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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines teachers' work as part of the everyday life of classrooms, schools and communities—as curriculum design, dynamic pedagogies and as an oeuvre which is assembled over time. One of the hardest aspects of the everyday work of teachers, and perhaps one of the most under-rated and under-studied, is listening, really listening. This article firstly explores the dangers of teachers not listening. Secondly, it highlights the contributions of teacher researchers who take students and their worlds seriously. We argue that teachers listening to students in the context of their communities can underpin responsive pedagogies and creative curriculum design, which in turn can allow students to assemble repertoires of complex communication practices for representation, participation and taking action. Finally, we speculate about how, over time, teachers, as artists, assemble an oeuvre—an assemblage of curriculum design and responsive pedagogies which could inform teacher education and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that geographical theories are generative when to comes to understanding how educational disadvantage is produced and reproduced across generations. Spatial theories can inform critical interrogation of the ways in which students and their families from particular places, such as communities of poverty are represented in the media. Yet spaces and places can also become rich curricular resources when treated as assets for designing and enacting pedagogies of care and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enduring nature of the problem of inequality in education suggests that new ways of understanding and ameliorating it are needed. Nonrepresentational ontology is yielding new insights in other fields but is yet to gain traction in education. The requisite ontological shift would attend to inequality as a specific material effect of practices of knowing, rather than a social, natural, or discursive reality requiring representation. In this paper, we investigate the potential of such a shift to advance our fundamental commitment to social change through equity and justice. Drawing mainly upon the work of Karen Barad, we offer a reconceptualistion of educational inequality as a doing, not a thing, which becomes meaningful as it is defined by the circumstances required to measure it. We re-examine data collected during a recently completed longitudinal study of schools in the northern-rustbelt-suburbs of Adelaide, specifically the phenomenon of teaching literacy in the classrooms of two teachers in one school in our completed study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased regulation of teachers’ work is a global phenomenon across education sectors. In Australia the governance of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) embeds international priorities for quality improvement in educational programmes. The implementation of a National Quality Framework (NQF) for the assessment of ECEC services has mobilised the production of a suite of regulatory texts. The regulation of teachers’ work is legitimised through the discourse of quality embedded in policy guidelines. Drawing on interview data from preschool teachers, this paper employs institutional ethnography (IE) to investigate teachers’ accounts of producing a Quality Improvement Plan. As teachers operationalise the expectations of quality assurance in the NQF, their work is oriented to gathering evidence of an approved quality of practice. The findings indicate a shift in professional focus to increased documentation of ‘quality of practice’, goal setting and evidence of the collaborative construction of Quality Improvement Plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital literacies abound in playing a foundational role in the rhythm and pattern of our lives, yet debates continue about how to harness them to teach and learn literacy. In an effort to humanize digital literacies, this department column offers a vast array of topics, from participatory work that pushes educators and researchers to communicate in local and global spaces to ways of redefining core reading and literacy skills through a screen-based, multimodal logic. This column also provides a venue for research and practical applications that depict technology use as a part of the fabric of being human. The column helps educators reconceptualize the ways that children learn with technology, media, and new communication systems; honors educator success stories and burning questions and issues; and reimagines literacy futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 neighbourhoods. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the global escalation of gaps between rich and poor, contemporary work in critical literacy needs to overtly question the politics of poverty. How and where is poverty produced, by what means, by whom and for whom and how are educational systems stratified to provide different kinds of education to the rich and the poor? Yet rather than critical literacy, international educational reform movements stress performative standards on basic literacy. In this context literacy researchers need to ask policy-makers hard questions about taken-for-granted rhetoric that surrounds poverty, literacy and education. At school, regional and state levels, educational leaders need to argue for fair resourcing and decision-making for their communities and students. In classrooms teachers need to weave critical questioning and inclusive learning interactions into the fabric of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon several decades of literacy research in schools in high-poverty environments to explore what matters in young people's education. In dialogue with themes from Kevin Marjoribanks' work, such as student aspirations, family environments and teacher expectations, key insights are summarised. Referring to longitudinal case studies and a current ethnographic project, the interplay between literacy, poverty and schooling, and young people's aspirations and education outcomes is explored. Although the work of educators in high-poverty communities continues to be highly demanding, there are some schools and teachers making a durable positive difference to learner dispositions and literate repertoires. Teacher expectations and discursive practices are crucial in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-stakes literacy testing is now a ubiquitous educational phenomenon. However, it remains a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia. Hence it is possible to study the ways in which such tests are reorganising educators’ work during this period of change. This paper draws upon Dorothy Smith’s Institutional Ethnography and critical policy analysis to consider this problem and reports on interview data from teachers and the principal in small rural school in a poor area of South Australia. In this context high-stakes testing and the associated diagnostic school review unleashes a chain of actions within the school which ultimately results in educators doubting their professional judgments, increasing the investment in testing, narrowing their teaching of literacy and purchasing levelled reading schemes. The effects of high-stakes testing in disadvantaged schools are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-stakes literacy testing is now a ubiquitous educational phenomenon. However, it remains a relatively recent phenomenon in Australia. Hence it is possible to study the ways in which such tests are reorganising educators' work during this period of change. This paper draws upon Dorothy Smith's Institutional Ethnography and critical policy analysis to consider this problem and reports on interview data from teachers and the principal in small rural school in a poor area of South Australia. In this context high-stakes testing and the associated diagnostic school review unleashes a chain of actions within the school which ultimately results in educators doubting their professional judgments, increasing the investment in testing, narrowing their teaching of literacy and purchasing levelled reading schemes. The effects of high-stakes testing in disadvantaged schools are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the social aspects of schools and how they can be used as meeting places for culturally diverse communities that promote education. It discusses feminist geographer Doreen Massey's views on place and space while also considering the definitions and advantages of communities. Particular attention is given to collaborative research conducted in Adelaide, Australia which looked at the cooperation between community members and educators in developing a school environment.

In an era of normative standardised literacy curriculum continuing to make space for culturally responsive literacy pedagogy is on ongoing challenge for early childhood educators. Collaborative participatory research and ethnographic studies of teachers who accomplish innovative and inclusive early childhood education in culturally diverse high poverty communities is urgent for the profession. Such pedagogies involve complex understandings of the cultural and political histories, and the dynamic potential, of the places in which school communities are located. By incorporating the study of local histories and biographies and researching neighbourhood changes teachers adapt mandated curriculum to maintain community knowledges and allow for positive identity work at the same time as they meet the authorised systems objectives. When teachers work with children as co-researchers through the study of people's lives in particular places and times, the community and its complex histories become a rich resource for young people's literacy repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues for the need for critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability that often promotes reading comprehension as readily assessable through students answering multiple choice questions of unseen texts. Based upon a 1 year study investigating literacy in Years 4-9 the ways strong-performing primary schools develop serious and in-depth reading for learning are explored. School and teacher features which allow for the development of sophisticated pedagogical repertoires and space for critical reading comprehension, without losing the complexity of curriculum offerings, are outlined. How one experienced middle primary teacher operates strategically, ethically and critically in supporting her ESL students to learn to read is illustrated. The teacher's work is situated within the complex accountability demands faced by classroom teachers. This was accomplished by a teacher whose pedagogical repertoire has been assembled across a career teaching in low-SES high ESL communities in a school with a balanced literacy program and high level of collegial support. Risks for schools and teachers whose circumstances work against their capacities for prioritisation and strategic decision-making are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the need for critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability that often promotes reading comprehension as readily assessable through students answering multiple choice questions of unseen texts. Based upon a 1 year study investigating literacy in Years 4-9 the ways strong-performing primary schools develop serious and in-depth reading for learning are explored. School and teacher features which allow for the development of sophisticated pedagogical repertoires and space for critical reading comprehension, without losing the complexity of curriculum offerings, are outlined. How one experienced middle primary teacher operates strategically, ethically and critically in supporting her ESL students to learn to read is illustrated. The teacher's work is situated within the complex accountability demands faced by classroom teachers. This was accomplished by a teacher whose pedagogical repertoire has been assembled across a career teaching in low-SES high ESL communities in a school with a balanced literacy program and high level of collegial support. Risks for schools and teachers whose circumstances work against their capacities for prioritisation and strategic decision-making are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great deal of educational policy proceeds as though teachers are malleable and ever-responsive to change. Some argue they are positioned as technicians who simply implement policy. However, how teachers go about their work and respond to reform agendas may be contingent upon many factors that are both biographical in nature and workplace related. In this paper we discuss the work of middle school teachers in low-socioeconomic communities from their perspectives. Referring to reflective interviews, meeting transcripts and an electronic reporting template, we examine how teacher participants in a school reform project describe their work - what they emphasise and what they down-play or omit. Using Foucaultian approaches to critical discourse analysis and insights from Dorothy Smith's (2005) Institutional Ethnography, we consider the 'discursive economy' (Carlson, 2005) in teachers' reported experiences of their everyday practices in northern suburbs schools in South Australia in which a democratic progressive discourse exists alongside corporate and disciplinary discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the incorporation of research approach into the developmental process of teachers. The relation between inexperienced teacher and old hands are seen as critical to the learning process. It examines the way in which two early career teachers adopted a researcher stance and redesigned their curriculum to facilitate communication with their concerned students. It suggests the development of teacher research in order to make a sustainable difference to students.

The article discusses the resurgence of interest in creativity in education. It is included in the research and scholarship as an element of pedagogy and practice. This is in recognition of the role of creativity in economic and social development for the improvement of schools. Creativity and literacy innovations are analyzed in cultural contexts.

In this article we explore the relationship between literacy, place, and teacher identity as they intersect around Special Forever, a professional learning program with a focus on environmental communications and place based education. Teachers participating in Special Forever speak from different positions, histories, and alliances as local landowners, farmers, users of Murray-Darling Basin resources, and environmental activists; they teach in places to which they are connected in multiple ways and in which they have particular investments that shape the design of their environmental communications curriculum. We draw on an analysis of the Special Forever Guidelines for schools to discern how the Murray-Darling Basin is represented within the program, and read this alongside interview data in which teachers speak about the complex relationships they have with ‘their place’ in the Murray-Darling Basin. We suggest that the interrelationships between the politics of places, the politics of literacy pedagogy, and the multiple subject positions that teachers negotiate deserve closer attention if we are to develop more grounded approaches to critical literacy and place-based pedagogies. Furthermore, we argue that an important element for making literacy critical is attending to the politics of the places that are important to children and their teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that teachers' recognition of children's cultural practices is an important positive step in helping socio-economically disadvantaged children engage with school literacies. Based on 21 longitudinal case studies of children's literacy development over a 3-year period, the authors demonstrate that when children's knowledges and practices assembled in home and community spheres are treated as valuable material for school learning, children are more likely to invest in the work of acquiring school literacies. However, they also show that while some children benefit greatly from being allowed to draw on their knowledge of popular culture, sports and the outdoors, other children's interests may be ignored or excluded. Some differences in teachers' valuing of home and community cultures appeared to relate to gender dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how teachers worked to build a meaningful curriculum around changes to a neighborhood and school grounds in a precinct listed for urban renewal. Drawing on a long-term relationship with the principal and one teacher, the researchers planned and designed a collaborative project to involve children as active participants in the redevelopment process, negotiating and redesigning an area between the preschool and the school. The research investigated spatial literacies, that is, ways of thinking about and representing the production of spaces, and critical literacies, in this instance how young people might have a say in remaking part of their school grounds. Data included videotapes of key events, interviews, and an archive of the elementary students' artifacts experimenting with spatial literacies. The project builds on the insights of community members and researchers working for social justice in high-poverty areas internationally that indicate the importance of education, local action, family, and youth involvement in building sustainable and equitable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the performance of boys in standardized forms of literacy in Australia. Interventions to literacy programs; Effects of normative models of literacy development on different children; Dispositions of children toward literate practices.

Focuses on a low-income Australian grade 2/3 classroom where the teacher and children became involved in a local urban renewal project and on how children wrote about the place and power. Key elements in developing critical literacies in elementary school settings; Children and neighborhood; Importance of considering local community practices.

Reflects on the value of supplementing the reading of print fiction with the viewing of film such as `The Matrix' in the English curriculum. Application of the film to bridge the gap between popular and classroom cultures; Opportunities and challenges posed by the trend in media convergence.

Reviews several fiction books for adolescents and young adults. `Dare Truth or Promise,' by Paula Boock; `I Am Not Esther,' by Fleur Beale; `Love and Other Excuses,' by Jane Westaway; `Lester,' by Bernard Beckett.

Discusses reviews of books for adolescents. Purpose of multiple reviews of the same texts; Call for submission of texts of international publishers for review; Merits of reviews.

Sourcing information related to socio‐scientific issues requires sophisticated literacies to read and evaluate conflicting accounts often signified by disagreement among experts, multiple solutions or misinformation. Much of the previous work exploring how young people approach conflicting information has tended to focus on students in the secondary and tertiary years, often taking an epistemic approach to analysis, rather than a literacies lens. At the heart of such endeavours, however, is the need for sophisticated reading skills accelerated by shifts to digital platforms to source information. Given the limited empirical studies in the field of literacy that articulate how middle school students approach sources of information, this study investigates 45 middle school students' (13–14 years of age) self‐reported strategies for investigating health risks associated with mobile phone use. We asked the students to imagine that a close friend was worried about the health risks of using their mobile phone and had asked them for advice. Students were then prompted to describe how they would search for information about the issue and how they would know if the information was reliable. Our analysis identified three dominant themes in the interview data, namely: (i) mistrust of the internet—people can be reliable sources; (ii) reliable sourcing requires consensus across sources; and (iii) criteria help to determine a reliable source. An interesting finding was the level of scepticism of the internet expressed by students. We draw on examples from the students' interview dialogue to illustrate the themes and engage in discourse related to their approaches including implications for teaching in English classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 to 9‐year‐old) boys at six schools, we consider their personal recounts of their enjoyment in 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's 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental involvement in schooling has been shown to have a positive impact on children’s educational outcomes. With changing mathematics curricula and pedagogical approaches as a context, we explore how mathematical dispositions emerge through gendered and classed experiences with mathematics homework. We share the experiences of mothers from eight Canadian families as they negotiate mathematics homework with their children. We consider the impact of their differing access to resources and highlight the way mathematics homework disrupts family time, creates tension, and contributes to a sense of inadequacy for some mothers. This results in mothers and children having negative experiences with mathematics homework, which can lead to the compounding of intergenerational negative mathematical dispositions and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the authors discuss educational issues in Australia and New Zealand involving standardisation of education materials, educational policy and quality audits in schools.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses critical literacy around the Globe and its models for instruction. Topics discussed include educators and theorists such as Luke, class struggle in society, and scholarships that have defined education and relates it with critical literacy and Marxism related to political parties.

Talks about the entry of the Harry Potter character into popular media culture. Creation of Potter-related Web sites.

Introduces a series of articles about the `Harry Potter' book series by J.K. Rowling.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]