Education Commons^™

Democratic Contribution Or Information For Reform? Prevailing And Emerging Discourses Of Student Voice, Jennifer Charteris, Dianne Smardon

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

While a range of typologies frame and critique the scope, purpose and power relations of different student voice approaches, it is timely to look at the direction that student voice literature has taken in recent years and map dominant discourses in the field. In the article the following questions are addressed: (a) What are the dominant discourses in student voice literature? (b) What are the ways forward, to ensure there is both systemic quality assurance and democratic (if not radical) student participation? The discourses named and interrogated in this article include: governmentality; accountability; institutional transformation and reform; learner agency; personalising …

Parent And Teacher Perceptions Of Naplan In A Sample Of Independent Schools In Western Australia, Shane Rogers, Lennie Barblett, Ken Robinson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Stories appear frequently in the Australian media regarding parent and teacher perceptions and attitudes towards the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy. However, thorough empirical investigations of parent perceptions are sparse. This study presents a survey of 345 parents across Years 3 and 5 from a sample of Independent schools in Western Australia. A representative sample of teachers from these schools were also surveyed in order to compare and contrast parent and teacher perspectives about the transparency and accountability associated with testing, the usefulness of results for helping individual students, and the perceived clarity of communication of results. Findings reveal mixed …

Integrated Co-Professional Evaluation? Converging Approaches To School Evaluation Across Frontiers, Martin Brown, Gerry Mcnamara, Joe Ohara, Shivaun O'Brien, Jerich Faddar, Cornelius Young

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper posits that almost all inspectorates are now following, if to varying degrees, a similar overarching ideology and methodology for school accountability and improvement. The first part of the paper provides an analysis of recent changes to school inspection policies across Frontiers. Using Ireland as a case example, the next part of the paper provides an analysis of Irish school inspection policies and practices that appear to mirror other school inspection systems. To test these assumptions, the paper then provides an analysis of a key informant interview with the Chief Inspector of schools in Ireland.

The evidence suggests that …

Freedom And Constraint In Teacher Education: Reflections On Experiences Over Time, Amanda Mcgraw

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher education programs in Australia increasingly comply with new and narrowing accountabilities so that they can be approved by diverse regulatory authorities and accredited. This is an auto-biographical narrative study which draws upon the memories of a teacher educator who contrasts her experience of learning to teach in the early 1980s with her recent experience as a Program Leader working with colleagues to design a new Master of Teaching program. She interviews Professor Bernie Neville who was responsible for the design and implementation of the teacher education program she completed in 1983. He reflects on the principles guiding his practice …

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher professional standards and accountability are today writ large on the landscape of both schooling and teacher education practice around the world. This paper explores some of the related debates through a discussion of four discourses on teacher professional standards: namely, discourses of commonsense, professionalism and quality, managerialism/performativity, and strategic manoeuvring. It is argued that each of these discourses legitimises particular understandings of standards and quality, illustrating the competing set of lenses through which they are viewed, as well as the broader ideologies from which they emerge, including neoliberalism and technical rationality. These discourses also represent the interpretive practice that …

Managing Change In Schools: A Review Of The Western Australian Project, Rod Chadbourne

Research outputs pre 2011

In 1987, the Ministry of Education released a report entitled 'Better Schools in Western Australia: A Program for Improvement'.l It outlined radical proposals to make schools more self-determining and accountable. Although much of the program has yet to be put into effect, the plan and steps taken to implement it caused a major upheaval not only to the system but also to people working in it. For example: the managers of change invested a huge amount of work and worry in the whole process; some of the 'victims' of change suffered personally and professionally; and a lot of those in …