Search

As part of this special issue on 'Literacy for social justice', and at this moment of post-pandemic transitions in education, we invited Professor Barbara Comber to reflect on the needs for and trends in critical literacy education, both in her local context, in Australia, and internationally. In September 2022, we met with Barbara online to discuss her thoughts about what critical literacy educators need, how scholars and educators can work together to produce change, and where we can see hope in critical literacy and social justice education right now, as part of promising anti-racist, decolonizing, and intersectional literacy frameworks and practices.

The fields of science and literacy education continue to be shaped by pervasive gender inequality. Previous research has documented how the formation of a ‘science identity’ is contingent on access to science capital while research in literacy education continues to highlight how boys struggle in their literacy acquisition. Despite a robust scholarship on gendered literacy practices and gender in STEM subjects, to date, there has been little investigation of the relationships between boys’ science identity/ies and their literacy practices. We draw on a case study of 24 middle school boys living and learning in two different regions (e.g. metropolitan, rural) where we focus on how boys conceive of themselves as learners in two curriculum areas: science and literacy. Bridging multiple areas of scholarship (e.g., science literacy, science identity, boys in schooling), we concentrate on the participants’ self-belief in science and self-belief as readers and consider the way they inform each other in reference to place. The implications of our study concern how the science literate boy comes to be in reference to the construction of discursive performances of science masculinities and how they are maintained alongside literate identities. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This article disrupts dominant discourses around boys and reading that often homogenise young males as reluctant, disengaged and, at times, adversarial readers. Rather than essentialising boys, we argue there is a need for a more sophisticated knowledge base about the influences, constraints and diverse experiences of boys as readers in society today. Drawing on interviews (n=30) with Year 4 (8 – 9 year old) boys at 6 schools, we consider their personal recounts of their enjoyment for reading, their preferred reading choices, and narratives related to their experiences as readers at school. Analysis highlights boys’ emerging reading interests, sophisticated and specific reading preferences, and changes in reading identities over time. Boys’ preferences for particular fiction authors, novel series, and genres dispute the common assumption in educational contexts that boys prefer to engage with non-fiction books. This finding is significant as negative gendered stereotypes can impact on boys’ reading self-concepts. It is also critical given Jerrim and Moss’ (2019) recent research highlighting the importance of fiction in the development of reading skills. We consider implications for pedagogical practices that broaden reading experiences for the diversity of emerging masculine reading identities in nations such as Australia where there is an absence of reading for pleasure in education policies. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Literacy skills are essential if students are to access knowledge and achieve academic success in middle school science. A key difficulty with interpreting literacy practices in any discipline is the problem of conceptualising what constitutes literacy. Our study contributes new understandings to the discipline of science where there are ongoing debates concerning the meaning of literacy and confusion regarding what constitutes essential literacies in the field. Our scoping review first identifies how literacy in middle school science is conceptualised in empirical studies published between 2006 and 2019 and, second, addresses a significant gap in understandings by identifying how dominant discourses inform practice. Specifically, our findings show the dominance of a narrow conception of literacy in the science classroom relating to skills-based pedagogic instruction. Based on our review, we conclude that the field of science requires a broadening of what constitutes literacy, and engagement with New Literacy Studies which focuses on literacy as a social practice closely interwoven with student identities. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The importance of community has been widely recognised in the field of early childhood education, however the various ways it has been conceived, together with taken-for-granted notions of education, have made it difficult to actualise the processes involved in contextually meaningful ways. This article draws on cultural models theory to explore educational leaders’ re-imagining and re-designing of early childhood educational learning communities in a range of diverse settings. The examination of processes and artefacts used to promote democratic identities and agency highlights the significance of establishing shared principles, sociality, and challenging power relations to engaging in processes of communing that are contextually meaningful, sustainable and democratic. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The satellite city of Elizabeth, located 30 km north of South Australia’s capital Adelaide, was established in the 1950s as an experiment in urban sociological planning, populated with new arrivals and hailed as the ‘City of Tomorrow’. By the 1970s, it had declined into one of the most disadvantaged communities in South Australia, with intergenerational unemployment, poverty and social dysfunction leading to disengagement and disenfranchisement of the current generation of young people living there. In 2007 the local council developed a community facility to attract young people into creative learning and expression through music and the performing arts. This was the council’s response to its shared responsibility for caring for the young people in its community and their personal, social and educational wellbeing. ‘Northern Sound System’ offers programs and resources for contemporary music composing, recording and performance. This article reports on the affordances of applying a youth participatory inquiry approach in a study in Elizabeth, to establish young people’s views on music and the creative arts in relation to their lifeworlds, in particular their interests, personal wellbeing and social interactions. Most young people reported music played a large part in maintaining a positive outlook. However, there were differences in how young men and women talked about the creative arts in their lives, which may have implications for the provision of programs and safe spaces for young people to ‘hang out’ and engage in creative pursuits. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This department explores critical perspectives on issues at the intersection of policy and practice in order to generate fresh questions about enduring dilemmas, new challenges, and debates. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Refereed/Peer-reviewed Few studies in science education have examined how place-based experiences influence students’ STEM career aspirations. Rural school students’ lived experiences of place and non-traditional STEM career aspirations such as farming are scarcely considered in dominant narratives around science aspirations and career pathways. Adopting a critical relational perspective that considers place as a lived experience we ask How do rural Australian students’ ethnogeographies related to people and place influence their STEM career aspirations? Drawing on a broader study (n = 45) of science aspirations, we focus on semi-structured interviews with six middle school students (13–14 years of age) in rural Australia who aspire to be farmers. Thematic analysis of the data demonstrates students’ intended careers as farmers relate to their connections to people and belonging to place. This article works through rural-urban binaries to present a counternarrative that legitimises farming as an important STEM career for young people and challenges dominant narratives around post-compulsory participation in senior secondary school and tertiary science as the ideal or only career pathway. Finally, implications of our findings for designing place-conscious school science education are discussed. This includes place-attentive strategies related to policy, pathways, and practice that appreciate the complex realities, strengths, and inequities in rural communities.

[Extract] Nations are currently facing unprecedented social, environmental, and health challenges that require epistemic knowledge associated with thinking like a scientist (OECD, 2018). To address these complex challenges, it is important to consider how students’ meaning making in science education might be improved (OECD, 2018; Office of the Australian Chief Scientist, 2016). In this paper we argue that meaning making in science demands identifying, explaining, and evaluating (Yanga, Chang, Chena, & Chena, 2016, p. 1592) multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives inherent in the study of scientific issues (Mason, 2016). Rather than promoting exploration, inquiry, and evaluation, however, many Western curriculum reforms over the last four decades have focused on developing science disciplinary knowledge and practices needed for post-compulsory science/STEM education and employment. In Australia, for example, this focus has largely led to a decline in open-ended inquiry (Fensham, 2013), a focus on benchmark testing regimes, and the need for students to excel at recalling science “facts” (Hardy, 2018; Tovani & Moje, 2017). Concerns about such simplistic notions of science learning, which exclude student “abilities in scientific inquiry, and their decision-making about socio-scientific issues” (Fensham, 2013, p. 165), have led to calls for a greater consideration of the nature of science (NOS) in school science education.

Building on work that brings literacy instruction and student science learner identity together, this study addresses a gap in research related to student experiences as readers in middle school science classrooms. To understand student perceptions of pedagogical approaches to reading in science, we asked 45 middle school students to reflect on what sort of reading participation was valued in their classroom and what they thought characterised a good learner in science. Findings show that evaluative reading is not perceived as central to learning; rather, a transmission pedagogic model of reading with an overreliance on fact sheets, worksheets and PowerPoint was reported. Students also drew attention to how listening to the teacher for information and following instructions related to practical activities is integral to a ‘good science student’ identity. Findings suggest that beliefs about what is valued in science classrooms has implications for science learner identities. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The authors explore the possibility that school literacy practices sent home as homework are changing family reading interactions by adding to the tasks that teachers expect parents to undertake. The authors consider how reading, formerly an elective leisure practice between parents and their children, has been reorganized and how this positions parents differently. The authors also examine teachers' views on the importance of parents reading to their children and teachers' expectations of parents to support school literacy practices in the form of homework. Evidence that teachers now depend on parents to support school-based literacy practices and how this serves to change the nature of literacy practices in the home is discussed. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This department explores critical perspectives on issues at the intersection of policy and practice in order to generate fresh questions about enduring dilemmas, new challenges, and debates Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Lately I have been thinking and writing about the idea of a teacher’s oeuvre–the notion that over time teachers create a significant body or work that might be compared to that of an artist or composer. I have argued that too often the contributions that teachers make remain invisible, under-valued and unknown in the field of education. This is true certainly when compared to the impact of educational theorists and researchers. Classroom teachers are rarely remembered beyond the local networks in which they have practised. In taking up this opportunity to honor the contribution of Allan Luke as an educational scholar, researcher and theorist, I will argue that, along with his publications, his oeuvre also necessarily includes his work as a teacher and teacher educator in institutional and everyday situations; hence I will refer to my experiences as a student, colleague, collaborator and friend. Being a researcher necessarily involves personal, professional and political dimensions because scholarly personae and milieu extend beyond the university into everyday life Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Examining how young children learn to write is increasingly important as global society moves further towards a knowledge economy, where the production of texts of various kinds is an increasingly ubiquitous practice in everyday life and work. While there has been recent policy and practice focus on children's writing performance in standardised tests, in this article, the authors focus on what can be learned by listening to children's voices as they are engaged in 'draw and talk' methodologies. While children's drawings have a material reality, they are also representations of children's perceptions of their experiences with learning to write. In this article, the authors explore the processes, practices and relationships involved in learning to write, depicted in children's drawings when they are asked to draw themselves learning to write. The authors identify representations of writing, evident in the children's drawings focusing the relational, the material and the spatial elements of writing. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Having examined how analyses of statistical data were used to kick-start processes intended to promote equitable school development, this chapter goes on to explain how qualitative evidence was used to deepen these efforts. In particular, it explains how engaging with the voices of teachers can enhance understandings of practices and the conditions in which practices develop within schools. Using illustrations from projects within and across classrooms, the chapter identifies approaches that teachers used to challenge existing ways of thinking and develop new practices that make a real difference to students’ learning and engagement. In addition to developing new understanding of their own practices, the chapter reveals how teachers shared their new knowledge and ideas to promote change among their colleagues. It concludes by distilling key principles for school leaders in supporting and sustaining equity-driven collaborative inquiry.

This article explores how early-career teachers working in high-poverty schools in Australia account for their decision-making during critical classroom incidents. Classroom management solutions are problematized by investigating how two teachers take up particular positions, make decisions, and enact what they believe to be ‘quality teaching’ in context. Through a combination of interviews and observations of teachers ‘in situ’, we examine what these teachers do, why they do it, what informs their decisions, and how they reflect on their actions. The complexity of teachers’ work in schools located in high-poverty areas is highlighted. We argue that both early-career teachers prefer to position themselves within ‘pastoral’, in contrast to ‘disciplinarian’, discourses, as part of constituting the school as a site of possibility and teachers who advocate for youth growing up in poverty. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Improving the quality of education for young people growing up in high poverty and culturally diverse communities is an escalating problem in affluent nations with increasing gaps between the wealthy and the poor. Improving the quality of teachers and improving the quality of teaching are amongst the prominent solutions offered to redress the differences between student academic performances related to socio-economic family circumstances. This article examines the different discourses of 'quality' in relation to the preparation of pre-service teachers to work in high poverty schools such as graduates of the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools pre-service teacher education program. Key tenets of 'quality teacher' and 'quality teaching' solutions are summarized along with their critiques. An alternative approach starting from a position of social justice is considered. This approach situates the work of teaching within high poverty school communities and considers what pre-service teachers need to understand and learn to do with respect to context. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This article considers what it means to teach and learn in places of poverty through the narratives of front-line workers – particularly students and teachers. What is the work of teaching and learning in places of poverty in current times? How has this changed? What can be learned from both the haunting and hopeful narratives of front-line workers? Is it possible to continue to educate in these times and in ways that allow for critique, imagination and optimism? These questions are addressed by drawing from studies conducted over three decades in schools located in high poverty neighborhoods. Literacy education is considered as a particular case. Educational researchers need to remain on the front-line with teachers and students in places of poverty because that is where some of the hardest work gets done. Reinvigorated democratic research communities would include teachers, school leaders, policy workers and young people. Refereed/Peer-reviewed