PhD Thesis by Annabelle M Leve
"This study investigates the ways in which Australian state government schools have taken on a ‘s... more "This study investigates the ways in which Australian state government schools have taken on a ‘small but integral role’ in the much larger international education industry over the previous fifteen years, and the dominant meanings that have emerged through related processes of neoliberal styled commodification. International student programs involving full fee paying overseas students in these schools have been represented and promoted to both local and overseas audiences for different purposes but with the unifying theme of ‘success’. This publically available overriding discourse of ‘success’ however, did not always correspond with critical scholarly research. The aim of this study therefore, was to collect and consider sources of available knowledge about International student programs as a distinct part of a much larger industry, and to analyse and discuss the construction and representations of these programs. The study will contribute to a small, neglected, but distinct part of a much larger field of research; international education.
Critical literature about changing government policy and markets in education during the 1980s and 1990s provides a backdrop to the emerging privatisation and marketisation of elements of government provided state school education. The growing importance of economic globalisation in its internationalisation of education guise is also a key feature of that historical moment. International Student Programs in Australian schools have been considered in only a very small number of academic studies, with the majority of literature available that directly concerns these programs produced and disseminated by government departments. This particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature is considered as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge. Informational texts, government statements and media reports are also considered as other ‘in-between’ sources of knowing, since they fulfil different purposes and use different structures and modes to those that take a scholarly approach, or those developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing lack of independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the research undertaken in this study.
Utilising a cultural studies informed theoretical framework, this is a study of different ways in which the International Student Program as a recent cultural phenomenon has been constructed through the interrelated processes of production, representation, identity, regulation and consumption. A range of texts-as-data will be presented and analysed for this purpose. A discursive mode of organisation will be used to consider the dominant ways in which International Student Programs have been developed, understood, and spoken about in Australia.
This study offers a cohesive political, social and historical examination which has not previously been available, of the instigation, development and subsequent representations of international student programs for full fee paying students in Australian state (public, government) schools. By bringing together information that has only been available through a wide and diverse range of sources, the notion of the holistic Study in Australia experience is introduced and examined within three prevalent discursive formations: as a path to success; as an economic success; and as successful enrichment. This approach is enhanced with a comprehensive analysis of a range of representational data that continues to frame the different ways this program is understood and enacted by participants.
"
Published articles & papers by Annabelle M Leve
Research in Comparative & International Education, 2021
I am most grateful to be invited to write this commentary, and to have been able to read and enga... more I am most grateful to be invited to write this commentary, and to have been able to read and engage with each of the original and diverse submissions to this Special Issue, in response to the challenge put out by the editors. I found their perspectives, provocations and informed but open stance refreshing and exciting to consider new or different avenues to explore. I am writing from my perspective from Melbourne, Australia, after working, teaching and researching within the ‘international education sphere’ for over 20 years. I am a critical and reflective thinker who believes deeply in the importance of subjective experience/s, diversity/difference (in macro/micro contexts) and the importance of balancing this alongside the available ‘data’ and official statistics produced by a range of actors, with a range of intents. The structure I chose to use for this commentary relates to ‘personal interruptions’: thoughts that influence (or contribute to) my flow of ideas as I write. I use italics to identify these more personal and potentially problematic reflections, in an attempt to incorporate elements of the perspectives and personal interests that inform my practice and my work. I will always value the emergence of the author’s personal subjective positioning within a piece of writing and am grateful to be given the opportunity to practice and demonstrate my way of doing this in this commentary.
Education and Information Technologies, 2023
Blended Synchronous Learning (BSL) refers to when students located in physical classrooms learn t... more Blended Synchronous Learning (BSL) refers to when students located in physical classrooms learn together with peers who attend remotely, via networked digital technologies. The Covid-19 pandemic, along with ambitions to increase flexibility in learning delivery mode for students, has led to the increased implementation of BSL in tertiary education. The current evidence-base around BSL provides important principles for its use, but relatively little research has examined the experiences of teaching staff in depth. This article uses a self-study methodology to explore educators' experiences of BSL implementation in a postgraduate Initial Teacher Education course in Australia. Six teaching staff, all co-researchers for the study, contributed reflective data, and engaged in analysis and interpretation of the data via structured critical friendships. Insights related to four key themes were derived from the analysis: institutional and pedagogical factors; educator wellbeing, selfefficacy and professional identity; staffing support; and collegial professional learning. The implementation of BSL, while aligned with existing recommendations, produced significant challenges for educators in relation to institutional support and training, pedagogical practices, operation of BSL technologies, professional identity and self-efficacy. Cognitive overload was a prominent feature of the BSL teaching experience. On the whole, while drawing on existing skills and teaching experience, educators held significant concerns with the overall quality of student learning in BSL-especially for remote students. Training, practice, technical and co-teaching support, as well as collegial relationships, were important mediators of educator experience. The findings suggest that the implementation of BSL requires substantial investment in staffing, training, skill development, and opportunities for authentic, meaningful practice and prototyping. The findings also affirm the value of timely, organisationally supported and collaborative professional learning as part of BSL implementation.
Contemporary studies in the field of education cannot afford to neglect the ever present interrel... more Contemporary studies in the field of education cannot afford to neglect the ever present interrelationships between power and politics, economics and consumption, representation and identity. In studying a recent cultural phenomenon in government schools, it became clear that a methodological tool that made sense of these interlinked processes was required. The Circuit of Culture (the Circuit) was refined as a tool of cultural analysis by British cultural theorists in the late 1990s. This paper will provide a brief history of the Circuit, some of its applications and critique, and an overview of the way the Circuit has been utilised to explore a topical cultural phenomenon involving the commodification of international student programs in Australian government schools (Leve, 2011). This study draws on the Circuit to open the way for an exploration of the multiple interrelated processes involved in the construction and management of an education commodity. The Circuit emphasizes the ...
Australian education's position as an export industry has developed and matured over the last dec... more Australian education's position as an export industry has developed and matured over the last decade, benefiting from a strongly marketed, internationally recognised brand identity and government quality assurance mechanisms. However, through understanding this progression as a commodifying process, the identity and experiences of full fee paying overseas students and other participants are implicated through representational practices. Throughout this decade, a range of imagined identities for participants has been constructed and maintained through promotional imagery. The changes in how participants and their experiences are represented are closely aligned with neoliberal government policy shifts and an ever present, often artificial division between the education and the business aspects of this export service industry. Drawing from neoliberal, cultural and communications theory, the processes of commodification and related representations of Australia's international education programs are examined with a view to determine their possible role in building an ethical foundation into the promotion of this industry.
Contemporary studies in the field of education cannot afford to neglect the ever present interrel... more Contemporary studies in the field of education cannot afford to neglect the ever present interrelationships between power and politics, economics and consumption, representation and identity. In studying a recent cultural phenomenon in government schools, it became clear that a methodological tool that made sense of these interlinked processes was required. The Circuit of Culture (the Circuit) was refined as a tool of cultural analysis by British cultural theorists in the late 1990s. This paper will provide a brief history of the Circuit, some of its applications and critique, and an overview of the way the Circuit has been utilised to explore a topical cultural phenomenon involving the commodification of international student programs in Australian government schools (Leve, 2011). This study draws on the Circuit to open the way for an exploration of the multiple interrelated processes involved in the construction and management of an education commodity. The Circuit emphasizes the moments of production, representation, consumption, regulation and identity, and the interrelated articulations of these moments. It is found to be a useful and flexible tool for exploring the contemporary significance of, and possibilities for, the increasingly complex multiple modes and relationships of each of these significant moments in the construction and maintenance of an education commodity. The Circuit of Culture as a generative tool of contemporary analysis: Examining the construction of an education commodity
"The Study in Australia Experience in three (dis)courses.
The Study in Australia experience is f... more "The Study in Australia Experience in three (dis)courses.
The Study in Australia experience is familiar to many people worldwide in its marketed, packaged, or promoted form. Ways of understanding this proposed experience can be designated into three discursive formations; as an economic success, as a path to success, or as success through academic and cultural enrichment. This paper is based on a study (Leve 2011) that focuses on the ways the Study in Australia experience is promoted and understood as a key player in the global education industry that competes for international students from locations such as Vietnam. This phenomenon is examined through a cultural studies framework (Hall 1997) that considers the production, consumption, regulation, identity and representation of a commodity that I call the Study in Australia Experience (SiAexp). I argue that knowledge of the SiAexp is limited, partial, carefully managed and controlled from a top-down government/management level that has little relationship with education or learning itself.
"
"The Circuit of Culture (the Circuit) was refined as a tool of cultural analysis by British cultu... more "The Circuit of Culture (the Circuit) was refined as a tool of cultural analysis by British cultural theorists in the late 1990s. This article will provide a brief history of the Circuit, some of its applications and critique, and an overview of a recent study that utilizes the Circuit to explore a topical cultural phenomenon, international (full fee paying) student programs in Australian state schools (Leve, 2011a). This study draws on the Circuit to open the way for an exploration of the multiple interrelated processes involved in the construction and management of an education commodity. The Circuit emphasizes the moments of production, representation, consumption, regulation and identity, and the interrelated articulations of these moments, and is found to be a useful tool for exploring the contemporary significance of, and possibilities for, considering the increasingly complex multiple modes of each.
Key Words: Methodology, Cultural Studies, Stuart Hall, Circuit of Culture, Representation, Commodification, International Education."
""Australian education’s position as an export industry has developed and matured over the last d... more ""Australian education’s position as an export industry has developed and matured over the last decade, benefiting from a strongly marketed, internationally recognised brand identity and government quality assurance mechanisms. However, through understanding this progression as a commodifying process, the identity and experiences of full fee paying overseas students and other participants are implicated through representational practices. Throughout this decade, a range of imagined identities for participants has been constructed and maintained through promotional imagery. The changes in how participants and their experiences are represented are closely aligned with neoliberal government policy shifts and an ever present, often artificial division between the education and the business aspects of this export service industry. Drawing from neoliberal, cultural and communications theory, the processes of commodification and related representations of Australia’s international education programs are examined with a view to determine their possible role in building an ethical foundation into the promotion of this industry.
Keywords: Representation, ethics, international education industry, commodification, neoliberalism
""
"International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending A... more "International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending Australian state (government) schools can be understood as a ‘small but integral part’ of the much larger International Education (export) industry. The economic aspects of these programs and their business-like characteristics have required significant and ongoing investment into the building and maintaining of a reputation that epitomizes quality and success. Ball (2010) argues that particular types of knowledge that are key facets to new governance and ongoing reform of public sector education are increasingly created and sold to governments by the private sector. Documentation about ISPs constitute a case in which knowledge about increasingly demonstrates the power to organise that which it describes (p. 128).
Data is this paper draws from a study that investigates available documentation of the inaugural fifteen years of the ISP phenomenon (Leve, 2011). Through a cultural studies framed textually based analysis that considers the construction and representations of these programs, the study finds that the majority of the literature available that directly concerns these programs is commissioned, produced and disseminated by government departments. I consider this particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge since it fulfils different purposes and uses different structures and modes to literature that takes a scholarly approach, or has been developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing dearth of critical, independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the contention of this paper.
It is argued that the literature is limited and overwhelmingly advocatory in nature, and reiterates the need for more critically disinterested research into the phenomenon. The paper considers the barriers that exist in pursuing this aim and provides a critical overview of some of the sources and main types of information, as representational data that continue to frame the ways this program is understood and enacted by participants. The limited and carefully managed ‘ways of knowing’ the International Student Program as it has been and continues to be practiced in government schools can be seen to epitomize new modes of governance - of society, education and the economy (Ball, 2010)."
Reflections on literacy from a small island paradise
The Fine Print, 2005
Foreign Correspondence
Imagine wading across to your neighbour’s house for a cup of tea, or wait... more Foreign Correspondence
Imagine wading across to your neighbour’s house for a cup of tea, or waiting for the sea to quieten so you can catch the morning canoe to school. This is part of life in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands, one of the region’s most remote and poorly serviced areas. Annabelle Leve’s reflections on this island paradise are as much beautiful literature as they are challenging observations.
This paper is a work in progress, a moment in time of my bumpy but exciting PhD journey, inspired... more This paper is a work in progress, a moment in time of my bumpy but exciting PhD journey, inspired and informed through my ongoing reflexive practices and experiences. Informed by feminist postcolonial theory, critical pedagogy and critical applied linguistics, and drawing from a recent unique and challenging teaching experience in the Solomon Islands, this paper will address the following questions:
• What is meant by ‘assessing and meeting the diverse needs’ of English language learners;
• Whose needs, expectations, demands, interests, indeed, whose values determine what
eventuates in my classroom; and
• What does it mean to be ‘literate’ in a number of languages with no written form?
When researching the phenomenon of internationalisation, we are always having to adjust our think... more When researching the phenomenon of internationalisation, we are always having to adjust our thinking and responses to the rapid changes in the area. I maintain the notion of fluidity and
multiplicity in all aspects of internationalisation. In the previous
five years since I began working in the secondary school realm of
internationalisation I have seen a great many changes. Some
changes have been for the better, ‘Doing the Public Good’ and
some difficulties have been addressed to the satisfaction of ‘clients and providers’. However, I have always had a sense of discomfort, of being caught up in something that sounds good in theory, but jars in reality. This paper draws from my research, a work in progress, which is my attempt to interrogate the causes of this discomfort.
Conference Proceedings & Presentations by Annabelle M Leve
International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending Au... more International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending Australian state (government) schools can be understood as a ‘small but integral part’ of the much larger International Education (export) industry. The economic aspects of these programs and their business-like characteristics have required significant and ongoing investment into the building and maintaining of a reputation that epitomizes quality and success. Ball (2010) argues that particular types of knowledge that are key facets to new governance and ongoing reform of public sector education are increasingly created and sold to governments by the private sector. Documentation about ISPs constitute a case in which knowledge about increasingly demonstrates the power to organise that which it describes (p. 128). Data is this paper draws from a study that investigates available documentation of the inaugural fifteen years of the ISP phenomenon (Leve, 2011). Through a cultural studies fram...
International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending Au... more International Student Programs (ISPs) that include full fee paying overseas students attending Australian state (government) schools can be understood as a 'small but integral part' of the much larger International Education (export) industry. The economic aspects of these programs and their businesslike characteristics have required significant and ongoing investment into the building and maintaining of a reputation that epitomizes quality and success. Ball (2010) argues that particular types of knowledge that are key facets to new governance and ongoing reform of public sector education are increasingly created and sold to governments by the private sector. Documentation about ISPs constitute a case in which knowledge about increasingly demonstrates the power to organise that which it describes (p. 128).
Internationalisation in state secondary schools: sharing private stories (or) ~discomforts & safe spaces
"When researching the phenomenon of internationalisation, we are alw... more "When researching the phenomenon of internationalisation, we are always having to adjust our thinking and responses to the rapid changes in the area. I maintain the notion of fluidity and multiplicity in all aspects of internationalisation. In the previous five years since I began working in the secondary school realm of internationalisation I have seen a great many changes. Some changes have been for the better, ‘Doing the Public Good’ and some difficulties have been addressed to the satisfaction of ‘clients and providers’. However, I have always had a sense of discomfort, of being caught up in something that sounds good in theory, but jars in reality. This paper draws from my research, a work in progress, which is my attempt to interrogate the causes of this discomfort. "
Challenging Identities, Institutions and Communities: Proceedings of TASA 2014 Conference, 2014
Equity and Diversity are key elements in current Australian policy that impacts on teacher traini... more Equity and Diversity are key elements in current Australian policy that impacts on teacher training today (cf. AITSL, ACARA, MCEETYA, 2008). This is a critically reflective paper that asks whether raising critical consciousness (Hinchey, 2004) consequently has a place in contemporary teacher education. Discomfort is a crucial pedagogical element that is typically met with resistance and negative experiences and evaluations from a vocal proportion of pre-service teachers.
I became aware of the ‘Courageous Conversations about Race’ framework through the work of Glenn E. Singleton (cf. 2005) who facilitates memorable workshops that provoke such encounters and provide tools for openly encouraging this courageous conversation. Singleton suggests four agreements in engaging in courageous conversations: to stay engaged; to experience discomfort; to speak your truth; and expect/accept non-closure. At the same time, I became distinctly and at times rather frustratingly aware of the related ‘Disruptive Dialogues’ during my workshops for pre-service teachers in which I brought up areas of discussion that were largely construed as disruptive to the comfortably constructed worlds of my students in which discrimination, racism, sexism, and classism no longer existed, and were therefore not worth dwelling on. By bringing up these topics I was in fact, bringing them back into existence, rather than moving beyond them, as had they.
I contend that although many pre-service teachers will happily use the language of diversity, equity and social justice as expected by the aforementioned policy, few of them really want to experience the discomfort and disruption in effectively engaging in courageous conversations leading to socially just and ongoing action. This paper will examine examples of student responses and evaluations and my own reflections on critical classroom incidents, to consider the place of courageous and disruptive dialogue in contemporary teacher education.
This paper is based on a review of statistical data and research in the context of teaching and d... more This paper is based on a review of statistical data and research in the context of teaching and diversity, and my own observations over ten years of teaching from a sociological viewpoint to pre-service teachers in two different Australian universities. This paper will not take the common and too often generic and largely abstract approach of promoting the ‘valuing and respecting of diversity’, but concentrate on practices and beliefs that need to be more carefully considered for their impacts on the educational experiences of our students. Notions of diagnoses, (stereo)typing, intersections and ethically informed decision making will be discussed as they relate to understandings and impacts of difference within our educational systems.
I teach a number of subjects for pre-service teachers that utilize sociological viewpoints to examine issues relating to diverse classrooms. However, it seems to me that the issue of diversity must first be broached through taking a closer look at diversity in the teaching profession itself; the types of diversity present, the reasons for this, and the impacts on teaching and learning about diversity. Diversity in terms of my sociological viewpoint may include issues relating to the usual ‘all-encompassing’ race/ethnicity, gender, class and dis/ability, but rather than using these categories to provide ‘answers’, I am raising the fundamental questions relating to why these categories, and who benefits from this sorting/sifting process? My intention is to promote the need for my teacher/students to question their oft taken for granted privilege, and to consider the ways in which they can use these better self-understandings to reassess their own responses to and recognition of differences in their professional lives.
SIG: Sociology of Education
Prezi: The Circuit of Culture as a Generative Tool of Contemporary Analysis: Examining the Construction of an Education Commodity
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PhD Thesis by Annabelle M Leve
Critical literature about changing government policy and markets in education during the 1980s and 1990s provides a backdrop to the emerging privatisation and marketisation of elements of government provided state school education. The growing importance of economic globalisation in its internationalisation of education guise is also a key feature of that historical moment. International Student Programs in Australian schools have been considered in only a very small number of academic studies, with the majority of literature available that directly concerns these programs produced and disseminated by government departments. This particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature is considered as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge. Informational texts, government statements and media reports are also considered as other ‘in-between’ sources of knowing, since they fulfil different purposes and use different structures and modes to those that take a scholarly approach, or those developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing lack of independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the research undertaken in this study.
Utilising a cultural studies informed theoretical framework, this is a study of different ways in which the International Student Program as a recent cultural phenomenon has been constructed through the interrelated processes of production, representation, identity, regulation and consumption. A range of texts-as-data will be presented and analysed for this purpose. A discursive mode of organisation will be used to consider the dominant ways in which International Student Programs have been developed, understood, and spoken about in Australia.
This study offers a cohesive political, social and historical examination which has not previously been available, of the instigation, development and subsequent representations of international student programs for full fee paying students in Australian state (public, government) schools. By bringing together information that has only been available through a wide and diverse range of sources, the notion of the holistic Study in Australia experience is introduced and examined within three prevalent discursive formations: as a path to success; as an economic success; and as successful enrichment. This approach is enhanced with a comprehensive analysis of a range of representational data that continues to frame the different ways this program is understood and enacted by participants.
"
Published articles & papers by Annabelle M Leve
The Study in Australia experience is familiar to many people worldwide in its marketed, packaged, or promoted form. Ways of understanding this proposed experience can be designated into three discursive formations; as an economic success, as a path to success, or as success through academic and cultural enrichment. This paper is based on a study (Leve 2011) that focuses on the ways the Study in Australia experience is promoted and understood as a key player in the global education industry that competes for international students from locations such as Vietnam. This phenomenon is examined through a cultural studies framework (Hall 1997) that considers the production, consumption, regulation, identity and representation of a commodity that I call the Study in Australia Experience (SiAexp). I argue that knowledge of the SiAexp is limited, partial, carefully managed and controlled from a top-down government/management level that has little relationship with education or learning itself.
"
Key Words: Methodology, Cultural Studies, Stuart Hall, Circuit of Culture, Representation, Commodification, International Education."
Keywords: Representation, ethics, international education industry, commodification, neoliberalism
""
Data is this paper draws from a study that investigates available documentation of the inaugural fifteen years of the ISP phenomenon (Leve, 2011). Through a cultural studies framed textually based analysis that considers the construction and representations of these programs, the study finds that the majority of the literature available that directly concerns these programs is commissioned, produced and disseminated by government departments. I consider this particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge since it fulfils different purposes and uses different structures and modes to literature that takes a scholarly approach, or has been developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing dearth of critical, independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the contention of this paper.
It is argued that the literature is limited and overwhelmingly advocatory in nature, and reiterates the need for more critically disinterested research into the phenomenon. The paper considers the barriers that exist in pursuing this aim and provides a critical overview of some of the sources and main types of information, as representational data that continue to frame the ways this program is understood and enacted by participants. The limited and carefully managed ‘ways of knowing’ the International Student Program as it has been and continues to be practiced in government schools can be seen to epitomize new modes of governance - of society, education and the economy (Ball, 2010)."
Imagine wading across to your neighbour’s house for a cup of tea, or waiting for the sea to quieten so you can catch the morning canoe to school. This is part of life in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands, one of the region’s most remote and poorly serviced areas. Annabelle Leve’s reflections on this island paradise are as much beautiful literature as they are challenging observations.
• What is meant by ‘assessing and meeting the diverse needs’ of English language learners;
• Whose needs, expectations, demands, interests, indeed, whose values determine what
eventuates in my classroom; and
• What does it mean to be ‘literate’ in a number of languages with no written form?
multiplicity in all aspects of internationalisation. In the previous
five years since I began working in the secondary school realm of
internationalisation I have seen a great many changes. Some
changes have been for the better, ‘Doing the Public Good’ and
some difficulties have been addressed to the satisfaction of ‘clients and providers’. However, I have always had a sense of discomfort, of being caught up in something that sounds good in theory, but jars in reality. This paper draws from my research, a work in progress, which is my attempt to interrogate the causes of this discomfort.
Conference Proceedings & Presentations by Annabelle M Leve
I became aware of the ‘Courageous Conversations about Race’ framework through the work of Glenn E. Singleton (cf. 2005) who facilitates memorable workshops that provoke such encounters and provide tools for openly encouraging this courageous conversation. Singleton suggests four agreements in engaging in courageous conversations: to stay engaged; to experience discomfort; to speak your truth; and expect/accept non-closure. At the same time, I became distinctly and at times rather frustratingly aware of the related ‘Disruptive Dialogues’ during my workshops for pre-service teachers in which I brought up areas of discussion that were largely construed as disruptive to the comfortably constructed worlds of my students in which discrimination, racism, sexism, and classism no longer existed, and were therefore not worth dwelling on. By bringing up these topics I was in fact, bringing them back into existence, rather than moving beyond them, as had they.
I contend that although many pre-service teachers will happily use the language of diversity, equity and social justice as expected by the aforementioned policy, few of them really want to experience the discomfort and disruption in effectively engaging in courageous conversations leading to socially just and ongoing action. This paper will examine examples of student responses and evaluations and my own reflections on critical classroom incidents, to consider the place of courageous and disruptive dialogue in contemporary teacher education.
I teach a number of subjects for pre-service teachers that utilize sociological viewpoints to examine issues relating to diverse classrooms. However, it seems to me that the issue of diversity must first be broached through taking a closer look at diversity in the teaching profession itself; the types of diversity present, the reasons for this, and the impacts on teaching and learning about diversity. Diversity in terms of my sociological viewpoint may include issues relating to the usual ‘all-encompassing’ race/ethnicity, gender, class and dis/ability, but rather than using these categories to provide ‘answers’, I am raising the fundamental questions relating to why these categories, and who benefits from this sorting/sifting process? My intention is to promote the need for my teacher/students to question their oft taken for granted privilege, and to consider the ways in which they can use these better self-understandings to reassess their own responses to and recognition of differences in their professional lives.
SIG: Sociology of Education
Critical literature about changing government policy and markets in education during the 1980s and 1990s provides a backdrop to the emerging privatisation and marketisation of elements of government provided state school education. The growing importance of economic globalisation in its internationalisation of education guise is also a key feature of that historical moment. International Student Programs in Australian schools have been considered in only a very small number of academic studies, with the majority of literature available that directly concerns these programs produced and disseminated by government departments. This particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature is considered as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge. Informational texts, government statements and media reports are also considered as other ‘in-between’ sources of knowing, since they fulfil different purposes and use different structures and modes to those that take a scholarly approach, or those developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing lack of independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the research undertaken in this study.
Utilising a cultural studies informed theoretical framework, this is a study of different ways in which the International Student Program as a recent cultural phenomenon has been constructed through the interrelated processes of production, representation, identity, regulation and consumption. A range of texts-as-data will be presented and analysed for this purpose. A discursive mode of organisation will be used to consider the dominant ways in which International Student Programs have been developed, understood, and spoken about in Australia.
This study offers a cohesive political, social and historical examination which has not previously been available, of the instigation, development and subsequent representations of international student programs for full fee paying students in Australian state (public, government) schools. By bringing together information that has only been available through a wide and diverse range of sources, the notion of the holistic Study in Australia experience is introduced and examined within three prevalent discursive formations: as a path to success; as an economic success; and as successful enrichment. This approach is enhanced with a comprehensive analysis of a range of representational data that continues to frame the different ways this program is understood and enacted by participants.
"
The Study in Australia experience is familiar to many people worldwide in its marketed, packaged, or promoted form. Ways of understanding this proposed experience can be designated into three discursive formations; as an economic success, as a path to success, or as success through academic and cultural enrichment. This paper is based on a study (Leve 2011) that focuses on the ways the Study in Australia experience is promoted and understood as a key player in the global education industry that competes for international students from locations such as Vietnam. This phenomenon is examined through a cultural studies framework (Hall 1997) that considers the production, consumption, regulation, identity and representation of a commodity that I call the Study in Australia Experience (SiAexp). I argue that knowledge of the SiAexp is limited, partial, carefully managed and controlled from a top-down government/management level that has little relationship with education or learning itself.
"
Key Words: Methodology, Cultural Studies, Stuart Hall, Circuit of Culture, Representation, Commodification, International Education."
Keywords: Representation, ethics, international education industry, commodification, neoliberalism
""
Data is this paper draws from a study that investigates available documentation of the inaugural fifteen years of the ISP phenomenon (Leve, 2011). Through a cultural studies framed textually based analysis that considers the construction and representations of these programs, the study finds that the majority of the literature available that directly concerns these programs is commissioned, produced and disseminated by government departments. I consider this particular mass of ‘grey’ or ‘advocatory’ literature as a distinctive type of text with certain attributes that make it an ‘in-between’ source of credible knowledge since it fulfils different purposes and uses different structures and modes to literature that takes a scholarly approach, or has been developed purely for promotional purposes. However, the continuing dearth of critical, independent research and difficulty in sourcing creditable documentation provokes an interest in and provides an indisputable warrant for the contention of this paper.
It is argued that the literature is limited and overwhelmingly advocatory in nature, and reiterates the need for more critically disinterested research into the phenomenon. The paper considers the barriers that exist in pursuing this aim and provides a critical overview of some of the sources and main types of information, as representational data that continue to frame the ways this program is understood and enacted by participants. The limited and carefully managed ‘ways of knowing’ the International Student Program as it has been and continues to be practiced in government schools can be seen to epitomize new modes of governance - of society, education and the economy (Ball, 2010)."
Imagine wading across to your neighbour’s house for a cup of tea, or waiting for the sea to quieten so you can catch the morning canoe to school. This is part of life in the Temotu province of the Solomon Islands, one of the region’s most remote and poorly serviced areas. Annabelle Leve’s reflections on this island paradise are as much beautiful literature as they are challenging observations.
• What is meant by ‘assessing and meeting the diverse needs’ of English language learners;
• Whose needs, expectations, demands, interests, indeed, whose values determine what
eventuates in my classroom; and
• What does it mean to be ‘literate’ in a number of languages with no written form?
multiplicity in all aspects of internationalisation. In the previous
five years since I began working in the secondary school realm of
internationalisation I have seen a great many changes. Some
changes have been for the better, ‘Doing the Public Good’ and
some difficulties have been addressed to the satisfaction of ‘clients and providers’. However, I have always had a sense of discomfort, of being caught up in something that sounds good in theory, but jars in reality. This paper draws from my research, a work in progress, which is my attempt to interrogate the causes of this discomfort.
I became aware of the ‘Courageous Conversations about Race’ framework through the work of Glenn E. Singleton (cf. 2005) who facilitates memorable workshops that provoke such encounters and provide tools for openly encouraging this courageous conversation. Singleton suggests four agreements in engaging in courageous conversations: to stay engaged; to experience discomfort; to speak your truth; and expect/accept non-closure. At the same time, I became distinctly and at times rather frustratingly aware of the related ‘Disruptive Dialogues’ during my workshops for pre-service teachers in which I brought up areas of discussion that were largely construed as disruptive to the comfortably constructed worlds of my students in which discrimination, racism, sexism, and classism no longer existed, and were therefore not worth dwelling on. By bringing up these topics I was in fact, bringing them back into existence, rather than moving beyond them, as had they.
I contend that although many pre-service teachers will happily use the language of diversity, equity and social justice as expected by the aforementioned policy, few of them really want to experience the discomfort and disruption in effectively engaging in courageous conversations leading to socially just and ongoing action. This paper will examine examples of student responses and evaluations and my own reflections on critical classroom incidents, to consider the place of courageous and disruptive dialogue in contemporary teacher education.
I teach a number of subjects for pre-service teachers that utilize sociological viewpoints to examine issues relating to diverse classrooms. However, it seems to me that the issue of diversity must first be broached through taking a closer look at diversity in the teaching profession itself; the types of diversity present, the reasons for this, and the impacts on teaching and learning about diversity. Diversity in terms of my sociological viewpoint may include issues relating to the usual ‘all-encompassing’ race/ethnicity, gender, class and dis/ability, but rather than using these categories to provide ‘answers’, I am raising the fundamental questions relating to why these categories, and who benefits from this sorting/sifting process? My intention is to promote the need for my teacher/students to question their oft taken for granted privilege, and to consider the ways in which they can use these better self-understandings to reassess their own responses to and recognition of differences in their professional lives.
SIG: Sociology of Education
As a (former) teacher, mentor, homestay provider, and sometimes friend to teenage full fee paying overseas students (ffpos) over a number of years, I found little or no correlation between my lived experiences, and the available representations of these experiences that were constructed and used to promote and provide information about the ffpos programs. Nor did I find much empirical research with which I could relate to my experiences, both the mundane everyday issues, and the more challenging issues that arose. I worked incredibly hard in the belief that my role(s) was (were) a crucial factor in the quality of experience these students could have. I couldn’t fathom the gap between my lived experience of these international student programs and available data and representations of this experience. My research work therefore, has intended, in part, to address this gap. Examples of the more challenging and thought-provoking experiences were claimed back and re-presented as vignettes in place of empirical or ‘hard’ data. This paper explores a number of examples of ‘anecdotal vignettes’ that have been used in research, and the methodological questions that arise from this practice. I argue that although these types of ‘data’ can be used productively to better describe a context and inspire deeper consideration of complex issues, academic rigour requires thorough scholarly justification and that not all readers (or examiners) will be convinced of the value of anecdote in scholarly work.
Drawing from a personal experience in which I was faced with hard decisions about what and how to teach in an unfamiliar context, this paper will explore some of the issues that impacted on this decision-making, including understandings of literacy, language as identity, and the notion of resistances.
Whose needs, expectations, demands, interests, indeed, whose values should determine what eventuates in my classroom? Truly reflexive TESOL practice can help us to recognise and respond to this ever-important question, and never take an answer for granted.
I would be very interested in any contact - comments and/or feedback on this article, particularly from those working in related contexts.
KEY WORDS:
TESOL; reflexivity; teaching and learning; literacies; Solomon Islands; Pacific education; Feminist Postcolonial Theory; critical pedagogy; resistances.
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