Alison Gable

Disability theorising and real-world educational practice: a framework for understanding

This paper is concerned with the contradictions and tensions in disability theory that have generated an uncertain professional knowledge base in relation to the education of students with disabilities. This tension has produced concern regarding the enculturation of teachers into reductionist understandings of disability that limit the development of inclusive educational environments. A critical realist lens is employed to better understand the boundaries and contributions of three disability models and their connections to education practice. This perspective asserts that the models are social constructions of a real phenomenon requiring critical reflection on their adequacy for explaining and informing real-world practices. It draws upon the work of Bhaskar and Danermark to present a framework for positioning disability theory in a manner that may prove a useful theoretical guide for practitioners.

NAPLAN data: a new policy assemblage and mode of governance in Australian schooling

ABSTRACT As part of a policy assemblage, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is representative of a new mode of governance for Australias schooling systems, indicative of international trends in educational accountability based on testing. The policy assumption was that the introduction of a national performance measurement system would tightly couple school practices to national agendas targeted at improving learning outcomes. This paper presents a comparative case study of two primary schools within a single Queensland region to interrogate how coupling and decoupling strategies are enacted in respect of the policy usage of NAPLAN data. The granular analysis of the governance relationship between the school principals and their supervisors is set against the politics, policies and pressures of NAPLAN that recast the initiative as high stakes for systems, schools and their leadership. Specifically, we argue that Queenslands choice and enactment of policy instruments have produced a new mode of governance of principal conduct, but one mediated by the specific contexts of the two schools. The analysis shows how this mode has precipitated two types of decoupling.

Influencing the Life Trajectories of Children with Asperger's Syndrome

Special education and psychology bookshelves are replete with guides to the management of students with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) in both family and educational contexts. The primary aim of these handbooks is communication of the core principles of good practice: structuring the environment, multi-level support across school and family settings, building on individual strengths, and sensitising adults and peers to the needs of this vulnerable group of students. The approach taken by many authors is rooted in the ecological model of human development, accounting for the overlapping contexts of family, peer, school, and community as spheres of influence on the child. Consequently, this review essay attempts to position two recently published handbooks for parents within Bronfennbrenner’s bioecological model of human development. In doing so it is hoped to illustrate not only the important role these types of books have on influencing the life course of children with AS, but also the function of responsive educational contexts on developmental outcomes.

“Schooling” performance measurement: the politics of governing teacher conduct in Australia

Abstract Performance measurement (PM) in the public sector has progressively broadened to cover the operation of professionals traditionally framed as independent and autonomous. How PM reconstitutes the role and conduct of professionals is critical for understanding contemporary dynamics of policy and governance, and service provider–service user relationships. Building on Lipskys classic Street-level Bureaucracy, this paper examines the ways in which street-level professionals are reconfigured in their roles as evidenced by the operation of Australias schooling PM, NAPLAN. The paper reports findings from a project examining the effects of PM in social policy. Attention is given to the ambiguous and conflicting goals arising from measuring literacy and numeracy performance and the varied ways performance numbers are used by management for teacher governance at the street-level. These considerations have implications for the effectiveness of PM in delivering service improvements, the experience of service users, and the achievement of policy objectives.

Population health performance as primary healthcare governance in Australia: professionals and the politics of performance

ABSTRACT A range of institutional and financial instruments has been used to drive population health outcomes in primary health care in Australia. However, GP sovereignty and the corporatized nature of general practice have generated major challenges. The core of government reform strategy since 1992 has been the creation and financing of Primary HealthCare Organizations (PHCOs), in various forms, to provide an organizational basis to connect GPs to population health performance, and a closer link between the state and GPs. The shift from Divisions of General Practice, the first PHCO, to Medicare Locals (MLs) in 2011 was notable. The latter constructed the object of performance as a raft of broader population health goals, which were framed in terms of accountability to communities through public reporting. Drawing on interviews with Federal government, health professional associations, ML executives and GPs, this paper examines the ways in which such performance instruments were imagined and understood, and areas of contestation. The findings show the different rationalities at play and how different actors seek control of the policy space. They also demonstrate the political precariousness of PHCOs, and the wider difficulty of steering market-based professionals in the achievement of population health objectives.

The role of the doctoral consortium: An Information Systems signature pedagogy?

The doctoral consortium is a well-established, widely endorsed event in the information systems (IS) discipline that occurs adjunct to mainstream IS conferences (e.g., ICIS, ECIS, PACIS, AMCIS). Anecdotal evidence suggests that PhD students’ experience of these events is almost universally positive; some have referred to the events as “life changing” or “magical”. Further, both participating students and scholars strongly perceive the events’ value. To extend the experience to more PhD students, doctoral consortia are more recently being run locally and unaffiliated with any conference. By reviewing the literature and historical documents and conducting a series of interviews and email exchanges with past conference co-chairs, we explore the merits of IS doctoral consortia (consortia). We position the IS doctoral consortium as distinct from forms of doctoral student development in other disciplines, a veritable “signature pedagogy” for IS. In examining the practices and motivations underlying doctoral consortia, we explain related phenomena to improving future consortia. In addition, by appending much historical detail, we add to the IS discipline’s organizational memory.