Research into student engagement undertaken by the Fair Go Program has shown that high level classroom experiences and 'insider' processes can send messages to students that school is a place that works for them. This presentation picks up on this idea. It illustrates what these messages look like and sound like across what the program has named five 'discourses of power': knowledge, ability, control, place and voice. The illustration is in the form of the pedagogical approaches of an 'exemplary teacher' in the ARC funded Teachers For a Fair Go project. This recent project in the Fair Go Program involved intensive case studies of 30 teachers selected for the ways they engaged students in their low SES classrooms. The pedagogical approaches are presented by the classroom teacher and so offer grounded examples that are strongly informed by the program's theoretical framing around student engagement.
Abstract: