Beverley Moriarty

Freire and dialogical pedagogy: a means for interrogating opportunities and challenges in Australian postgraduate supervision

Discussions between new postgraduate students and potential supervisors prior to the formalisation of supervisor–student partnerships serve several useful purposes. One purpose is to explore the expectations that each partner has of the other and of themselves and the anticipated nature of the partnership. This article employs Freire’s perspective on dialogical pedagogy as a framework to identify and interrogate opportunities and challenges in postgraduate supervision. Theorising and clarifying the postgraduate supervisory process in these terms at the outset of candidature and at strategic points along the way can save time and effort that might otherwise be devoted to misunderstandings and less than optimum progress. It also has implications for lifelong education for both supervisors and students that can be realised beyond the period of candidature and the substantive and methodological gains normally associated with successful completion of a thesis.

Australian circuses as cooperative communities

Abstract Circus communities have always held a fascination for their audiences. The color, the skill, the artistry, and the exotic animals as well as the clowns, tents, and sawdust are all part of the magic of the circus. This chapter explores how circus personnel of all ages interact among themselves and with outside groups and individuals, including their audiences, with a view to ensuring the continuation of traditional circus lifestyles and circus entertainment. Interviews were held with personnel from Australian circuses at four sites and the data were examined in the light of Johnson and Johnsons (1998 connections: Journal of the Australasian Association for Cooperative Education, 5(1), 4–10) theory of cooperative communities. The results foreground the circus as a colorful and exciting cooperative community which has many lessons to teach its audiences.

Three pedagogies of mobility for Australian show people: Teaching about, through and towards the questioning of sedentarism

Abstract Questions concerning the education of mobile groups help to highlight the lived experiences of people otherwise rendered invisible by policy actors. This includes the diverse communities of occupational Travellers—those people who regularly move in order to earn their livelihood. While the category ‘occupational Travellers’ encompasses groups as varied as defence force personnel, specialist teachers and seasonal fruit pickers, the focus here is on the people who travel the agricultural show circuits of Australia to provide the entertainment of ‘sideshow alley’. Drawing on qualitative research with the Australian show people since 1992, this article deploys the concept of ‘sedentarism’ to highlight the ambivalently valorised lived experiences and educational opportunities of the show people. In particular, the article explores the pedagogical and policy implications of efForts to disrupt and transform the marginalising impact of sedentarism, which constructs mobility as the other in relation to fixed residence.

Interrogating learner-centredness as a vehicle for meaning emerging in practice and researching personal pedagogies: transformative learning, self-efficacy and social presence at two Australian universities

Abstract Learner-centredness is a key element of the contemporary dominant discourse pertaining to pedagogies and learning. Yet enacting learner-centredness is far from easy in the increasingly massified higher education system. The authors contend that it is in the intersection between this philosophy and practice that meaning emerges and personal pedagogies can be researched. This paper deploys the authors’ experiences as higher educators covering a diversity of disciplines, encompassing pre-undergraduate, undergraduate and postgraduate domestic and international students and including face-to-face, distance and online delivery modes in two Australian universities. Learner-centredness is interrogated in relation to three key sites: exploring transformative learning with previously educationally marginalized pre-undergraduate students in face-to-face and external modes enhancing self-efficacy with face-to-face undergraduate teacher education students in relation to their mathematical competence experiencing social presence with online postgraduate students learning about educational research methods and ethics. The paper reports examples from each site where learner-centredness is successfully engaged and hence where the meaning emerging in practice is fulfilling and productive. At the same time, interpersonal and structural factors sometimes obstruct the attainment of such positive outcomes. These findings have important implications for the authors’ ongoing research into their personal pedagogies as well as for policy and practice in contemporary higher education more broadly.

Lifelong Learning and Becoming a Mother: Evaluation of the Young Parents Program.

The purpose of this research was to identify how lifelong learning has the potential to accommodate the changed circumstances and future needs of women who become mothers as teenagers. The research drew on the previously separate theories of lifelong learning and becoming a mother to frame this initial study. A qualitative case study was used to evaluate the Young Parents Program, which was devised to meet the informal learning needs of young mothers aged between 15 and 25 years. A total of eight mothers completed a survey and four of them also participated in a focus group interview to provide more in depth responses. The results indicate that the content of the programme provided relevant information that met the informal learning needs of the participants. The delivery of the programme helped participants to make connections with other young mothers in similar circumstances. The findings imply that informal learning programmes that respond well to the immediate needs of young mothers have the potential to prevent young mothers from becoming socially isolated. Young mothers who become engrossed in their own problems without access to relevant informal learning may fail to undertake formal learning opportunities that might be available in the future.

Pedagogies and Learning in Cooperative and Symbolic Communities of Practice: Implications for and from the Education of Australian Show People

Abstract Groups and organisations are not automatically sites of effective and transformative pedagogy and learning; such outcomes are most likely to occur when entities become communities of practice (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). One conception of community focused explicitly on the facilitation of pedagogy and learning is cooperative community, centred on five principles (Johnson & Johnson, 1998). Another productive notion of community is as a symbolic construction, centred on members’ shared consciousness and boundary maintenance (Cohen, 1985). One community that demonstrates the pedagogical and learning potential of cooperative and symbolic communities of practice is the Australian show people (Danaher, 1998, 2001). Following generations of educational marginalisation, this community participated in a specialised program within the Brisbane School of Distance Education between 1989 and 1999, and since 2000 its members have benefited from having their own Queensland School for Travelling Show Children, established under Education Queensland’s auspices. This paper maps and portrays enactments of the cooperative and symbolic communities of practice in the school and on the show circuits. It identifies specific strategies that underpin the pedagogies and learning made possible in those communities of practice, and it considers possible implications of such pedagogies and learning for other educational contexts and groups.

Pre-service Teachers, Aboriginal Students and the Cross-cultural ‘Playing Field’: Empowering Futures

Pre-service teachers have an impact on their classrooms. How they manage communication in a cross-cultural space remains a challenge in teacher education. Moving beyond classroom management, this chapter explores how pre-service teacher education candidates understand their subjectivities and impact on indigenous students.

Language, Relationships and Pedagogical Practices: Pre-Service Teachers in an Indigenous Australian Context.

This article focuses on the initial stage of a longitudinal study whose eventual aim is to produce educators with the capacity, knowledge and cultural competence to engage effectively with Indigenous students in cross-cultural environments. The initial stage of the study involved 24 second-year pre-service teachers working individually with students from Kindergarten to Year 6 with their reading twice weekly for 8 weeks in an Indigenous Australian housing estate. The Elder and two community members were the gatekeepers who negotiated with and between the community and the university and supported the pre-service teachers. The analysis of data from semi-structured questionnaires completed by the pre-service teachers and the two community members, informal interviews with the gatekeepers and informal, on-site observations indicated that how language was used was critical to relationship-building between the pre-service teachers and the students, gatekeepers and parents and to pre-service teachers’ development of culturally appropriate pedagogical practices. The findings have implications for teacher education because they highlight the importance of providing pre-service teachers with meaningful experiences in community, with particular emphasis on the critical role of language for building relationships, establishing trust and respect and learning. These factors must be in place before effective, cross-cultural engagement can begin.

Alternative Models of Learning, Thinking and Teaching

There is no doubt that pregnant and parenting teenagers face many challenges in completing their secondary education. They are confronted with the demands of transitioning into adulthood just like their peers at school but they also share with older parents the challenges of becoming parents and adjusting to parenthood. This chapter shows the value in creating space to play and transform learning in a complex context for young people.

Lifelong Learning Theory and Pre-Service Teachers' Development of Knowledge and Dispositions to Work with Australian Aboriginal Students.

Abstract This article draws on previous research by the authors and others as well as lifelong learning theory to argue the case for providing pre-service teachers with deep and meaningful experiences over time that help them to build their personal capacity for developing knowledge and dispositions to work with Australian Aboriginal students, their families and communities. These experiences, provided in partnership with the Aboriginal community, demonstrate how opportunities for deepening cultural understanding could help pre-service teachers to become key stakeholders in the partnership and to embrace the joint responsibility for working towards improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal students. The Healthy Culture Healthy Country Programme was developed by Dr. Shayne Williams of the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) for practicing teachers and modified for pre-service teachers by its author. It was found from an exploration of the experiences of first year pre-service teachers during and following their participation in the modified programme that they showed evidence towards Delor’s Four Pillars of Lifelong Learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and with others and learning to be. The pre-service teachers who participated in the research provided suggestions for how their experiences could be extended and deepened over the later years of their degree. This research has important implications with regard to how participation in ongoing opportunities to increase cultural competence could help pre-service teachers to develop their personal capacity to work towards the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s Professional Teaching Standards.