Sally Baker

Conceptualising the Use of Facebook in Ethnographic Research: As Tool, as Data and as Context.

This article proposes a three-part conceptualisation of the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as a tool, as data and as context. Longitudinal research with young adults at a time of significant change provides many challenges for the ethnographic researcher, such as maintaining channels of communication and high rates of participant attrition. Facebook offers a resolution to such challenges as a measure of maintaining research interest and relationships, alongside its potential as a unique research tool and rich source of data on students reading and writing practices. Despite significant methodological and ethical issues arising from the use of Facebook in the research study presented, this article argues that the benefits of using Facebook, such as its potential for maintaining communication, providing context and generating data, override any such issues and offers valuable insights and commentary on facilitating online–offline longitudinal research with young people.

‘Hot’, ‘Cold’ and ‘Warm’ supports: towards theorising where refugee students go for assistance at university

ABSTRACT This paper contributes a rich picture of how students from refugee backgrounds navigate their way into and through undergraduate studies in a regional Australian university, paying particular attention to their access to and use of different forms of support. We draw on the conceptualisation of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ knowledge, offered by Ball and Vincent (1998. “‘I Heard it on the Grapevine’: ‘Hot’ Knowledge and School Choice.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 19 (3): 377–400), and the addition of ‘warm’ knowledge offered by Slack et al. (2014. “‘Hot’, ‘Cold’ and ‘Warm’ Information and Higher Education Decision Making.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 35 (2): 204–223), to develop an understanding of how students from refugee backgrounds make choices about how they locate, select and access support for their studies. The findings of this paper suggest that students from refugee backgrounds do not view the ‘cold’ (unfamiliar-formal) institutional support on offer as ‘for them’; instead they expressed a preference for the ‘warm’ (familiar-formal) support offered via ‘trusted’ people who act as literacy/sociocultural brokers or ‘hot’ (familiar-informal) support of their grapevine of other students (past and present) or experienced community members.

Students' Writing "In Transition" from A-Levels to University: How Assessment Drives Students' Understandings, Practices and Discourses.

The lament that ‘students can’t write’ remains loud and defiant, even after years of research pointing to the myriad factors that make students’ writing challenging, particularly when they move into university. This paper reports on a longitudinal, ethnographic study which explored students’ writing ‘in transition’, from A-levels to university in the UK, through the critical lens offered by the academic literacies conceptual framing. This paper offers critical analysis of the ways that students, teachers and institutions position writing at A-level and university, exploring the assumptions and beliefs that underpin their understandings and practices using Ivanič’s framework of discourses of writing. The analysis proposes that the centrality of assessment in the treatment of language at both levels creates an ‘assessment discourse of writing’, which originates in school, and becomes a defining and restrictive frame for students’ writing as they move into higher education. The analysis further suggests that assessment is the principal cause for the students’ challenges with adapting to the writing requirements of university. Moreover, assessment is used as a metalanguage for discussing writing at A-levels, and can become an unhelpful ‘anchor of continuance’ for students as they move into university.

The weaponisation of language: English proficiency, citizenship and the politics of belonging in Australia

Calls for greater protection of national boundaries – both physical and ideological – and the politicising of immigration and citizenship are increasingly characteristic of the global geo-political landscape. Several signatory countries to the UNHCR refugee convention have sought to legislate higher levels of language proficiency for citizenship eligibility. Most recently, this has been attempted in Australia, reigniting controversy about the use of language testing to assess a potential citizen’s ‘worthiness’. In this paper, we identify contested conceptions of belonging and citizenship, manifested in mediatised debates around language proficiency and citizenship which emerged following the announcement of proposed changes to Australian citizenship rules. We use Graff’s (1981) concept of the ‘Literacy Myth’ to analyze associations between language proficiency and ‘morality’ evident in Australian media articles, to explore the underpinning discourses of these proposals, and to probe the relationship between citizenship, belonging and language. We argue that these myths work discursively to frame language proficiency as a proxy measure of the morality of prospective citizens and their willingness to ‘integrate’ or ‘assimilate’ into resettlement contexts. Relatedly, these myths can be deployed to justify the denial of the possibility of belonging to those who do not possess the linguistic capital privileged by policy and media elites.

Shifts in the treatment of knowledge in academic reading and writing: Adding complexity to students’ transitions between A-levels and university in the UK

Although “transition” is an established area of educational research, there has been little empirically exploration of how shifts in the ways that knowledge is packaged and valued impact on students’ reading and writing as they transition into higher education. This article draws on a longitudinal ethnographic study that traced the experiences, practices and understandings of 11 students from their last year of A-levels through to their second year of undergraduate study. Analysis shows that the forms of knowledge privileged and the ways that knowledge is packaged vary significantly between the two educational contexts, impacting on students’ engagement with texts (both reading and writing) as they transition into university. This article further illustrates that as a result of shifts in what counts as knowledge between these levels, students face challenges adapting to undergraduate literacies, which disrupts the simplistic notion of transition evoked in the dominant positioning of “the transition to university”.