Education and Social Science

This paper presents preliminary analysis on the implementation of a particular sporting program, the Australian Football League 'Kickstart' program and describes the role that physical activity has played in the development of lifeskills which include attendance at school and no participation in domestic violence and substance abuse. It outlines some of the difficulties that are experienced by Indigenous youth in a small community in the Cape York area of North Queensland. It highlights the status of many Indigenous youth as being 'at risk', due to substance abuse and domestic violence becoming 'normalized' behaviours. Further, the paper identifies the potential for the 'Kickstart' program to be used as a tool for reducing youth crime in remote community areas while simultaneously increasing opportunities for lifeskills development.

In recent years in tertiary institutions in Australia, there has been a large increase of enrolments in Education courses delivered via an online/external mode. This has raised a number of concerns around the nexus of theory and practice and whether pre-service teachers feel ready to teach after completing Education study online. The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers' perceived readiness to teach Health and Physical Education (HPE) after engaging with the subject fully in an online tertiary environment. 26 pre-service teachers studying education online from two separate were involved in this study. Upon completion of the University semester and also after a practicum placement, qualitative data was collected detailing the pre-service teachers' perceptions in regard to their readiness to teach HPE. Pre-service teachers' perceptions are used as the primary data highlighting the varying levels of readiness to teach HPE.

This paper presents evidence collected from an evaluatory study of the Kickstart program conducted by Australian Football League (AFL) Cape York in far North Queensland. The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the Kickstart program in meeting its overall objective of enhancing lifeskilIs of Indigenous Australians through participation in AFL. Evidence collected via interviews with Indigenous youth, parents, teachers and Kickstart stakeholders (including community representatives) suggest mixed meanings surrounding the interpretation of "lifeskills", and yet improvement in the education, attitudes and lifestyle choices of Indigenous youth in the selected Cape York communities.

This thesis presents a study of curriculum change processes in the key learning area of Health and Physical Education in Queensland, Australia. The study involves two different sites in the curriculum construction and implementation process: one the curriculum writing stage, the other the implementation stage in a secondary school. The researcher was a participant in the change process at both sites. The evidence that informs this study is drawn from specific document analysis, experiences, interviews, observations and journals of key participants within each site. r^ This study explores the notion of syllabus-curriculum-policy as socially constructed and open to contestation and struggle. It holds that curriculimi change processes, both at construction and implementation levels, are autobiographical, historical, social, i j cultural and political. Of particular interest are the agential possibilities and fib limitations in the curriculum change processes, thus micro-political perspectives of ,;-j; change are central to this study. i. '? e^~ • ^' •^ •"-3 i'3 Using Giddens' structuration theory (1984) as a theoretical framework, this thesis demonstrates the construction and implementation of a syllabus-curriculum-policy, where participants draw upon existing curriculum and institutional structures and personal philosophies and experiences-all of which shape their practices and occur within the temporal, physical and social contexts of the curriculxmi construction and implementation institutions. The structurational model of curriculum provides an analytical device to investigate and understand social interactions in the curriculum construction and implementation case studies. The explication of the interrelationship between curriculum, human agents and institutional practices is represented through the notion of duality of curriculum. This study provides a critical analysis of curriculum change that is both reactive and proactive. Using the structurational model of curriculum analysis, the quest for authentic change is brought to the fore in the concluding chapter. Authentic change presents a multi-layered frame useful for analysis of educational change processes. It proposes the need to understand the emotional and dialogical base of typologies of change for human agents, the interaction with institutional practices and properties, and that these processes are situated within temporal and spatial contexts. Through this frame, educators, teachers, administrators and stakeholders of educational change connect their personal beliefs, values and experiences with the organisational practices. It is a dialogical process and promotes an ethic of care. However, it also brings contestation and conflict. Such contestation, however, is necessary to understand the authenticity of actions.

Traditional Indigenous Games (TIGs) have been played in Indigenous Australian communities as a means of teaching children life skills as well as a general leisure pursuit. This paper presents the findings of a small study in one north Queensland public school, Australia, where school students engaged in TIG through their physical education (HPE) classes. Twelve regional games were introduced to students in years five and six. They were played in HPE classes with a focus on inclusivity and gaining an understanding of culture. A culminating TIG carnival was also conducted. Students reported that playing the games and participating in the carnival was a positive experience. All students described the nature of the games in traditional communities, not only as a means of teaching children life skills but as community social practice. Students' participation resulted in enhanced cultural knowledge and cultural significance.

This paper presents evidence collected from an evaluatory study of the Kickstart program conducted by Australian Football League (AFL) Cape York in far North Queensland. The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the Kickstart program in meeting its overall objective of enhancing lifeskills of Indigenous Australians through participation in AFL. Evidence collected via interviews with Indigenous youth, parents, teachers and Kickstart stakeholders (including community representatives) suggest mixed meanings surrounding the interpretation of “lifeskills”, and yet improvement in the education, attitudes and lifestyle choices of Indigenous youth in the selected Cape York communities.

In recent years in tertiary institutions in Australia, there has been a large increase of enrolments in Education courses delivered via an online/external mode. This has raised a number of concerns around the nexus of theory and practice and whether pre-service teachers feel ready to teach after completing Education study online. The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers’ perceived readiness to teach Health and Physical Education (HPE) after engaging with the subject fully in an online tertiary environment. 26 pre-service teachers studying education online from two separate were involved in this study. Upon completion of the University semester and also after a practicum placement, qualitative data was collected detailing the pre-service teachers’ perceptions in regard to their readiness to teach HPE. Pre-service teachers’ perceptions are used as the primary data highlighting the varying levels of readiness to teach HPE.

While professional courses have had a long association with work-integrated learning (WIL), issues around graduate employability, and insufficient interaction between university and industry learning and assessment, have led more recently to greater investment in WIL in the Higher Education sector (Goulter, 2007, Patrick et al., 2008). Guided by WIL principles of the Innovative Research Universities (2008), as well as notions of criticality in WIL (Billett, 2009) and hybrid spaces in teacher education (Zeichner, 2010), this paper explores the potential of an e-Portfolio to enhance graduate employability among pre-service teachers in a one-year professional program. The authors analyzed transcripts of interviews with key stakeholders — including Professional Experience Advisory Committee (PEAC) members, pre-service teachers, and program lecturers — as well as policy, curriculum, and course accreditation documents, and pre-service teacher work samples. Findings support the potential o...

This thesis presents a study of curriculum change processes in the key learning area of Health and Physical Education in Queensland, Australia. The study involves two different sites in the curriculum construction and implementation process: one the curriculum writing stage, the other the implementation stage in a secondary school. The researcher was a participant in the change process at both sites. The evidence that informs this study is drawn from specific document analysis, experiences, interviews, observations and journals of key participants within each site. r^ This study explores the notion of syllabus-curriculum-policy as socially constructed and open to contestation and struggle. It holds that curriculimi change processes, both at construction and implementation levels, are autobiographical, historical, social, i j cultural and political. Of particular interest are the agential possibilities and fib limitations in the curriculum change processes, thus micro-political perspectives of ,;-j; change are central to this study. i. '? e^~ • ^' •^ •"-3 i'3 Using Giddens' structuration theory (1984) as a theoretical framework, this thesis demonstrates the construction and implementation of a syllabus-curriculum-policy, where participants draw upon existing curriculum and institutional structures and personal philosophies and experiences-all of which shape their practices and occur within the temporal, physical and social contexts of the curriculxmi construction and implementation institutions. The structurational model of curriculum provides an analytical device to investigate and understand social interactions in the curriculum construction and implementation case studies. The explication of the interrelationship between curriculum, human agents and institutional practices is represented through the notion of duality of curriculum. This study provides a critical analysis of curriculum change that is both reactive and proactive. Using the structurational model of curriculum analysis, the quest for authentic change is brought to the fore in the concluding chapter. Authentic change presents a multi-layered frame useful for analysis of educational change processes. It proposes the need to understand the emotional and dialogical base of typologies of change for human agents, the interaction with institutional practices and properties, and that these processes are situated within temporal and spatial contexts. Through this frame, educators, teachers, administrators and stakeholders of educational change connect their personal beliefs, values and experiences with the organisational practices. It is a dialogical process and promotes an ethic of care. However, it also brings contestation and conflict. Such contestation, however, is necessary to understand the authenticity of actions.

By focusing on my bodily experiences as an Australian elite swimmer using an autoethnographic framework, this paper contributes to work on sociology and the body. It specifically focuses on the relationship between the regulatory practices of others on my body and my development of self-regulatory practices. I named these regulatory practices as 'ethnophysiological' as they were triggered in the specific social context of Australian swimming and were legitimated through "values packaged in a scientific wrapping" (Vertinsky, 1985, p. 73). Autoethnography, an "autobiographical genre of writing" (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739) has been utilized as it enables the reader to vicariously share my athletic experiences in particular my bodily experiences, bestowing a voice of authority to my body to reveal personal experiences, voices and feelings. Within this paper, I will re-tell my stories of being an elite swimmer. I will detail stories of enaction, coach and peer regulation and self-regulation occurring within the elite culture persisting my career over a nine-year period. I use Sparkes's (2004, p. 159) question in regard to embodiment to reflexively shape my analysis; "what do my memories reveal about the socialisation of my body" and draw on literature relevant to sociology and the body.

This paper presents a cutting-edge planning process that embeds authentic assessment, work-integrated learning, professional standards and e-Assessment in a Years 1-9 Graduate Diploma of Education course. The process is innovative in that it utilises an e-Portfolio to capture the evidence for assessment across all ten professional standards in core professional practice subjects, core curriculum subjects and practicum. The e-Portfolio also serves a purpose for teaching applications to future employers. The paper will outline the process undertaken to systematically plan for authentic and relevant assessment, templates developed for curriculum and assessment mapping, subject calendars outlining the explicit links to professional standards and assessment, and examples of the e-Portfolios. Further, the paper will present research undertaken to gain insights into students’ and professional advisory committee members’ perspectives of the process, authentic assessment tasks and e-Portfoli...

This systematic review synthesises research on curriculum alignment to suggest considerations for the implementation of the Senior secondary curriculum reform in Queensland, Australia. It focuses on the coherence of cognitive skills in the prescribed and enacted curriculum as these are typically the least aligned curriculum components. Search methods, which followed the PRISMA model, resulted in 108 relevant articles for qualitative synthesis. Results show that alignment after curriculum reforms is typically low. The use of educational taxonomies can support curriculum alignment. Marzano and Kendall’s (2007) New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives underpins the new Queensland Senior secondary syllabi which, in line with other Australian policy, encourage the explicit teaching of cognitive skills. Research is needed on the enacted cognitive skills curriculum in Queensland and its alignment with the reformed prescribed curriculum. To promote the successful implementation of the new Que...