Greer Johnson

Exploring relatedness to field of study as an indicator of student retention

Currently, tertiary education student retention is an important concern for universities. Prior research suggests that course completion depends on a number of factors, many of which are recalcitrant to intervention. This paper explores one factor: student relatedness to their chosen course and profession, as evidenced within two education courses. The analysis of survey and focus group data from first year, semester one students has found that the respondents relate to their course and their profession more idealistically than pragmatically. We suggest that relative unawareness of the realities of teaching might retain students in the early years, only to cause attrition when harsher realities of classrooms set in during the later years of their course. Two possible interventions are considered: post‐structurally‐derived critical reflection and peer mentoring in the hope that they will facilitate a blend of idealism and pragmatism that will sustain students to course completion and entry into their profession.

Using visual narrative and poststructuralism to (re)read a student teacher's professional practice

This paper demonstrates how a final year student teacher takes up a two-stage methodology for reflective practice. The methodology is generated from the principles of traditional literary theory and cultural studies, particularly poststructuralism. The analysis shows that Lucas, one of the more successful respondents in the study, is able to produce a personal reading of his experience documented as a picture book and then a critically alternative (re)reading, but he does not exploit the methodology fully and venture into a resistant (poststructuralist) reading. The author provides such a reading. A rationale is offered for why this methodology for reflective practice might be appropriated more effectively by experienced mentor teachers who could then pass it on intergenerationally to the student teachers or beginning teachers.

Constructing productive post‐school transitions: an analysis of Australian schooling policies

Not having clear pathways, or the social means and personal capacities to make a productive transition from schooling, can inhibit young people’s participation in social and economic life thereafter. This paper advances an analysis of how policy documents associated with senior schooling from across Australian states address the needs of students who are most at risk of not securing productive transitions. The review identifies that many of the goals emphasised the autonomy of students in taking control of their own transitions. However, such individualistic views downplay the importance of the mediating role that access to cultural, social and economic capital is likely to play in the negotiations involved in making a productive transition. Thus, the needs of ‘at‐risk’ students who may have limited access to the forms of capital offering the best support for these negotiations are not well acknowledged in the policies.

Narrative inquiry and school leadership identities

This article reports further findings from the ‘Carpe Vitam: Leadership for Learning’ project, based on a close examination of some of the interview narratives with an Australian principal. Positioning analysis is used as an empirically‐grounded means of making sense of who this Australian principal is and what she does as a leader to improve her schools focus on leadership for learning. The complexities of the principals leadership practices are opened up for scrutiny through an analytic focus on the production of the principals narrative identity formation in her storytelling practices. The findings underscore that engaging in leadership for learning is complex and varied. In this instance, the process began with the principals main focus on constructing management strength and only slowly moved to a distributed model of pedagogical leadership for learning. The article demonstrates that treating interview narratives in this way can be seen as an additional site of professional practice, not just ref...This article reports further findings from the ‘Carpe Vitam: Leadership for Learning’ project, based on a close examination of some of the interview narratives with an Australian principal. Positioning analysis is used as an empirically‐grounded means of making sense of who this Australian principal is and what she does as a leader to improve her schools focus on leadership for learning. The complexities of the principals leadership practices are opened up for scrutiny through an analytic focus on the production of the principals narrative identity formation in her storytelling practices. The findings underscore that engaging in leadership for learning is complex and varied. In this instance, the process began with the principals main focus on constructing management strength and only slowly moved to a distributed model of pedagogical leadership for learning. The article demonstrates that treating interview narratives in this way can be seen as an additional site of professional practice, not just reflection on practice, in that interviews contain courses of questioning and methods of accounting that allow storytellers to generate educational knowledge.

Imagining a profession: a beginning teacher's story of isolation

Policy documents informing the profession of teaching in Australia and elsewhere explicitly recommend nurturing those new to the profession working collaboratively with colleagues. Key to the development and growth of beginning teachers is the informal exchange of ideas and knowledge between colleagues – essentially through the functioning of a community of practice. In practice there are beginning teachers who do not experience productive professional collaborations. In this article we use positioning theory and discourse analysis as a methodological “hearing aid” to listen to the story of a beginning teacher, a global English speaker, as she tells of her personal experiences of being excluded by her colleagues as she begins teaching at her first school. Speakers of global English are defined, for this research, as those for whom English is not their first language but may be one of many spoken languages. This story reflects similar accounts gathered during a larger research study conducted by the authors that focused on the early career experiences of global English speaking teachers. We conclude with suggestions for ways forward through awareness and practical reforms.

Reframing Teacher Education and Teaching: From Personalism to Post-Personalism.

Abstract The literature on research into teaching provides different accounts of what is involved in becoming a teacher. Questions about “good practice” are generated for teachers in teacher education. This paper examines three paradigms of teacher education and teaching which are described as developmental, reflective and de/reconstructive to show that there are viable alternatives in deciding how to view the world of teaching. I argue that the three paradigms constitute two frames through which teaching can be practised and critiqued: personalism and post-personalism. The paper explicates the personalist and post-personalist constitution of the two frames. The first (personal) frame of teaching is discussed as being generated from developmental and reflective paradigms. The familiar journey from novice to expert is shown to work within developmental and reflective paradigms. A second (post-personal) frame is explained in terms of its deconstructive and reconstructive possibilities. The second frame is the lesser known alternative for teacher educators and teachers insofar as it questions and reframes the personal nature of much of the teacher development and reflection research. I offer a post-personal frame to the field as a viable means of teaching and research. Post-personalism builds on personalism by taking into account post-structural approaches to teacher education and post-structural literary theory. Parallels between the two frames of understanding teacher education and English teaching, based on literary theory, are drawn where appropriate throughout the paper.

Last resort employees: older workers' perceptions of workplace discrimination

Many countries are becoming increasingly reliant upon an aging workforce. Yet, much literature positions older workers as ‘last resort’ employees, held in low esteem by employers whose preference for youth extends into decision-making about workplace engagement and support. As part of a broader study on maintaining the competence of older workers, we investigated the extent to which a group of employees in Australia aged 45 or more perceived they were discriminated against because of their age, including access to training, promotion opportunities and job security. Against expectations arising from the literature, informants reported little in the way of explicit age-related bias in their employment, opportunities for advancement and further development. Although the informants have particular characteristics and featured paraprofessional and professional workers, the contrast is noteworthy between what is reported in the literature and often premised on surveys, and our data were based on interviews. The findings indicate a need to be wary of making easy generalizations about the extent to which older workers per se are discriminated against in the workplace, while at the same time acknowledging that such discrimination exists, and perhaps for particular kinds of workers. In addition, we found a range of nuanced responses that suggest there are tensions between discriminations policies and practice that are a challenge for human resource development professionals.

Experiences of School Transitions: Policies, Practice and Participants

It is important to neither over-emphasise nor understate the importance of productive post-school transitions. However, for students who are at risk of unsuccessful transitions, there are potential and long-lasting risks. Consequently, there is a need to understand more about post-school transitions and the ways in which policy settings, and school and community practices as well as students themselves can assist the transition process in contemporary and future times. Indeed, the imperatives for productive transitions come from governments. Their concern that education systems prepare and support young people’s post-school transitions leading to productive outcomes in terms of employment or further education and avoiding drifts to unemployment and disengagement from productive economic and societal roles is evident in policy. Parent and communities may well similarly look to the schooling provision to achieve productive outcomes of these kinds for young people, and industry for related but different purposes. In many ways, these transitions are seen as tangible measures of schools’ and the schooling system’s performance. Yet, factors beyond the school itself also shape the kinds of provisions offered to school students and, importantly, how these students engage with such provisions. Hence, to understand transitions and how they might progress productively requires a consideration of the range of contributing factors and also how students take them up: affordances and engagements. This chapter provides an overview of how combinations of affordances and engagements are enacted through the perspectives, approaches and practices articulated through the contributions to this book from the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. These contributions range from the articulation of practices, policies and implementation issues across a range of nation states, through to comparisons of how such factors play out in schools across a single educational jurisdiction. In all, they emphasise that post-school transitions are events shaped by more than school policies and practices alone and their worth, enactment and intents are subject to the actions and appraisals of those who participate in them directly or indirectly.

The Discursive (Re)construction of Parents in School Texts

This paper explores the familiar issue of parental (non-)involvement in schools. More specifically, it examines the language of selected texts in one school context and finds initially that the roles of parents are not discursively constructed in these texts as their being involved in the school. Rather, a close reading of the texts’ discourse displays parents as the deficit half of a contrastive pair (parents vs the school). The issue of parental involvement at this school, first highlighted in a survey analysis as significant, gains a complementary and extended interpretation through the application of discourse analysis to interviews with the school leaders and a section of the school’s web page. Further analysis of interview data referring to the implementation of activities designed to increase parental involvement highlights movement towards the discursive reconstruction of parents as standard relational pairs with school leaders. The findings highlight the importance of the use of discourse analysis as a tool for understanding and implementing change in school culture.

The discursive (re)positioning of older workers in Australian recruitment policy reform: An exemplary analysis of written and visual narratives

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a methodological demonstration of how written and visual language in narrative and small stories about older workers might be read in multiple ways as supporting and/or constraining recent policy reform.Design/methodology/approach – Critical theory and critical discourse analysis, supported by narrative analysis and visual analysis, offer a robust methodology to problematize the manner in which textually mediated discourses impact social policy reform for recruiting, retraining and retaining older workers.Findings – The results show that still in such an “age positive” social policy environment, negative stereotypes about older workers persist, threatening to constrain social change.Research limitations/implications – An exemplary analysis of two texts, representative of those related to Australian government initiatives to reform access to work for older citizens, provides an accessible means of (re)evaluating if and how such policies are more inclusive o...