to improve.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are still grossly under-represented in Higher Degrees by Research (HDRs) when compared to non-Indigenous students. Developing the pipeline of Indigenous students from undergraduate to postgraduate study remains key to increasing the number of Indigenous students undertaking HDRs. While much of the existing work has historically focused on explaining failure, more recent research has argued that the focus should instead be on deepening our understanding of the factors contributing to Indigenous student success. This paper reports on findings from a National Teaching Fellowship that explored how universities can increase the number of Indigenous students transitioning from undergraduate study to HDRs. Drawing on interviews with Indigenous HDR graduates, key success factors to enter into a HDR are examined. The paper also discusses outcomes from the fellowship that include strategies for successful pathways into HDRs for Indigenous students for university Faculties/Schools, individual staff, Indigenous Centres, and Graduate Research Schools. By knowing and acting upon the kinds of mechanisms that can assist Indigenous students to pathway into HDRs, universities can build successful strategies to increase Indigenous HDR enrolments across Australia and stimulate change in universities to implement stronger research pathways from undergraduate to postgraduate study for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Background: An emerging body of Physical Education scholarship is addressing the challenge of preparing Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students to enact a socio-critically informed Health Education [Leahy, D., and L. McCuaig. 2014. "Disrupting the Field: Teacher Education in Health Education." In "Health Education: Critical Perspectives", edited by K. Fitzpatrick, and R. Tinning, 220-232. Oxon: Routledge]. Researchers have identified the tensions faced by PETE educators whose students typically adopt an uncritical acceptance of socially unjust practices concerning the 'healthy body' [Tinning, R., and T. Glasby. 2002. "Pedagogical Work and the 'Cult of the Body': Considering the Role of HPE in the Context of the 'New Public Health'." "Sport, Education and Society" 7 (2): 109-119]. Although scholars have advocated the usefulness of critical pedagogies as a means of inspiring PETE students' capacities to question 'taken-for-granteds' circulating within HPE, others such as Gore [1998. "On the Limits to Empowerment through Critical and Feminist Pedagogies." In "Power/Knowledge/Pedagogy", edited by D. Carlson, and M. Apple, 271-288. Westview], have argued that radical pedagogues have failed to name the specific alternative practices they employ. Indeed, little has changed since Gore (1998) challenged the profession to 'translate their visions into practice' (274). Purpose: In response to Gore's challenge, this paper presents one contemporary PETE educator's proclaimed use of critical pedagogy as a strategy to confront social justice and socio-cultural issues within an Australian HPETE programme. This analysis exposes the 'hidden' curriculum and pedagogy of higher education classrooms where practice is not routinely revealed, let alone shared. Following this, the authors explore the extent to which these pedagogical approaches were enacted as intended, in accordance with the tenets of critical pedagogy and, importantly, what students made of these endeavours. Design and analysis: The ethnographic doctoral study took place within the context of a PETE programme delivered at a large, prestigious Australian university. The participating group of 44 specialist PETE students were enrolled in EDU39 Educating for Better Health, and were commencing the third year of their teacher training course. Drawing on qualitative interview data and student assessment tasks, this paper documents the rationale behind, and enactment of, four pedagogical strategies delivered within the health education courses of this PETE programme. Comparison of pre-teaching interview data with the researcher's observation notes, revealed the compromises that ensued within the realities of a complex teacher education learning space. Conclusion: In seeking to make sense of this 'pedagogical soup' [Tinning, R. 1995. "We Have Ways of Making You Think, or Do We? Reflection on 'Training' in Reflective Teaching." In "Better Teaching in P. E.?: Think About It! Proceedings of the International Seminar on Training of Teachers in Reflective Practice in Physical Education," edited by C. Pare'. Quebec: Department des science de l'activite' physique, Universite' du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres], the paper argues that the approaches of social justice pedagogy offer a more nuanced rationale for, and appropriate alignment with, the pedagogical strategies employed. In light of this analysis, the authors suggest that challenging and disrupting PETE students' values and knowledges through critical pedagogies continues to be an unpredictable and dangerous project, but still poses a valuable strategy for productive, albeit it modest, pedagogical work.

Syllabus and policy documents in many states and countries around the world, and more specifically in Queensland are underpinned by an emancipatory agenda, in particular the principles of social justice. Educators are called upon to achieve this through a pedagogy which is immersed in the language of critical theory. Two elements that underpin emancipatory politics, that is, a transformative attitude towards the future, and the aim of overcoming the illegitimate domination of some individuals or groups by others, seem to be unobtainable within a choice generation, with its focus on lifestyle and consumerism. This paper focuses on the discourses of youth that are legitimated through the accounts of young people for whom emancipation is not a key issue. Such students may achieve the syllabus outcomes related to the critical agenda, yet it begs the question: Are contemporary youth making choices that further the critical transformative cause, or are our critical pedagogies simply serving to perpetuate dominant understandings? This paper explores and interprets performative accounts of youth and their multiliterate lives, within a critical poststructuralist framework. (Contains 1 table.)

In March 2004, Stephen Ball and others presented a symposium at the conference of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) on the necessity of theory in educational research. Like Ball, I have observed that theory, not just social theory, is a difficult space and one that divides researchers (those comfortable with theory and those less so), within educational research. It is an aspect of educational research training that rarely receives the attention essential for "quality" educational research. In the context of the contemporary research assessment exercises, it is worth reflecting on the relationship between research informed by social theory and expectations of quality and impact. In this paper I revisit the argument made by Ball and others for the necessity of theory, and discuss its role in framing research questions, informing analysis, and promoting reflexivity on the significance and relevance of research. I illustrate this process by discussing the ways theory can assist in the generation of research agendas and questions. I conclude the paper with an example of how a team of educational researchers from Australia, UK and New Zealand have made use of social theory to inform an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project investigating the recontextualisation of health knowledge in schools. (Contains 1 endnote.)

With particular regard to gender, this paper considers the rise and fall of EEO in Australian universities over the last 30 years. The paper argues that EEO, a product of social liberalism, had barely been introduced before it became a casualty of the Dawkins reforms and the transformation of the university. Corporatisation resulted in top-down managerialism and the production of academics as neoliberal subjects. Within this context, identity politics either moved to the periphery or disappeared altogether, so far as staff were concerned. The discourse of equality was quickly displaced by new discourses, such as that of diversity, which better suited the market metanarrative. The market has also induced a shift away from staff to students, inviting the question as to whether EEO is now passe.

This paper represents an autoethnographic exploration of white teachers in South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, through the lens of critical whiteness studies and racial contract theory. The broad aim of the paper is to return the gaze on the white subject within the context of White Australia. Moreover, this article seeks to position the teacher as a site of representation; a site for the reproduction and potential disruption of the relations of dominance "in situ". I employ a narrative technique to locate my Self as a writer and as a racialised subject; to critique my structural and cultural location as a teacher in the Pitjantjatjara Lands; and to argue that autoethnography may be harnessed as one of the many tools for negotiating forms of critical pedagogy within the transcultual setting. (Contains 12 footnotes.)

This paper engages with an overt policy storyline, namely that the effective classroom teaching practice(s) of quality teachers not only corrects for but overcomes post-Fordist capital insecurities. Increasingly considered the sole and only solid foundations needed to enhance student achievement as preparation for twenty-first century economic intricacies, notions of teacher quality and teacher effectiveness specifically target classroom instruction as the encounter of influence ripe for change singling out teacher education for policy action. In using aspects of critical theory, the paper explores how contemporary education policy discourse treats notions of teacher quality and teacher effectiveness. The paper situates its argument within a critical framework, bordered by the reference points of "governmentalization" and a "logic(s) of practice". In doing so, the paper canvasses the two major discourses of reform in education policy, highlighting the dominant influence of technocratic conceptions of "the teacher" and their role in a nation's economy. An upshot is the resultant attenuation of complexity in matters related to teacher quality, teacher effectiveness, student achievement and the part they all play in a new world of economic instability.

Academic Language and Learning (ALL) is a relatively recent practice field known in Australian Higher Education as Academic Skills Advising or Student Support. Changing social, political and economic circumstances shape ALL work in complex and contradictory ways. Of crucial current significance are discourses calling for education to become an evidence-based practice. This paper outlines the main tenets of evidence-based practice discourses (EBPD); recapitulates Gert Biesta's critique of EBPD' views of education as instrumental technology and positivistic science; and explores how these critiques hold in the managerial expropriations of these discourses in the ALL context. The paper argues that, while these managerial expropriations ostensibly provide ALL with some legitimacy, they simultaneously reduce its practice to means-to-end interventions servicing the language/learning commodity; and increasingly consign its research to techno-scientific evaluation investigating managerial outcomes and acting as powerful panoptic surveillance. The paper calls for the continued critique of dominant discourses and their reproducing practices; and reconnecting with questions of educational purpose in ALL thereby enabling more radical and meaningful re-imaginings of this work.

While Australian higher education agendas and literature prioritise Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across policy, curriculum and pedagogy, enacting this in practice remains problematic and contentious. Often the result is the inclusion of simplified Indigenous knowledges, rather than sustained engagement with and embedding of multiple and "messy" ontological and epistemological positions. This paper explores ways of engaging with this "messiness." Taking messiness as a focal point within our own context of teacher education at a regional university, this agenda and tension inform an ongoing dialogue about ways of assuring a conscious approach to cultural sustainability to embed, value and foreground Indigenous knowledges and ways of being and doing in curriculum. This endeavour can be conceptualised as a heuristic project, an ongoing conversation in response to multiple stimuli rather than a fixed endpoint or framework. In response to this exploration, this paper presents the stimuli for our conversation: situated, plural and reflexive knowledges that work together in inherently relational ways to nourish the cultural sustainability of Indigenous knowledges.

This article uses an auto-ethnographic approach to explore the reflections and insights that occurred during my teaching of a subject in adolescent development on the Thai Burma border. This paper adopts a relatively descriptive style to a personal reflection of teaching on the border and how it transformed the way I teach and made me look at the pedagogy that underpins my teaching practice. I found a lack of congruence between the pedagogical theories that are espoused and how I could apply these to a border setting. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to explore some of the ways I began to develop a Thai Burma classroom praxis that drew on the theoretical underpinnings of a humanising critical pedagogy.

This is a reflective piece that examines the nature of racial complaint with reference to Dr. Kris Rallah-Baker's concerns about the racism that characterised his medical education. It will further examine the anti-racist campaign that sprung up in support of Rallah-Baker with a view to illustrating the limits of conventional critical race theory in understanding the course of events. Using the work of Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Gramsci and Stuart Hall, it will be argued that the Rallah-Baker case illustrates that Australian hegemonic formations can never quite command total legitimacy because sovereign formations, anti-racist in outlook, erupt with a frequency and facticity that lay bare the conceit of settler-colonialism. In so doing the paper will work towards an understanding of the critical Indigenous/race paradigm that goes beyond critical race insights borne of other places and experiences. As will be seen, what followed Rallah-Baker's complaint, the campaign that supported him and the concessions finally won was not, as critical race theory is wont to claim, a case simply of 'interest convergence'; rather it was, I propose, an example of 'sovereign divergence'.

The National Quality Standards (NQS) as part of the Australian National Quality Framework were developed in 2011 and included several references to the organisation of small and large groups within early childhood settings (ACECQA 2013). The NQS act in tandem with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (DEEWR 2009) and are the basis by which early childhood centres are assessed for accreditation in Australia. This paper draws upon current research with early childhood educators as they struggle to understand the new concept of "intentional teachers" within this new regime. There also appears to have been a dramatic shift in the understanding about how large and small groups operate within centres. As the accreditation process unfolds, some early childhood centres have been advised to abandon large or whole group work. At the core of the EYLF are the notions of "being, belonging, becoming", locating young children as part of a community of learners within a democratic society. It therefore appears that tensions and contradictions are emerging between the fundamental principles of the EYLF as they are juxtaposed against the requirement of the NQS. Critical Pedagogy of Place provides a theoretical framework in which to interrogate the ways some early childhood educators interpret intentional teaching both in terms of the organisation of spaces in early childhood centres and the organisation of the children as they inhabit those spaces (Gruenewald 2008). This paper argues that the possible abandonment of large group experiences runs the risk of disconnecting children from their communities and the relationships they form as social participants. Furthermore, it is argued that whole group experiences are crucial elements that facilitate a child's identity and active citizenry.

This paper draws on facets of Foucault's theoretical resources to critique current education policy reform from within the Australian State of Victoria, namely the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development's (DEECD) discussion paper "New directions for school leadership and the teaching profession." Implicit in the reform effort is decentralization, including penalties for "underperforming" classroom teachers and "ineffective" teacher education courses. Principals will hold a pre-eminent rank in the reforms proposed as they are charged with their oversight and implementation, including intervening in the education and preparation of pre-service teachers.

Te Kawehau Hoskins (Ngati Hau) is an associate professor in Te Puna Wananga--School of Maori and Indigenous Education, and Associate Dean Maori for the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. Alison Jones (Pakeha) is a professor in Te Puna Wananga. In this talk, Te Kawehau and Alison Jones discuss their entangled trajectories as writers and thinkers. Te Kawehau and Alison each bring a critical view to their relationship and the possibilities for productive engagements between indigenous and settler subjects here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Recent critiques of citizenship education have identified the need for curricula that cover not only civil, political, social and cultural aspects of political belonging and responsibility, but that orient students to the realities of global engagement and responsibility. Rather than focussing on national values, histories and political procedures, the argument is that active citizenship, cosmopolitan values and identities, social justice, globally responsible behaviours, and critical self-awareness should be the goals of such education. This paper develops a typology of citizenship education, and then examines the 'Civics and Citizenship' module of the new Australian National Curriculum to understand what type of citizenship is being promoted through the curriculum and the teaching resources. The research finds that despite some opportunities to engage students' thinking more globally, and a positive focus on the rights and contributions of Australia's Indigenous peoples, the main thrust of the curriculum is the promotion and perpetuation of traditional nationalist and proceduralist citizenship, rather than global or cosmopolitan citizenship. Some recommendations for potential improvements are made.

This article critically examines definitions of policy 'success' in the context of historical Indigenous higher education policy in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia. We begin by summarising applications of the often-used but arbitrary, rarely-critiqued terms 'policy success' and 'what works'. The paper chronologically articulates what 'policy success' has looked like in the context of historical Northern Territory higher education, based on a critical analysis of policy documents. We then apply Critical Race Theory and Indigenous research theories to highlight the power processes that are attached to representation of policy issues, creation of policy goals, and ultimately definitions of 'success'. We also consider the role of ethical principles in framing conceptions about what constitutes a worthy policy goal. We suggest expansion and resourcing of formalised Indigenous governance mechanisms is needed to create more productive dialogue about Indigenous higher education policy goals and, ultimately, discussions around what 'works'.