thursday 3 june 2010, 3.30-8pm faculty of education and ... · relationship between masculinity and...

RESEARCH STUDENTS FORUM Thursday 3 June 2010, 3.30-8pm

Faculty of Education and Social Work

RESEARCH STUDENTS FORUM JUNE 2010

JUNE FORUM PROGRAM 3.30PM 4.05PM 5.05PM 6.05PM 6.50PM 7PM

REGISTRATION Foyer, Education Building

4:05 – 4:55pm PAPER PRESENTATIONS (see timetable for presentation titles & room allocations)

5:05 – 5:55pm

PAPER PRESENTATIONS

(see timetable for presentation titles & room allocations)

WELCOME & KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Honorary Professor Susan Groundwater-Smith Research that counts: Making an impact on practice

Lecture Theatre 424

OUTSTANDING RESEARCH STUDENT AWARD ANNOUNCEMENT

Professor Brian Paltridge, Director, Division of Doctoral Studies

7:00 – 8:00pm

REFRESHMENTS

Staff Common Room, Room 401


TIMETABLE FOR 4.05PM SESSIONS ROOM 435 ROOM 438 ROOM 461

Chair: Dr Lindy Woodrow Chair: Dr Rachel Wilson Chair: Dr Marie Stevenson

Jie Hao Career development of highly-skilled graduate returnees in China: A case study of graduates from the University of Sydney.

John Scott Conversations with myself: Inner reflections of a researcher.

Jen Cope Blame and responsibility in spoken and written texts at the outset of the Global Financial Crisis: Motivations and rationale underlying this study.

Supervisor: Professor Anthony Welch

Supervisor: Dr Ann Cheryl Armstrong

Associate Supervisor: Prof Robyn Ewing

Supervisor: Dr Marie Stevenson

Associate Supervisor: Prof Brian Paltridge

Marguerite Biasatti Researching the experience of European postgraduate students' in Australia: understandings and realities.

Nimal Ratnesar "Subjectivity" and quantumized-bovine-poo.

Miriam Stevenson "All hearts contained in the research": Inclusive data analysis with young adults who have Down syndrome.

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Jude Irwin

Associate Supervisor: Dr Fran Waugh

Supervisor: Dr Jim Mackenzie

Associate Supervisor: Dr Rachel Wilson

Supervisor: Prof Barbara Fawcett

Associate Supervisor: Dr Margot Rawsthorne

TIMETABLE FOR 5.05PM SESSIONS

ROOM 435 ROOM 438 ROOM 461

Chair: Dr Judy Anderson Chair: Dr Ilektra Spandagou Chair: Dr Ruth Phillips

Kate Thomson Talking about teaching - what's the point?

Anna Johns Interactive systems that impact preadolescent children in out-of-school time.

Louisa Smith Rupturing the constructions of motherhood: The tools of tradie mums.

Supervisor: Prof Keith Trigwell

Associate Supervisor: Assoc Prof Simon Barrie

Supervisor: Dr Jennifer Way

Associate Supervisor: Dr Dorothy Bottrell

Supervisor: Prof Raewyn Connell

Associate Supervisor: Dr Susan Goodwin

Tess Howes

Planning perspectives: A study of strategic leadership and planning in Australian universities, 2001-2011.

Manuel Condoleon Enterprise education within secondary school language teaching.

Jo Dunn Suicidal masculinities: Understanding the gendered nature of male suicide.

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Debra Hayes

Associate Supervisor: Hon Prof Andrew Gonczi

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Lesley Harbon

Supervisor: Prof Raewyn Connell

Associate Supervisor: Assoc Prof Ian Kerridge


NOTES

KEYNOTE ADDRESS Research that counts: Making an impact on practice

6.05PM, LT 424

This presentation will make the case for educational researchers creating what may be termed 'usable knowledge' for those who are working in the field, whether in the school, the classroom or in the development of policy. As Bev Rogers wrote in The Australian Educational Researcher educational research for professional practice is more than providing evidence for doing 'x' rather than 'y' or finding the size of the effect of 'a' on 'b'. It is about providing finely nuanced accounts that recognise the complexity and variability of practice settings. Importantly, it is also a matter of the medium of communication and professional engagement. There is now a plethora of studies that argue that educational research, which tends to be published in academic journals and forums, goes largely unnoticed, and may even be seen by practitioners as irrelevant at best and patronising at worst. The address will turn to ways in which impacts have been enhanced when teaching is seen as both research-informed and research informing - the kind of reciprocity argued for by such writers as Lingard and Renshaw. Finally, the paper will consider ways in which 'unwelcome truths' can be re-cast as opportunities for authentic dialogue between the academy and the field.

Susan Groundwater-Smith is an Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Education and Social Work. Susan is the convenor of the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools whose purpose is to engage in ongoing, systematic practitioner inquiry. She has

supported a large number of other schools as an academic partner introducing them to innovative methods of inquiry with a particular emphasis upon student voice and the use of images in capturing young people's perspectives on their learning experiences. Susan collaborates with the Audience Research Unit at the Australian Museum assisting in consultation with students and teachers regarding actual and planned exhibitions. She works with a range of universities in Australia, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands.


ABSTRACTS Researching the experience of European postgraduate students in Australia: Understandings and realities.

Marguerite Biasatti – 4.05pm, Room 435 My proposed area of research is to explore and examine the educational, social and cultural experiences of international students from Europe who are enrolled in postgraduate programs in Australia. Emphasis will be placed on the exploration of the identification of factors which may lead to a positive or negative education experience.

This research will focus on European students enrolled in postgraduate coursework programs at the University of Sydney. The key questions to be explored are: • What are the students' expectations and experiences of the

Australian educational system? • What differences do they identify and how do they accommodate

the differences in the educational system between Europe and Australia?

• What are some of the positive and negative aspects of their postgraduate education and life in Australia?

• What type of support services would be useful to enable students to meet expectations and optimise their educational experience throughout their program of study?

In this presentation, I will outline the initial stages of my research. Emphasis will be placed on the discussion of the rational for studying postgraduate students from Europe, the literature review and research methodology.

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Jude Irwin Associate Supervisor: Dr Fran Waugh

Enterprise education within secondary school language teaching.

Manuel Condoleon – 5.05pm, Room 438 Enterprise Education (EE) can be defined as the development of specific skills that enable students while at school to initiate and successfully manage group-based projects that are real and relevant for them and to also equip them beyond school with skills highly valued by employers.

Since 2002, the Australian Government has strongly pushed for EE to be integrated across all key learning areas. Examples of EE include science students conducting a Science Expo; arts students designing and marketing a school calendar; business students setting up a niche business and languages students raising funds from a theatrical production in the target language. The study has drawn on social constructivist perspectives with their widely accepted claims to benefits for students of authentic pedagogy.

The research study revealed that while most languages teachers have embraced the various EE skills in their language teaching, they have not been able to apply these skills within the authentic pedagogical framework of both “field authenticity” (engaging students in projects where the processes closely resemble the work of real-world practitioners) and “authenticity of consequence” (students creating meaningful products intended for a real and immediate audience). Despite the notable benefits espoused in integrating authentic EE projects in daily classroom practice, such as enhanced student engagement and connectedness to both school and community, the level of implementation has been limited.

Several issues have accounted for this, namely time pressures, professional development, student competence and resource availability. Adequately addressing these issues should significantly enhance the integration of EE in language teaching.

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Lesley Harbon

Blame and responsibility in spoken and written texts at the outset of the Global Financial Crisis: Motivations and rationale underlying this study.

Jen Cope – 4.05pm, Room 461 This paper is based on the conceptualisation of a study which will examine how blame and responsibility in the Global Financial Crisis have been expressed in spoken and written texts. While an enormous amount of spoken and written materials have been produced in relation to the Global Financial Crisis, virtually no research has focused on analysing the language used to express the opinions of individuals or institutions. It is considered, however, that this expression of blame and responsibility plays an important part in positioning the speakers and writers and their audiences.

This presentation will outline the reasons for, and the significance of, the study. It will include an overview of the criteria for the selection of data from speakers and writers of influence in the US, the UK and Australia. In addition, the methods which will be used to analyse the data will be discussed. Finally, the pedagogical implications of analysing discourse in the English language classroom will be presented.

Supervisor: Dr Marie Stevenson Associate Supervisor: Prof Brian Paltridge

Suicidal masculinities: Understanding the gendered nature of male suicide.

Jo Dunn – 5.05pm, Room 461 Men account for approximately 80% of suicide deaths Australia and worldwide. While biomedical research literature searches for innate biological distinctions between men and women it struggles to link the higher rates of fatal suicides in men to either biological dysfunction or psychiatric illness. Emile Durkheim’s sociological examination of suicide in 1897 represented the beginnings of a rival discourse from social science. However the vast majority of social research literature continues to treat men and women as naturally distinct, homogenous sex-categories. Despite the striking gender difference in suicide death rates, there remains a near absence of research exploring the gendered lives of men who have engaged in suicidal behaviour.

This study sought to make a preliminary investigation into the relationship between masculinity and male suicide. Qualitative, life history case studies and gender relations theory were utilised to explore the relationship between the social construction of masculinity and suicidal behaviour in the lives of two Australian men. Findings suggest that issues of masculinity could be implicated in male suicide. In both life history cases the causes of suicide were outwardly different; in one case suicide was related to employment status and in the other to the breakdown of a marital relationship. Nevertheless, in both cases, hegemonic masculinity, the culturally idealised form of manhood against was the mechanism that mediated between these social factors and male suicide. The findings reported highlight that research utilising life history methodology and gender relations theory, across a broader group of men is warranted.

Supervisor: Prof Raewyn Connell Associate Supervisor: Assoc Prof Ian Kerridge


Career development of highly-skilled graduate returnees in China: A case study of graduates from the University of Sydney.

Jie Hao – 4.05pm, Room 435 The rationale for this research is to investigate the interrelationships between Australian higher education and the career development of highly-skilled mainland Chinese graduates after their return to China, a cosmopolitan and changing environment which challenges the dynamic changing world through its rapid economic growth.

In 1978, the announcement of China's Open Door policy precipitated China's entry into the international educational market as it began sending students abroad. Since then, the number of returnees has grown rapidly. The phenomenon of foreign-educated graduates returning home to secure their career development has developed in parallel with China’s economic boom. As the number of Chinese students studying in Australia and then returning to China on graduation, their career development has become one of the key issues that concerns stakeholders such as university staff and the returnees’ parents.

This research aims to understand the main influences on returnees’ career development. The research applies case study methodology by focusing on a leading Australian university, exploring how the university has shaped the capacities and capabilities of the Chinese graduates and hence influenced their professional trajectories when they return home. It seeks to map the complex relationships between their career trajectory in China and the high fee they paid for international education in Australia. The research and conclusions of this study are likely to contribute to a larger mixed-method study in the future.

Supervisor: Professor Anthony Welch

Planning perspectives: A study of strategic leadership and planning in Australian universities, 2001-2011.

Tess Howes – 5.05pm, Room 435 This study will investigate strategic leadership and planning in Australian universities. Few scholarly studies have been conducted in this area, yet the small amount of literature that is available suggests that centralised strategic leadership and planning in universities is one of the most difficult and controversial tasks undertaken by academic and professional staff (Keller, 1983; Keller, 1995; Rowley, Lujan, Dolence, 1997; Meredith, 1993; Keller 2007). ”..... management in education is still a concept that stimulates a negative reaction from many academics. As a result, organisations in higher education tend to neglect management concepts and practices .... Strategic planning is a new development of great potential ....” (Keller, 1983, p.vi). Australian universities, as complex academic organisations subject to constant waves of externally driven change, therefore face an organisational conundrum: they can either react proactively to the change initiatives and maximise the organisational outcomes by negotiating meaningfully with all constituent parts; continue to allow independent academic and professional units to lead change in a variety of different directions simultaneously, which can result in organisational chaos, institutional fatigue and financial stress; or wait for the age of professorial autonomy to return. This study will analyse the data collected during the 1st and 2nd cycle of Australian University Quality Agency (AUQA) public audits and draw on the experiences and perspectives of the first generation of staff who led the introduction of strategic planning in the Australian higher education sector. Supervisor: Assoc Prof Debra Hayes Associate Supervisor: Hon Prof Andrew Gonczi

Interactive systems that impact preadolescent children in out-of-school time.

Anna Johns – 5.05pm, Room 438 What preadolescent children do in the ‘space’ between school and home is of concern. This argument has an emancipatory aim. How children make sense of their experiences outside of school can inform discourse on children’s future-connectedness and the quality of their lives. Activity program evaluations typically acknowledge children’s reflections in terms of adult-centric indicators. The valuable insights into their time use that children can provide has not been explored in school-age care discourses in NSW. Yet this perspective may prove key to implementing effective support mechanisms during children’s approach to school transition. Preadolescents generate new knowledge through peer networks and online technologies. They reflect what engages them outside of school and how they understand their own best functioning in relation to the complex and conflicting processes among the worlds children negotiate: schooling, social networks, play and work. The means of exploring these processes is positioned in an ecology framework in this research.

Supervisor: Dr Jennifer Way Associate Supervisor: Dr Dorothy Bottrell

"Subjectivity" and quantumized-bovine-poo.

Nimal Ratnesar – 4.05pm, Room 438 In the educational and social research discourse subjectivity is often contrasted with objectivity: objectivity is said to be the province of the ‘positivistic’ sciences, while subjectivity the concern of social inquiry. Furthermore, it supposed that Quantum Theory, especially Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, has somehow cut away the grounds of even science’s claims to objectivity. This is then claimed as a victorious vindication by those who take and wish to promote a subjective constructivist view of educational and social research.

In this short essay we will deconstruct this claim and show that it rests on much subjective construction. Indeed the very irony of it all seems to have quite escaped those who seek to argue: Quantum Theory therefore subjective constructivism. In this regard we will investigate what Wellington & Szczerbinski (2007), Wellington (2000), Crotty’s (1998), Guba & Lincoln (1989) and Lincoln & Guba (1985) construct on the basis of their suppositions about Quantum Theory and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

Supervisor: Dr Jim Mackenzie Associate Supervisor: Dr Rachel Wilson


Conversations with myself: Inner reflections of a researcher.

John Scott – 4.05pm, Room 438 The research study “Professional learning in faith-based schools: A comparative study of schools of the Peoples of the Book”� draws upon a qualitative paradigm, recognizing the varying meanings and interpretations that teachers and institutions may have as the faith tradition of the school impacts on professional learning.

Denzin and Lincoln (2005, p. 3) define qualitative research as a “situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible”. I argue that there are, in fact, many worlds which intersect in a complex interrelationship. These worlds, which are individual, institutional, national/political and international, relate to both researcher and researched.

In engaging with this qualitative research, I recognize that the researcher cannot be value-neutral. Rather, drawing upon the work of Adler and Adler (1987) and Peshkin (1986), I bring to this research a variety of engagements, both professional and personal, which can be understood, and which I consider, through the dimension of “insider/outsider”.

In responding to the complex and multi-layered interaction in this research of personality, background and institution, the lens of “insider/outsider” provides a basis for a critical reflection both by self and of self, and enables me to articulate and adopt relevant aims which apply across the “insider/outsider” dimension.

Supervisor: Dr Ann Cheryl Armstrong Associate Supervisor: Prof Robyn Ewing

Rupturing the constructions of motherhood: The tools of tradie mums.

Louisa Smith – 5.05pm, Room 461 “Rupturing the mother: the tools of mothers in trades” explores ways in which women doing unconventional work rupture, resist or incorporate their work into their understandings of mothering. Manual trades, such as carpentry and motor mechanics, involve work and workplaces that are not only dominated by men but have been structured around and dependent on a strong virile working class hegemonic masculinity. Women entering this kind of work, therefore, immediately rupture the assumptions of this space. However, creating a rupture in their work place did not necessarily ensure similar resistance in mothering.

This paper explores how women in manual trades negotiated the strong social regulations of the good mother myth, some needing to abandon trades all together while others incorporated it into their maternity.

Supervisor: Prof Raewyn Connell Associate Supervisor: Dr Susan Goodwin

"All hearts contained in the research": Inclusive data analysis with young adults who have Down syndrome

Miriam Stevenson – 4.05pm, Room 461 Inclusive research is now a vital field of inquiry within Disability Studies. To date however, there is comparatively little published research which meaningfully and transparently charts the contribution of people with an intellectual disability to data analysis.

‘Voices for Change’, a project located within the Emancipatory Disability Research paradigm, seeks to identify what features of a ‘circle of support’ project enable young people with Down syndrome to work towards/achieve life goals.

The author outlines the ‘host’ project within which the study took place, the methodology, and our approach thus far. The focus of discussion thereafter is data analysis using thematic networks; a flexible analytic tool which has enabled several co-researchers who have Down syndrome to participate in coding and identifying themes within the data set and thereby contribute to modeling and theory development. An accessible account of the “research journey” is appended to this manuscript.

A global theme deduced from the collaborative analysis is described and linked with the image of a dynamic framework for the promotion of active citizenship of young adults with intellectual disability which emerges from the inclusive analysis.

Supervisor: Prof Barbara Fawcett Associate Supervisor: Dr Margot Rawsthorne

Talking about teaching - what's the point?

Kate Thomson – 5.05pm, Room 435 Communicating about teaching is vital to enhancing practice (Boud, 1999), is a key element of scholarship (Healy, 2003) and is thought to improve the quality of student learning (Trowler, 2001). Conversations between colleagues might allow academics to enhance teaching practice and learning quality by engaging more effectively in thinking about teaching (Putnam & Borko, 2000). Departments are the fundamental contexts in which academic staff work (Knight & Trowler, 2000) and this social context, or climate can shape and be shaped by the communication within it (Trowler, 2001). Roxå and Mårtensson (2009) found a supportive teaching climate led to an increase in the number of people staff spoke to and the significance of conversations. Collegial department climates have also been linked to excellence in teaching quality (Gibbs, Knapper & Piccini, 2009). The importance of localising development strategies to departments has been recognised, and academic development which includes elements which are located in departments is more likely to change practice (Blackwell & Blackmore, 2003). The opportunities afforded by conversations between department colleagues as a context for academic development have not been well-researched, and informal discourse has not yet been used as an enhancement strategy in academic development.

To explore the potential of conversationally situated academic development, academic staff working in different departments at an Australian research-intensive university were interviewed. Preliminary findings on their department climates, conversations about teaching and the usefulness of these conversations, will be reported.

Supervisor: Prof Keith Trigwell Associate Supervisor: Assoc Prof Simon Barrie

thursday 3 june 2010, 3.30-8pm faculty of education and ... · relationship between masculinity and...

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