Lyn Fasoli

Reading Photographs of Young Children: Looking at Practices:

This article is a methodological reflection on the use of photographs in research with young children. As a basis for discussion, it uses research photographs that were collected as part of a critical interpretative case study of young childrens learning during excursions to an art gallery. Data collected for this study also included transcripts of childrens talk, drawings they made and work undertaken later at the childrens pre-school. This article discusses the methodological use of photographs as ‘visual data’. A sociocultural framework for analysis is offered for its potential to reveal new ways to interpret photographs of young children participating in research.

Working together: intercultural leadership capabilities for both-ways education

This article explores the concept of interculturalism and its complementary relationship with the Aboriginal Australian idea of ‘both ways’. The need for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal staff to learn to be intercultural teachers and leaders, as well as the needs of the system to work interculturally to achieve educational outcomes, is emphasised. This article suggests that in order for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educational leaders to work within an intercultural world, new leadership capabilities must be learned and acquired.

What Can We Learn from ‘Innovative’ Child Care Services? Children's Services Purposes and Practices in Australia's Northern Territory

This article explores the diversity of services designed for young children currently operating in Australia in remote Northern Territory (NT) Indigenous communities as a provocation for the renewal and revitalisation of mainstream (typical Australian conventional, Western values oriented and urban-based) child care services. Australian society has accepted a standardised model of child care and conceptualised it as a service designed primarily for parents who work. It has become remarkably uniform in look, nature and purpose, regardless of where it is located. The article refers specifically to ‘Innovative’ Indigenous Childrens Services (the term ‘Innovative’ refers to a federally funded government initiative called the ‘Innovative Child Care Scheme’, an initiative stemming from the 1992–96 National Child Care Strategy) as a new kind of childrens space in the child care landscape. The authors reflect on the findings of recent research which explored what could be learned from remotely located Indigenous childrens services staff, particularly in relation to the important questions the research raised for the social agendas and public policies that underpin development and theory currently shaping mainstream centre-based long day care programs.

Action research as a both-ways curriculum development approach: Supporting self-determination in the remote Indigenous child care workforce in the Northern Territory of Australia

This article gives a detailed example of how action research theory can inform an innovative approach to education and training through its use as a curriculum design device within the both-ways philosophy of Indigenous education. This work was undertaken through a VET training program at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. The specific target group was Indigenous people currently working in early childhood services in remote Indigenous communities in the NT where few hold the necessary qualifications. The curriculum development methodology described in this article embeds an iterative and reflexive approach to learning that is intended to support the empowerment and self-determination of the Indigenous early childhood workers while delivering a nationally recognized ‘mainstream’ qualification.