1997 Symposia

Compiled by Peter L. Jeffery.

Presenters: Bill Atweh, Tania Aspland and Julie Davis and others, Queensland University of Technology

This session presents learnings arising from three action research projects associated with PARAPET, a network of action researchers and projects centred around the Queensland University of Technology. The three projects reported here represent partnerships between university researchers and school teachers, parents and school students respectively. This session will discuss the possibilities of and difficulties that may be encountered from such partnerships. Multiple voices from participants will be heard during the session. Learnings about action research will be developed.

PAPER 1: ASPLT97.434

Conversing about research partnerships: Multiple ways of 'seeing'.

Tania Aspland, Ian Macpherson, Ross Brooker, Bob Elliott and others.

During the past five years we have been working as partners with teachers and principals exploring the nature of curriculum leadership in differing school sites. We have shaped the nature of our research in a way that is investigative as well as developmental for participants. We have tried to position our research subjects within our various projects so that we engage in critical collaborative research as we pursue the study of phenomena of mutual interest. It is our hope that all stakeholders within our projects will benefits from our joint efforts. In this sense, our projects highlight that research and staff development can be one and the same enterprise, and that it can be practical and emancipatory for all participants if it is a partnership model. Writing about such a process is easier than doing it. This presentation is designed to listen to the different ways of 'seeing' how such a process is realised in action. Through conducting a conversation with teachers and university lecturers who participated in the study we will highlight a number of stories about research partnerships. We will be asking each participant to share with the wider audience the nature of the partnership as they experienced it, teachers and university academics joining together to present multiple perspectives of differing research partnerships. A reactor who will be an integral part of the conversation will present a summary of the conversations with a view to identifying key propositions that might form the basis of further enquiry.

PAPER 2: DAVIJ97.435

Parents as partners for educational change

Julie Davis, Queensland University of Technology

Parents are an under-recognised resource for change in schools. This presentation examines constraints to parent participation in school decision-making and discusses some of the difficulties encountered when parents seek to become facilitators of change. An outline of benefits and opportunities that can arise when parents, teachers, administrators and the wider community engage in respectful, collegial, and shared decision-making processes will also be presented.

PAPER 3: ATWEB97.436

Student as partners: Possibilities and problems in action research

Alison Cobb, Louise Dornan, Bill Atweh, Queensland University of Technology

Recent national and state agendas for school change include calls for collaboration between different stakeholders in education. Students are not often considered as partners in proposed collaborations. Further, action research models have often been presented as effective means of nurturing such collaboration in the investigation of contextual, site specific considerations. This paper reports on an ongoing collaborative research between high school students, their teachers, university staff and community organisations toward increasing the access of under-represented groups to higher education. In the five years of its life, students from at least fifteen schools have taken part in the project. Specific cultural, social and gender groups were involved in investigating particular equity issues influencing access to university. in these, Aboriginal, Torres Strait islander, Samoan, ethnic, non English Speaking background, low socio-economic, rural, urban, single sex and mix sex groups of students were represented. This session will discuss dilemmas of collaboration with students and potentials for the employment of students as action researchers both for the students benefit and for enabling negotiating school change. The paper identifies some conditions that may assist the success of such partnerships and will include voices of the students themselves.

Presenters: Richard Bates, Deakin University, Kym Adey, University of South Australia and Barbara Preston.

The Project was commissioned by the Federal Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Employment, Dr David Kemp. This followed the recommendations emerging from the Chalk Circle Report on Teacher Education. The Project sought written responses to draft standards and guidelines for initial teacher education. The Advisory Committee also conducted national hearings to further expand stakeholder views. The final Report has focused on a framework for quality assurance. It has not sought to over regulate but rather to provide a basis for both rigor and diversity. The Report details organisational standards and qualities for the conduct of initial teacher education courses, program standards and qualities, and graduate qualities. It also proposes a national implementation procedure for the application and moderation of the standards and guidelines. More particularly it proposes that these procedures should be conducted by the professional stakeholders as a form of national quality assurance. The Report also proposes a mechanism for the maintenance, and dissemination, of exemplars of best practice in course design and delivery.

Presenters: Lori Beckett, Maria Parlotta-Chiarolli, The University of Sydney, Wayne Martino, Murdoch University, Gill Clarke, University of Southampton and Debbie Epstein, University of London

This symposium considers sexuality for teachers, girls and boys, and different groups of girls and boys, particularly the ways it impacts on their schooling and social experiences. Using material from a variety of ethnographic studies in Australia and the UK, all the papers take up teachers' and students' interests and experience, nut that is only the beginning. The 'cognitive goals' of gender work were perused in the tasks of the analysis: learning about the real lived experience of heterosexism and homophobia, sharing in the experience, and critically examining the existing culture and knowledge which sustain particular gender regimes.

PAPER 1: PARLM97.357

'Listen to girls': The impact of homophobia in girls and young women's lives

Maria Parlotta-Chiarolli, The University of Sydney

Based on girls' and women's writing and artwork submitted for a forthcoming publication on girls and young women in Australia, this paper will explore the negative impact of homophobia in the lives of culturally diverse girls and young women today. The paper will address this issue in two ways: by discussing the experiences of lesbian and bisexual girls and young women both in and outside schools; and by discussing the impact of homophobia on heterosexual girls and young women particularly as it affects gay, lesbian and bisexual family members and friends.

Thus, the paper will highlight two areas for further educational policy and practice: the need to address girls and homophobia as it has often been overlooked or considered less significant than the need to address boys and homophobia; and the implications of homophobia on girls in schools with gay, lesbian and bisexual family members and friends.

PAPER 2: MARTW97.358

Addressing homophobia in schools

Wayne Martino, Murdoch University

In this paper attention will be drawn to the ways in which sexuality is deployed within heterosexist regimes of practice in which adolescent boys enact a particularly oppressive form of masculinity. By drawing on interview data with a group of adolescent boys at a particular middle class school in Perth Western Australia, the role of homophobia as a mechanism for policing hegemonic forms of masculinity and enforcing compulsory heterosexuality will be emphasised. This will form the basis for arguing that attempts must be made to address such forms of violence in schools. The implications of this research for addressing homophobia in schools will be signaled within an overall framework of helping students and teachers to understand the extent to which sexuality is implicated in the production of valorised models of hegemonic masculinity.

PAPER 3: CLARG97.359

Differences that matter and indifference in education

Gill Clarke, University of Southampton

This paper explores how lesbian physical education teachers and students construct and maintain their identities within the English educative system. It is argued that these identities must be understood within their specific corporeal and cultural contexts. In illustrating how these women's lives and experiences have been silenced and erased, attention is drawn towards New Right discourses on homosexuality and in particular legislation in Britain which has sought to prohibit in schools the acceptability of homosexuality. Qualitative data generated from interviews and questionnaires with white able bodied lesbian physical education teachers and students are used to demonstrate how these women have felt compelled to conceal their lesbian identities and have employed strategies to resist heterosexual control and regulation. Finally it argues that our task is to understand and make difference(s) not only visible but also to recognise that difference is a civil rights issue, which requires a change in laws to reflect and acknowledge all our realities. In doing so it is claimed we need to (re)pursue the goal of social justice, eliminate the privileging of hegemonic heterosexual identities and thereby create a landscape that allows us to define our lives.

Teaching sexualities

Debbie Epstein, University of London

This paper reports on work for the book entitled 'Schooling Sexualities', co-authored with Richard Johnson. It turns the spotlight on to lesbian and gay teachers. In it, we argue that the apparently ever-increasing surveillance of teachers and schools is partly to do with anxieties produced by the seductiveness of the best teaching. In turn, the paper points to the ways that the best teaching is constricted by the punitive surveillance of schools teachers and sexualities. Any exploration of the stories of lesbian and gay teachers will involve narratives of constraint and punishment, but our central story in this paper is much more positive. It concerns the reactions of a class of primary school children when their teacher came out to them, the steps they took to protect him and their sophisticated analyses of the ways they (and he) had to negotiate homophobia as a fact of every day life.

Presenters: Margie Beck, Peter Gahan, Jan Glazier, Peter Howard, Wendy Moran,
Management Committee, and others for the Teaching Learning Consortium, Australian Catholic University

Overview:
During 1997 Australian Catholic University in co-operation with Parramatta Diocese Catholic Education Office, implemented a pilot program which focussed on establishing a model for teacher education students to learn about teaching and learning in the workplace environment of school. Two cohorts involving 40 Year 2 Bachelor of Education [Primary] and 20 Graduate Diploma of Education [Secondary] students across nine primary and four high schools were involved in the pilot. The program took place during Autumn semester and Autumn/Spring semesters respectively.

PART 1: Development and nature of the Teaching/Learning Consortium

The symposium traces the development of the program during 1996 highlighting some of the negotiating processes between the university staff, students and the education system involved. Changes to the conceptualisation of the venture during the planning stage of development are presented in light of new understandings about the roles of the consortium and the different stakeholders involved in it.

PART 2: From expectations to outcomes.

The symposium addresses the stated expectations of those involved at the beginning of the program and compares these to the outcomes identified at the program's conclusion.

The purposes of the consortium include:

• promoting enquiry into teaching and learning in both school and University;
• facilitating link between theory and practice in education;
• enhancing relationships among teachers, teacher educators and beginning teachers;
• increasing the opportunity for structured reflective practice in school and University.

The emerging roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and the reflective nature of the participants' learning are identified and explored through an analysis of journal entries and other data. The emphasis on collaborative work in schools and new forms of professional learning is highlighted. Stakeholders' perceptions of the implementation of the initiative are presented in this section of the symposium.

PART 3: Benefits, challenges and issues

Finally, the symposium addresses questions related to changes in the roles of university and school staff, students' professional learning in schools and enriching learning environments for teachers and their students are considered. Structural aspects of the program are considered, such as student assessment and workload, and school practices are discussed. In this analysis the benefits of the teaching learning consortium are presented. Implications for the future of such a collaborative venture are raised.

Presenters: Jill Blackmore, Deakin University, Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney, Carmen Luke, University of Queensland, and Denise Kirkpatrick, University of Technology, Sydney

Overview:
This symposium addresses the changing nature of academic work in higher education in Australia and Asia. Feminist work on women in leadership has tended to concentrate upon the 'glass ceiling' as a universalising discourse impeding women's access to leadership rather than the context of educational work in the restructured university. In so doing, it has ignored critical elements of how women construct their work identity around performativity and self management in the context of radical and rapid organisational change and how this differs across cultural contexts. The papers include:

• Women academic's work identity and the psychic economy of restructured universities
• Cultural difference and glass ceiling politics
• Women's research as performance: Performing what?
• Interview as therapy / research.

PAPER 1: BLACJ97.496

Women academic's work identity and the psychic economy of restructured universities

Jill Blackmore, Deakin University and Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney

Education has been restructured to more closely fit national economic imperatives. This paper examines how organisational theory has sought to channel a range of energies, intellectual and emotional, towards organisational ends--the human relations movement of the 1940s, to human resource management of 1980s and management by 'stress' in the 1990s. The paper explores Roper's (1994) notion that organisations have psychic economies--a concept which goes beyond the individualised psychological concept of stress or management concept of corporate culture which treats negative emotions (anger fear etc ) particularly manifest in times of radical and rapid change. More negative emotions are treated as psychological pathologies and something to be ignored. In turn, these emotions tap into the gendered construction of emotion and work identity formation. The paper raises issues of alienation and belonging, and how universities, paradoxically, in seeking to exploit the very passions that academics bring to their work are producing psychic economies through a range of disciplinary technologies (eg. performance management) which inhibit not facilitate productivity. In particular, it focuses upon how the psychic economy impacts on decisions by academic women about their commitment to and possibilities for academic careers. The paper draws from a Large ARC on Women, Educational Restructuring and Leadership which has undertaken cross sectoral studies in schools, universities and TAFEs.

PAPER 2: LUKEC97.497

Cultural difference and glass ceiling politics

Carmen Luke, University of Queensland

This presentation reports on part of a larger study on women in higher education management in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Here a case of 10 women in the Singapore tertiary education sector is presented. The overall aim of the study is to insert 'cultural difference' into debates about glass ceiling politics. Data is presented that shows how the complex layering of postcolonial history, cultural structures, values and practices, state legislation of 'family values', and the demographic/geographic conditions of Singapore mediate and shape Singaporean gender politics and women's career aspirations and opportunities.

PAPER 3: KIRKD97.498

Women's research as performance: Performing what?

Denise Kirkpatrick, University of Technology Sydney

This paper explores what it means to be a woman researcher in a post-Dawkins university. How do women construct themselves as researchers and the research act, in a university context which has clear performance expectations regarding the form and function of research? How do they respond to the surveillance mechanisms imposed by the higher education system? Universities can be seen as places of performance: the performance of teaching, administration and research . For many women who do not know the 'code', the university is a place of unrehearsed, unpractised research performance. What is the reality of women as researchers (with less cultural and symbolic capital) in the changing university setting? Lyotard's (1984) notion of performativity will be used as a schematising framework to explore the research experiences of two groups of women academics.

PAPER 4: SACHJ97.499

Interview as therapy: For whom?

Judyth Sachs, University of Sydney, and Jill Blackmore, Deakin University

While there is recognition that researchers can neither be the objective impartial observers nor become fully immersed in the culture of the organisations in which they undertake research, for feminist academics doing qualitative research in educational organisations undergoing radical restructuring, and in particular in universities, the sites of their own work identity and educational practice, the relationship between the participants in the interview process is complex. This paper explores the personal, professional and political relationships underpinning the 'conversational' interview process when feminist researchers interview female academics. It highlights the blurring of the boundaries between the interviewers and interviewees stories, and how in the context of radical restructuring, interviews take on a therapeutic aspect for all participants. The paper draws from a Large ARC on Women, Educational Restructuring and Leadership which has undertaken cross sectoral studies in schools, universities and TAFEs.

Presenters: Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University, Bill Green, Deakin University and Alison Lee, University of Technology, Sydney

The phenomenon of the professional doctorate has increased from a starting trickle in 1991 to a situation where 28 Universities currently offer them in almost the full range of disciplines in universities (Jongeling 1996; Maxwell and Shanahan 1996). Research on the new doctorate to date has tended to be basic/descriptive in orientation, focusing either on analysing contexts and debates in the development of the award and its sponsoring policy initiatives or providing description of approaches taken, particularly the balance between coursework and research. This symposium problematises current and planned practice in professional doctorates, following research undertaken across three universities (CQU, Deakin, UTS) into pedagogy, policy and the place of professional practice in the professional doctorates. The three foci make it possible to reconceptualise the task and significance of the professional doctorate in higher education.

PAPER 1: BRENM97.454

The challenges of changing professionalism for the development of the professional doctorate

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

There is a considerable body of historical work on the development of professions (Collins, 1979; Larson, 1977, Popkewitz and Simola, 1996 ), and the term is used to describe the confluence of expertise, legitimated through qualification and a community of practice. The introduction of the professional doctorate can be seen as an important strategy by the university sector to alter its expertise and authority structures in relation to the professions, at a time when those relations have been made problematic.

The gatekeeping role over information and knowledge has until recently been largely organised through the universities. However, new global information technologies have now challenged the nexus of professional licensing and qualifications - a nexus which has been kept relatively stable for the past century. This shift in potential control over knowledge has significant implications, this paper argues, for university work, especially in relation to postgraduate research work in the context of professional doctorates.

PAPER 2: GREEB97.455

Theorising the professional doctorate: Representation, practice and the curriculum problem in postgraduate education

Bill Green, Deakin University

This paper explores what counts as the object of the professional doctorate, ie 'professional practice' and how it is represented in and by the curriculum, with specific reference to research on three disciplines: nursing, engineering and education. Such a concern has been called 'the representation problem' (Lundgren 1991) and described subsequently as the 'curriculum problem'. To date, however, little explicit attention has been given to matters of theory in professional doctorate circles (see Green and Lee, 1996); rather, attention has been on policy- and market-driven program development, following changes in the constitution and focus of Australian universities and new emphasis on accountability, efficiency and productivity in postgraduate education. While in their rationales, professional doctorates seem to have in common the improvement of professional practice, as yet an adequate account of what might be understood as professional practice is lacking, as is an understanding of the changes already occurring for professions themselves. Attention to researching matters of curriculum and pedagogy, in the specific instance of the professional doctorate, provides for more adequate theoretical accounts and theorised understandings of key notions such as in this instance 'professionalism' and 'practice'. This paper begins to address these matters with respect to the professional doctorate in Australia.

PAPER 3: LEEA97.456

Supervision pedagogy as co-production

Alison Lee, University of Technology, Sydney

Pedagogy has for long been the absent presence in debates on postgraduate work, and the professional doctorate is no exception. Research on postgraduate supervision as pedagogy is currently underway, focusing on the PhD (Lee, Green and Johnson 1997). The professional doctorate constitutes a further problematic in this field, given that the knowledge base for pedagogic practices is of a particular hybrid nature. That is, the focus on the teaching of research that is oriented to the workplace, as occurs in the professional doctorate, makes quite different demands of postgraduate pedagogy (Lee and Green, 1995). This paper draws on recent research into academic literacy and co-production in tertiary study in academic literacy work, as well as on current research on the development of the professional doctorate in the disciplines of Engineering, Education and Nursing. It presents a case for thinking about the development of the professional doctoral pedagogy as a pedagogy of 'co-production'.

Presenters: Marie Brennan, Chris Bigum and Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

The three papers represent an ongoing conversation on the development of appropriate ways of theorising the role of computers in educational administration. Drawing on major social theoretical concerns with power, globalisation, and practice, all three papers use as a starting point the interaction between technologies and humans as shaping one another in an active network of power relations. The papers each take a different approach in exploring the potential contribution of major theoretical works to research on computers in educational administration settings specifically and in general. The work of Foucault, Bourdieu and Latour form the core of these theoretical developments.

PAPER 1: BRENM97.477

Exploring explanations for the networked educative state

Marie Brennan, Central Queensland University

A recent upsurge of interest in theorising technology has not been accompanied by contributions from the field of educational administration, where work reliant on the new information technologies has become daily more central in defining that work and relations with state education systems and other schools. This paper brings together key social theorists to extend the work of Bigum and Green (1995) in their invitation to explore "Managing Machines". A practice-oriented approach, drawing in particular on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and the school of Actor Network Theory (ANT), using Bruno Latour as its 'spokesperson, is developed, with productive interaction with Foucault's notion of power as productive rather than repressive contributing to the framework. Particular critical incidents drawn from school- and system-based research are used to develop key theoretical issues for educational administrative practice and theorising about new technologies. A more appropriate sociology of schooling technology is able to address the ways in which administrators and technologies are interacting to create new forms of practice, articulated differently with other practices, including old forms of educational administrative practice.

PAPER 2: BIGUC97.478

The leviathan and the network

Chris Bigum, Central Queensland University

This paper reports an actor-network account of the implementation and use of a school management system in a school. It offers a detailed exploration of the assembling of human and non-human actants into a stable network. Rather than relying on pre-existing categories as a basis for explanation, actor-network theory requires the researcher to explore the origins and uses of categories in the development of sociotechnical systems. Rather than relying upon a human-centric view of the processes associated with system implementation, actor-network theory employs a radical principle of symmetry which transgresses the human-non-human boundary and treats humans and non-humans as simple, equivalent elements in chains. For Latour, each actor, human or non-human is invested with a 'will' with which to make 'other elements dependent upon itself and translate their will into a language of its own'.

This study identifies the complexities and difficulties in implementing computer-based administrative systems in government schools across a state.

PAPER 3: ISDAL97.479

Theorising new work practices in educational administration: The case of School Management System (SMS) in Queensland

Lindy Isdale, Central Queensland University

Since the 1980s, as global politics has become increasingly manifest in school policy, the work of school administrative staff has become increasingly technologised. The new computerised School Management System (SMS), introduced into Queensland schools in 1996, is not an adjunct to existing administrative practices but requires new administrative attentions and practices to be developed in school offices. These changes have received little attention from researchers to date but, nevertheless, are of far more significance to our understandings of schools as workplaces than are the more frequent generalised studies of corporatisation and globalism.

This paper draws on aspects of a larger study of school administrations and SMS, looking specifically at the initial stages of its introduction and the newly emerging work practices and relations which arise out of workers' associations with the new technology. The paper investigates the use of Latour's Actor Network Theory, Foucault's concept of power/knowledge and post-fordist work theory to explore the translations which occur between large policy networks and the local school SMS project as workers and technology seek to enrol one another in their respective interests. The study is then able to specify concrete associations and new work practices, thereby building new ways to interrogate the broader globalisation literature and that of educational administration.

Chairperson: Susan Groundwater-Smith, Educational Research and Development Services

Discussants: David Kirk, The University of Queensland, and Sue Johnston, University of Canberra

Participants: Ross Brooker, Ian Macpherson and Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology, Jim Butler, The University of Queensland and Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Overview: Issues related to research methodology in education are currently underrepresented in Australian conferences and writing. This symposium, focused on a number of central issues in qualitative research, is intended to initiate and stimulate ongoing debate and discussion for research in the Australian context. It focuses on issues related to purposes of research, relationships in research, and research outcomes. The symposium is designed such that five speakers will each make a short presentation which is to followed by reactions from two discussants. This will be followed by audience interaction with the presenters, discussants and each other. The symposium will be facilitated and summed up by the chairperson.

PAPER 1: BUTLJ97.301

Jim Butler, The University of Queensland

This paper will address specific issues in the general problem of meaning making in the interpretive qualitative research paradigm. It will be a discussion derived from my personal practical knowledge of participating in such research. It will centre around three questions that I have found in my journey: the metaphysical question of the oneness of Being and therefore each single instance being implicitly revelatory of Being; the role of the Ladder of Inference in research methods; and finally, is it endemic to qualitative research to reveal changed perspectives?

PAPER 2: LANKC97.302

The moral consequences of what we construct through qualitative research

Colin Lankshear, Queensland University of Technology

By its very nature, qualitative research generates a wide range of issues concerning moral consequences of the research act. While some of these issues apply in common to non-qualitative research approaches, others are more or less distinctive to qualitative research, and others again take on distinctive forms or aspects within qualitative inquiry. This paper will emphasise dimensions and types of moral consequences that are more or less distinctively associated with qualitative research. It will draw on a concept of morality framed in terms of rights and obligations relating to matters of human good and harm. Moral consequences will be explored from "front end", "back end" and "within research" perspectives. Consequences of "commission" and "omission" will be identified, with reference to research processes as well as research products. Rights and obligations impinging on human good and harm will be explored in relation to "the researched", "the researcher's craft", "the consumers of research", "the wider community/common good", "the researcher's colleagues/ community", and "the researcher her/himself".

PAPER 3: HAYNF97.303

The relationship between knowledge, purpose and qualitative research design

Felicity Haynes, The University of Western Australia

Qualitative research is distinguished from quantitative research not simply because one contains values and the other doesn't; not simply because one is subjective and the other objective, or because one is based on opinion and the other on facts. Even some ethnographic and phenomenological research may be excluded from a qualitative conceptual frame on the grounds that it pretends to offer fixed and value-neutral meanings. Because the epistemology of qualitative research presumes a search for meanings rather than truth, it is driven by human purposes which have constrained what count as salient features. Poststructuralists and critical theorists alike have persuaded most people that descriptive empirical frames which deny purpose are rendering values invisible rather than evading them. Even hermeneuticists can present research as though the meanings were fixed. This paper will present several research examples from education, including case studies, surveys and interviews to show how different renderings of human purposes and interests shape the style of research method chosen.

PAPER 4: BROOR97.304

Interpreting qualitative data and report writing: profiling the researcher or the research?

Ross Brooker and Ian Macpherson, Queensland University of Technology

Authors such as Lincoln and Guba (1985), Merriam (1989), and Miles and Huberman (1984) point out that qualitative research is to make a difference then it must contain well-grounded, thick, and rich descriptions. Simmt (1997) in a recent paper reminds us that although these same authors suggest how this can be achieved, "it is an unusual text that manages to preserve the complexity and integrity of the event or phenomenon the researcher is attempting to understand using qualitative data." Often the outcomes of the research are reported as abstract rules and generalisations which "... do not have a face, nor a repertoire of actions" (Kessels and Korthagen, 1996, p. 21). The research outcomes too often say more about the persons who interpret the data and write up the research than the research itself. The process becomes a "hermenuetic of self-indulgence" (Smith, 1997). The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the researcher in interpreting and reporting qualitative research.

PAPER 5: GOREJ97.305

Who has the authority to speak about practice and how does it influence educational inquiry?

Jennifer Gore, University of Newcastle

While philosophical scholarship and empirical research are frequently presented as discrete activities, I argue that both are essential to a project such as developing a theory of pedagogy. Functions and limits of philosophical work are outlined as background to my argument for systematic data gathering about power's operation in pedagogy. For too long, now, pedagogical theorists have neglected systematic observations of the very phenomena they are attempting to understand. Drawing upon work which is primarily philosophical in character from both radical pedagogy and Foucauldian literature, an empirical study is outlined. Examples are presented which demonstrate the benefits to be gained from employing both types of intellectual activity.

Chairperson: Derek Colquhoun, Deakin University

Participants: Dev Mukherjee, Australian Centre for Equity through Education, and Louise Rowling, University of Sydney

Overview: This symposium will be the first opportunity for those from the Australian Health Promoting Schools Association, the Australian Association for Research in Education and The Centre for Equity Through Education to discuss their common interest - changing schools within changing contexts. The concepts of the Health Promoting School and the Full Service School have many areas of overlap including a state, national, regional and international history and advocacy and the foregrounding of the concepts of 'community', 'participation', 'supportive environment', 'diversity' and 'service'. However until this conference there has been no opportunity to relate the implications of the development of the two initiatives to a broader corporate managerialist and behaviourist context within which they are emerging. This symposium will address the background, research activities and priorities and challenges of both initiatives and will build on research already undertaken across Australia.

PAPER 1: COLQD97.311

The Health Promoting School as a rupturing discourse?

Derek Colquhoun, Deakin University

Depending on source and interpretation, the concept of the Health Promoting School has a history of about ten years. It is actively being promoted by the World Health Organisation and because of this the concept is popular in Europe, North America, and Australia and the Western Pacific Region.

In common with other projects that have emanated from the New Public Health movement (eg healthy cities, healthy workplaces), the Health Promoting Schools project is based on a settings approach which identifies schools as a place where students spend a large amount of time in their formative years. It is a place where they supposedly can be exposed to healthy practices and develop health enhancing skills and knowledge. Health in this instance is considered in its broadest form as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.

In this presentation I will use examples from official guidelines and policy documents to portray the concept of the health promoting school as an emerging, 'rupturing' discourse which supports the processes of governmentality, regulation and surveillance: processes which support the normalising of the behaviours of schools and school populations.

PAPER 2: MUKHD97.467

Full Service Schools

Dev Mukherjee, Australian Centre for Equity through Education

'Full service' may be the best term to convey the idea of schools as sites for access to a range of education, health and community services. Like that of Health Promoting Schools, the idea of Full Service Schools is not new and there are many interpretations. The Australian Centre for Equity through Education has been promoting the idea of Full Service Schools based on a set of guiding principles which bring together three significant reform movements: interagency collaboration, school reform and community development.

Throughout Australia and overseas there are many examples of Full Service School developments. In this presentation, through analysis of some of these examples I will illustrate how a set of principles can assist schools or community groups to develop a framework for the implementation and evaluation of site based collaborative reform and development.

PAPER 3: ROWLL97.475

Health Promoting Schools in Australia: the present and the future

Louise Rowling, University of Sydney

The health promoting school movement as a settings approach to health in schools, had its origins in Europe in the late 1980's. It arose out of comprehensive school health programs, and was extended by concepts from the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. This latter document states that health is affected by where people live, work and play. The Charter is underpinned by the principles of equity and participation.

The health promoting schools approach to health issues in schools adopted this year by the peak health research body, the National Health and Medical Research Council, is framed around three interdependent areas: curriculum, teaching and learning; school organisation, ethos and environment; and school partnerships and services.

This approach to health in schools is built upon education and health research and reproduces many of the current themes and debates in educational arenas. These issues along with a fuller explanation of the framework will be the focus of this paper.

Participants: Phil Cormack, Bruce Johnson, Judy Peters, and David Williams, University of South Australia

Overview:
The National Middle Schooling Project is a project of national significance which was established in a climate of collaborative investigation into Middle Schooling philosophy and practice. At the end of 1996 the Project established a research circle which involved four university colleagues working with teachers in six schools from around Australia to explore the implications for teaching and learning of authentic assessment. One outcome of this circles' work was a set of curriculum materials for use in Australian schools.

In this paper university colleagues from the Authentic Assessment Research Circle will report on various aspects of the collaborative research and curriculum development they undertook with school colleagues during 1997. In particular, presenters will focus on questions and challenges associated with making assessment "authentic" in the middle years, the significance of context intricacies in the development of educational projects and schools, and the tensions experienced by academics when they work with schools.

PAPER 1: CORMP97.225

Making assessment 'authentic': Questions and challenges for middle years research and practice

Phil Cormack, University of South Australia

This presentation will consider the ways in which authenticity is constructed in materials written for teachers about authentic assessment in the middle years. The concept of authentic assessment provides some real possibilities for teachers working with adolescents through allowing greater variety and innovation in curriculum and teaching. However there are also important questions to be raised, particularly for teachers in diverse communities, about who the assessment is authentic for and about what counts for authenticity. The implications of these issues for research in middle schools are considered.

PAPER 2: JOHNB97.226

Academics working with schools: Resolving the tensions.

Bruce Johnson and Judy Peters, University of South Australia

The Authentic Assessment Research Circle had "partnership" between university and school colleagues as a core objective. In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on schools and universities working in partnership in areas such as the practicum, school reform, curriculum development and the professional development of teachers and teacher educators. Inherent in the concept of partnership is the notion of a relationship in which there is a reciprocal exchange of expertise and benefits to both partners, but the reality of partnerships can produce a range of tensions for both school and academic colleagues.

This paper will report on the experiences of academic colleagues while working with schools in the Authentic Assessment Research Circle. In particular it will focus on the tensions which arose from the diverse expectations of the schools, the particular project, the university and the academics themselves, and how these were resolved.

PAPER 3: WILLD97.227

School research projects and context intricacies

David Williams, University of South Australia

Project management is an organisational approach to a defined purpose and to the accomplishment of specific achievements. Invariably, however, schools settings are complex environments which impact upon the progress towards and achievement of the specified goals.

Research in or about schools is rarely simple or straightforward. Clear evidence exists to indicate that the contextual intricacies of interactions between school-based projects and the wider school environment significantly influence the 'reality' of the research project. Even tightly-focussed school-based projects are seldom able to be quarantined from cultural factors in the wider school context, especially when the project implies the possibility of changes in the school culture. Yet the outcomes of a project usually do include expectations that change will occur or that something will be created; that different practices will develop; that different organisational structures and operations will eventuate. Therefore, undertaking educational projects in school settings presents researchers with the inevitable challenge of pursuing the specific project goals while at the same time negotiating the delicate and sensitive interface with the wider school culture. This paper draws upon recent experiences to examine and report on the significance of context intricacies in the development of educational projects in school settings.

Participants: Rhonda Craven, Ray Debus and Murray Print, University of Sydney, Herbert Marsh, Alexander Yeung, Andrew Martin, Roselyn Dixon and Lawrence Roche, University of Western Sydney, Frances Laimui Lee, Renae Low and Putai Jin, University of New South Wales

Overview: Self-concept theory, instrument development, and classroom practice are inextricably intertwined. Current advances suggest the time is now ripe for both researchers and teachers to forge new understandings beyond the dustbowl of previous research and, in the process help more students maximise their full potential. We examine new understandings of:

• the measurement, structure, and stability of young children's self-concepts;
• techniques to enhance academic self-concept and the related constructs of self-attributions and academic achievement;
• the effects of different programs on the self-concepts of Gifted and Talented primary students; and
• recent developments in self-concept theory and measurement.

PAPER 1: MARSH97.152

The measurement of physical self-concept

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

A positive self-concept is valued as a desirable outcome in many disciplines such as sport, health, educational, developmental, clinical, and social psychology. Self-concept and related variables are frequently posited as mediating or facilitating the attainment of other desired outcomes such as exercise adherence or health-related physical fitness. Researchers with a major focus on other constructs are often interested in how their constructs or interventions are related to self-concept. In this presentation a construct validation approach to the measurement of physical self-concept is described. Various theoretical models of the structure of self-concept are presented along with a brief historical overview of self-concept and physical self-concept research. The major focus is on research leading to the development of the Physical Self Description Questionnaire (PSDQ) including ongoing research involving elite athletes from the Australian Institute of Sport and Westfields Sport High School and from non-elite high school settings and the Australian Outward Bound.

PAPER 2: YEUNA97.153

Factorial validity of a Chinese version of the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQII)

Alexander Yeung, University of Western Sydney, Frances Laimui Lee, Renae Low and Putai Jin, University of New South Wales

This study examined the factor structure of a Chinese version of the verbal, math, academic and general self-concept scales of the Self Description Questionnaire (SDQII) administered to 494 high school students in China. Item scale correlations and reliability coefficients were good.

Confirmatory factor analysis showed that verbal and math self-concepts were positively correlated with academic self-concept, and with general self-concept, although smaller in size; but they were negatively correlated with each other. When Chinese and math achievement scores were included in the model, Chinese achievement correlated more highly with verbal than with math self-concept and math achievement correlated highly with math self-concept but not with verbal self-concept. Both achievement scores correlated more highly with academic than general self-concept. The results support the validity of the translated version of the SDQII and also the multidimensionality of self-concept.

PAPER 3: MARSH97.154

The lability of psychological ratings: The chameleon effect in global self-esteem.

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

An implicit assumption underlying Global Self-Esteem (GSE) scales (e.g., Rosenberg, 1979), is that GSE is a content-free, global measure of self-worth. In contrast, the chameleon effect occurs when the nature of GSE responses is altered by the content of other items in the survey. In three different studies GSE items were embedded within a broadly based multidimensional self-concept instrument or within domain-specific instruments focusing on academic, artistic, or physical self-concept. In each study, responses to GSE items embedded among items focusing on a specific self-concept domain (academic, artistic, or physical) were more highly related to that domain than GSE items from a broadly based self-concept instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis models demonstrated that the same GSE items embedded in different instruments measured distinct factors. The results have theoretical implications for how individuals form GSE perceptions and practical limitations for the interpretation of GSE responses in correlational and experimental studies.

PAPER 4: MARSH97.155

New times, new techniques for examining the separation of the competency and affective components of self-concept: A developmental perspective

Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Recently researchers have questioned whether there are additional subcomponents within specific domains of self-concept that change with age. In this paper we summarise the findings of two studies to identify whether competency and affective subcomponents of academic self-concept can be differentiated and to test whether their relation varies developmentally. Study 1 examined data from the SDQI normative archive. The results of Study 1 provide clear evidence for the separation of the competency and affective components of Reading, Mathematics, and School self-concept. Consistent with other research, there was clear evidence for the increasing differentiation of the academic self-concept facets over these preadolescent ages. More specifically, correlations between Reading and Mathematics self-concept (for both competency and affective components) decreased steadily with age. In apparent contrast to this general trend of increasing differentiation with age, the correlations between the competency and affective subcomponents within the same academic self-concept domain remained surprisingly stable over age. In Study 2 we extend these analyses in a multi-cohort-multi-occasion design in which children from each of three age cohorts each complete the SDQI on three occasions during one school year.

PAPER 5: CRAVR97.156

The structure, stability and measurement of young children's self-concepts: Advances in new times

Rhonda Craven, University of Sydney and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

For older children, there have been considerable advances in self-concept theory, measurement and intervention design. However, these advances have not been fully applied to research with young children. In particular, psychometrically strong instruments have not been developed for young children and the factorial structure of self-concept is not well understood for this age group. A new, individual administration procedure for assessing multiple dimensions of self-concept for young children 5-8 years of age was the basis of this study. We expanded this application in a multi-cohort-multi-occasion study. Reliability, stability, factor structure, and the distinctiveness of the SDQ factors improved with age and from one year to the next, but small gender differences were reasonably stable over age. Consistent with the proposal that children's self-perceptions grow more realistic with age, T1 teacher ratings were more highly correlated with student ratings at T2 than T1 and contributed to the prediction of T2 self-concept beyond effects mediated by T1 self-concepts. The results support and expand the surprisingly good support for the multidimensionality of self-concept responses for very young children using this new measurement procedure.

PAPER 6: YEUNA97.157

Gender differences in the development of English and Math constructs: Longitudinal models of academic self-concept and achievement

Alexander Yeung and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Gender differences in the development of English and math constructs (academic self-concept, academic affect, school grades, standardised test scores, and coursework selection) were examined using three waves of data from the large (N = 24 599) nationally representative NELS88 database of the U.S.A. Academic self-concept and academic affects had significant effects on subsequent school grades, standardised test scores and coursework selection, and these effects were domain specific in that English self-concept had positive effects on subsequent verbal outcomes and math had positive effects on subsequent math outcomes. Girls had higher scores for English constructs and math school grades, but lower math self-concept and affect. In contrast to the gender stereotypic model, relations between prior English and math constructs and subsequent English and math constructs were similar for boys and girls, and no evidence of gender differences in the development of either construct was found.

PAPER 7: MARTA97.158

Self-handicapping and level and stability of self-concept

Andrew Martin, University of Western Sydney

The present study investigated the relationship between self-concept and protective/enhancing manoeuvring in an academic context. Specifically, the relationship between both level and stability of self-concept and self-handicapping behaviour was examined in two academic domains amongst a sample of First Year Education students. Self-handicapping refers to behaviour in which an individual engages that can operate as a perceived obstacle to success. This is done largely to negotiate scenarios that pose the possibility of failure and for which there is now an available excuse (in the form of the obstacle) that deflects cause away from the individual's ability and onto something less affectively threatening. Self-handicapping may also operate to serve self-enhancing purposes: success in the face of adversity is seen to be more impressive. The study explored main effects of self-concept level and stability related to self-handicapping behaviour as well as the interaction between the two. Results are discussed in the context of self-worth motivation theory.

PAPER 8: CRAVR97.159

New techniques for enhancing children's academic self-concepts in educational settings: Advances in new times.

Rhonda Craven and Ray Debus, University of Sydney

Recent advances in self-concept theory and measurement provide a new basis for the design of powerful intervention programs that can systematically target self-concept and related facets to overcome the limitations of earlier research. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an intervention to enhance academic self-concept and the related constructs of self-attributions and academic achievement. The self-concept enhancement intervention was a combination of internally focused feedback and attributional feedback targeted at reading, mathematics or a combination of reading and mathematics self-concept. One class from each of the 8 participating schools was randomly assigned to be an experimental diffusion control group and did not receive either the teacher-mediated or researcher-mediated intervention. This control group was incorporated in the research design to test for possible diffusion effects of the teacher-mediated intervention to nontarget participants in the within-class control group. The findings provide support for: (a) the effectiveness of the intervention as a means to enhance self-concept particularly for treatments mediated by researchers, and mediated by teachers in single academic domains, and (b) the importance of including multiple dimensions of self-concept in intervention studies.

PAPER 9: LEEFL97.160

Testing the internal/external frame of reference model of self-concept with Chinese high school students in talented and nontalented classes.

Frances Laimui Lee, Putai Jin and Renae Low, University of New South Wales, and Alexander Yeung, University of Western Sydney

This study examined the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model (Marsh, 1986) with Chinese students in talented (N = 160) and average-ability (N = 335) classes. Confirmatory factor analyses showed support for the I/E model for students placed in talented and in average-ability classes. Path coefficients leading from Chinese achievement score to verbal self-concept and from math achievement score to math self-concept were positive and significant whereas paths relating nonmatching domains were negative, although the sizes of the effects differed across the two groups. The results support the multidimensionality and content specificity of academic self-concept.

PAPER 10: CRAVR97.161

New times, new programs for gifted and talented students: Impact on self-concept, achievement and motivation.

Rhonda Craven and Murray Print, University of Sydney, and Herbert Marsh, University of Western Sydney

Recent research based on social comparison theory has predicted that participation in specialised Gifted and Talented (G&T) programs will lead to declines in academic self-concept. This is problematic for the education of G&T students in that: a positive self-concept is valued as a desirable educational goal, arguments for the formation of special G&T classes are often based on their assumed positive effects on self-concept, and self-concept is frequently postulated as a mediating variable that facilitates the attainment of other desirable outcomes. In this paper the longitudinal effects of three types of programs for G&T primary students on students' self-concepts, academic achievement and motivational orientation are compared. Students who experienced a specialised program had lower: academic self-concepts in all facets measured, nonacademic self-concepts in all but one facet measured, and motivational orientation for 4 of 7 facets measured. No significant differences were present for academic achievement scores. The findings suggest that G&T students who experience specialised programs may experience a decrease in academic self-concept and motivational orientation in comparison to G&T students in other programs and this decline is not associated with significant increases in academic achievement scores.

PAPER 11: DIXOR97.162

Meta-analysis of research comparing children with and without disabilities on multiple dimensions of self-concept.

Roselyn Dixon, University of Western Sydney

This paper will present the preliminary results of a meta-analysis of research comparing children with and without disabilities on multiple dimensions of self-concept. Meta-analysis is a technique that can overcome difficulties in previous research with people with special needs. These difficulties include small group sample size of children with disabilities, lack of control groups, and poor conceptualisations of self-concept.

The theoretical background for the meta-analysis came from a review by Marsh and Johnstone (1992). The meta-analysis examined how differences in self-concept differed as a function of:

1. age,
2. the nature and severity of the disability,
3. the component of self-concept (e.g. social, physical, academic or general) and its relation to disability, and
4. the nature of the educational setting.

Implications of the findings will be discussed with reference to policy formation and factors to integration, and the processes involved in the formation of self-concept, its maintenance and change.

PAPER 12: ROCHL97.163

The mirror has many faces: The development of multiple dimensions of confusion and competence among preservice teachers

Lawrence Roche, University of Western Sydney

Advances in self-concept research have been pursued vigorously with students in a variety of settings. However, research on teacher self-concept typically follows an out-moded, globalised teacher "self efficacy" paradigm, despite an apparent dependence of students' learning outcomes on their teachers' self-concepts across a diverse range of curriculum areas. This study investigates the development of teaching self-concept in different curriculum domains and different teaching skill domains for preservice teachers over a three-year teacher education degree program. Selected profiles indicating relative "confusion" and "competence" across different domains (based on representative cases) are illustrated graphically. The stability of different profiles over time is also explored statistically. In order to assess whether self-concepts in the different domains become more or less differentiated as the students progress, confirmatory factor analysis is used to compare correlations among the multiple domains over time. Results reinforce the importance of taking a multidimensional approach to the study of teaching self-concept.

Presenters: Frank Crowther, Tony Rossi, Di Mayer, Peter Olsen, John McMaster, and Jon Austin, University of Southern Queensland

Symposium presenters will outline the results of research at U.S.Q into the meanings of social justice in four educational settings:

• school-based policy making - student and community perceptions of the influence of a School Advisory Council on socially just practices
• teacher networking - manifestations of social justice in different forms of school-based networking
• school-community relationships in a small, rural setting - the role of the principal in creating socially just school practice
• curriculum development in an 'intentional' independent school - the impact of "social vision" on teachers' professional practices.

Research findings will be discussed in the context of theoretical conceptualisations of social justice as these pertain to both traditional and postmodern scholarship.