Sally Godinho

Sharing Place, Learning Together: the birthplace of new ways?

The Medical Journal of Australia ISSN: 0025729X 8 July 2013 199 1 69-71 ©The Medical Journal of Australia 2013 www.mja.com.au Reflections (feature article) for Indigenous populations are linked to a spectrum of social determinants that include education and access t culture.3,4 In this context, the LoC approach recognises that population health in remote Indigenous communities links to the health of “country”: the land t which a community belongs and is culturally and physically connected. This in turn relies on Indigenous Diversifying educational opportunities for remote Indigenous students is a key step to improving health outcomes

Using the art of trompe l’oeil to research induction and mentoring

This paper reveals how the art device of trompe l’oeil provided a way of thinking about the induction and mentoring experiences of seven beginning teachers in secondary school settings in the state of Victoria, Australia. The research study – a phenomenological, narrative inquiry – drew on Bourdieu’s theorising of ‘misrecognition’ and ‘symbolic violence’ to analyse data collected from interviews and the participants’ diary entries (written narratives). Both the trompe l’oeil art device and the theoretical lens illuminated the reframing of the participants’ initial understandings of mentor relationships to gain a different perspective on their early professional lives.

Concept-Based Curriculum: An Australian Experience

In Australia, approaches to concept-based curriculum have been embraced by progressive teachers who recognise that a conceptual framework allows learners to summarise, synthesise and organise key ideas. They support learners in the transition from the acquisition of myriad atomised facts to the development of broader conceptual knowledge and understanding. Ideally, a concept-based curriculum identifies the driving concepts; articulates the targeted knowledge, skills or capabilities; frames the assessment tasks for providing evidence of learning; and includes an appropriate sequence of learning experiences (Erickson, L. (2002). Concept-based curriculum and instruction: Teaching beyond the facts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Inc.; Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Teachers who engage in this approach to curriculum planning understand the interconnectedness of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and identify the importance of the conceptual lens in helping students to make meaning and deepen their thinking around the curriculum content.

The devil is in the detail: Bourdieu and teachers’ early career learning

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present how the social learning theory of Bourdieu (1990; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990) can be a valuable tool to investigate mentoring relationships of beginning teachers with their more experienced colleagues. Bourdieu’s work provides a lens to magnify the social exchanges that occur during the mentoring relationship, so that what tends to be hidden in the “logic of practice” (Bourdieu, 1990) is drawn into view. The paper shows how the mentor is ascribed power that enables domination, and how this tends to result in cultural reproduction. A case study is used to identify aspects of social and cultural learning that demonstrate this process. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a year-long narrative inquiry of beginning secondary teachers’ mentoring experiences in the state of Victoria, Australia. The data were generated through in-depth interviews and participants’ diary entries to answer the research question “What personal, professional knowledge is developed through beginning teachers’ early experiences with induction and mentoring?” Findings The researcher found that attention to minutiae of mentor/mentee interactions can suggest how symbolic violence shapes personal, professional knowledge. Research limitations/implications This small-scale study has some limitations. However, as an illustration of organisational learning, with strong connections to Bourdieu’s theoretical work, it can provide some illuminating insights into how policy can be enacted at the micro-level. In particular, there are implications for how mentor teachers engage in their roles and understand the potential impact of their interactions with beginning teachers. Originality/value This study applies Bourdieu’s framework of cultural reproduction as an analysis tool for a qualitative study of the mentoring of beginning teachers.