Resistance and contestation
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Encylopedia of curriculum studies p. 746-747
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
A culture of teaching under 'new management'
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2001
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The performing school : managing, teaching, and learning in a performance culture p. 118-136
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
The Deakin experience: discovery crafting and finessing a critical perspective with which to speak back
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Education, social justice and the legacy of Deakin University: Reflections of the Deakin Diaspora p. 173-185
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: I will start at the beginning—even though I am sorely tempted to start from where I am at the moment and work backwards. There is a bit of history that is important to understanding my story.
- Description: 2003009321
The self-managing school and social justice: Are they on the same planet?
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2001
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: School Field Vol. 12, no. 3 (2001), p. 71-90
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The self-managing school is an educational reform that seems to have developed the status of reform 'we had to have'. Regardless of whether it was in the educational interests of schools or not, this reform has been foisted onto schools worldwide, and in many instances, with quite devastating effects. Yet, despite its pervasiveness, there is precious little evidence to show that this reform improves learning. On the contrary, for vast numbers of students, especially those who are already least advantaged, this reform is coming to be seen as being extremely damaging. The paper poses a number of questions about the undisclosed intention of this reform, how it works, for whom, and its corroding effects on large numbers of students and teachers.
Linking physical education with community sport and recreation : A program for adolescent girls
- Authors: Casey, Meghan , Mooney, Amanda , Eime, Rochelle , Harvey, Jack , Smyth, John , Telford, Amanda , Payne, Warren
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Health Promotion Practice Vol. 14, no. 5 (2013), p. 721-731
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP0990206
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: The engagement of adolescent girls in physical activity (PA) is a persistent challenge. School-based PA programs have often met with little success because of the lack of linkages between school and community PA settings. The Triple G program aimed to improve PA levels of secondary school girls (12-15 years) in regional Victoria, Australia. The program included a school-based physical education (PE) component that uniquely incorporated student-centered teaching and behavioral skill development. The school component was conceptually and practically linked to a community component that emphasized appropriate structures for participation. The program was informed by ethnographic fieldwork to understand the contextual factors that affect girls' participation in PA. A collaborative intervention design was undertaken to align with PE curriculum and coaching and instructional approaches in community PA settings. The theoretical framework for the intervention was the socioecological model that was underpinned by both individual-level (social cognitive theory) and organizational-level (building organizational/community capacity) strategies. The program model provides an innovative conceptual framework for linking school PE with community sport and recreation and may benefit other PA programs seeking to engage adolescent girls. The objective of this article is to describe program development and the unique theoretical framework and curriculum approaches.
- Description: The engagement of adolescent girls in physical activity (PA) is a persistent challenge. School-based PA programs have often met with little success because of the lack of linkages between school and community PA settings. The Triple G program aimed to improve PA levels of secondary school girls (12-15 years) in regional Victoria, Australia. The program included a school-based physical education (PE) component that uniquely incorporated student-centered teaching and behavioral skill development. The school component was conceptually and practically linked to a community component that emphasized appropriate structures for participation. The program was informed by ethnographic fieldwork to understand the contextual factors that affect girls' participation in PA. A collaborative intervention design was undertaken to align with PE curriculum and coaching and instructional approaches in community PA settings. The theoretical framework for the intervention was the socioecological model that was underpinned by both individual-level (social cognitive theory) and organizational-level (building organizational/community capacity) strategies. The program model provides an innovative conceptual framework for linking school PE with community sport and recreation and may benefit other PA programs seeking to engage adolescent girls. The objective of this article is to describe program development and the unique theoretical framework and curriculum approaches. © 2012 Society for Public Health Education.
Pushed out, shut out: Addressing unjust geographies of schooling and work
- Authors: Robinson, Janean , Down, Barry , Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal on School Disaffection Vol. 9, no. 2 (2012), p. 7-24
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of marginalised students who face fragile, uncertain and unpredictable futures. This paper draws on a number of research projects in Australia to investigate the lived reality of students who are struggling to make sense of school and their transition to 'getting a job'. The research is neither impartial nor neutral. It draws on the tradition of critical policy ethnography to identify, describe and map the kinds of conditions that both constrain and enable the aspirations, dreams and hopes of young people for productive and rewarding lives. The intent is to unsettle commonsense and deficit understandings of school life that serve to oppress and marginalise the least advantaged students.
'Hanging in with kids' in tough times: Engagement in contexts of educational disadvantage in the relational school
- Authors: Smyth, John , Down, Barry , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Book
- Relation: Adolescent Cultures, School, and Society Vol. Volume 49
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Synopsis - This book brings a unique, innovative and refreshing perspective to one of the most protracted issues affecting young lives - disengagement from schooling. Rather than continuing to blame young people, as most educational policies do, this book examines disengagement from the vantage point of the lives, experiences, interests and aspirations of the communities from which young people come, and within which they are embedded. It uses a narrative and representational approach that gives detailed insights into the wider context of poverty, class, power, relationships and identity. A major and defining hallmark of the book is the emphasis it places upon a number of 'doings', - including community voice, identity formation, critical work education and education policy - all of which provide a very different set of scripts with which to reinvent the institution of high school.
Critical pedagogy for social justice
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Book
- Relation: Critical pedagogy today
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: An incisive analysis of how Critical Pedagogy can be a force for positive change in schools around the world, helping the most disadvantaged students.
Teachers as classed cultural workers speaking back through critical reflection
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Critical voices in teacher education: Teaching for social justice in conservative times p. 81-95
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
Student Engagement for Equity and Social Justice: Creating Space for Student Voice
- Authors: McMahon, Brenda , Munns, Geoff , Zyngier, David , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Teaching & Learning Vol. 7, no. 2 (2012), p. 63-78
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper describes three student engagement initiatives that have been successfully implemented in Australia and Canada, where social justice educators are struggling with issues resulting from reforms that marginalize visible minority and low-income students. The projects envision student engagement in critical democratic ways. Using different strategies, they are informed by approaches that: respect students, educators and teaching/learning processes; connect on emotional as well as cognitive levels; and shift away from narrow notions of schooling to broader visions of education for marginalized students. Transferable to other locations, these programmes provide insights into what is possible when student engagement is enacted in equitable, socially just, and transformative environments.
- Description: C1
Critical civic engagement from inside an Australian School and its community put at a disadvantage
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Critical Civic Literacy: A reader p. 141-154
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: 2003009322
Undamaging 'damaged' teachers: an antidote to the 'Self-Managing School
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Delta: Policy and Practice in Education Vol. 55, no. 1/2 (2003), p. 3-30
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
A 'pedagogical' and 'educative' view of leadership
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Educational leadership and administration Chapter 43 p. 165-186
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003007953
Tackling school leaving at its Source: A case of reform in the middle years of schooling
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter , Hattam, Robert
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British journal of sociology of education Vol. 24, no. 2 (2003), p. 177-193
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: One of the most pervasive educational issues confronting Australia, and other countries, at the moment is the declining completion rates in high schools. While a period of success was experienced after the Second World War, there is now a pressing need to reform high schools in the ways they connect with young lives. In this paper, we present a 'sociology of the high school' as a way of encapsulating the high school as an institution that: is still largely stuck in a 'continuity of practice' (Elmore, 1987); has an 'attachment to familiar pedagogical routines' (Eisner, 1992); fails to listen to students; is hierarchically structured; treats students in immature ways; is hung up with passing on content; and seems more concerned with insulating itself from, rather connecting with or appropriating, young lives into the curriculum. As an alternative, we examine the notion of middle schooling that requires a version of whole school reform that engages with structures, cultures and changing pedagogy in ways more resonant with, and respectful of, young lives. We examine the tensions and dilemmas experienced at Investigator [1] High School in Australia, and conclude that the centerpiece has to be breaking the mold of the 'scripted' teacher and its replacement by the 'teacher-as-improviser'.
Making 'space' : young people put at a disadvantage re-engaging with learning
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Journal of Sociology of Education Vol. 34, no. 1 (2013), p. 39-55
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Young people who disengage or disconnect from school are often demonised within the media and the wider public imagination, from a largely individualized and pathological positioning. Policy explanations and responses are often unhelpful in their focus on a range of 'deficit' attributes - poverty, poor parenting, dysfunctional families, low familial achievement, aspiration and motivation, and other 'at risk' categories. This paper offers a different explanatory framework that foregrounds the experiences of some young people who had disengaged from school and resumed learning under a very different set of conditions to the ones that had exiled them from schools in the first place. Using a socio-spatial framework, the paper explores the notion of 'relational space' as it was appropriated and reclaimed by these young people, in explaining how they saw themselves as constructing viable and sustainable learning identities for themselves. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: 2003010681
Standards of critical inquiry
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2005
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Standards for Instructional Supervision Chapter 14 p. 91-105
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: B1
- Description: 2003001463
Social capital and the "Socially just school"
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Journal of Sociology of Education Vol. 25, no. 1 (2004), p. 19-33
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper argues that growing inequalities make it imperative that schools reinvent themselves around the issue of social justice. Through a case study of an Australian primary school, teacher-based forms of social capital are explored revealing progressive pedagogies to be an important precursor to the ‘socially just school’.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003000755
'Not everyone has a perfect life' : Becoming somebody without school
- Authors: Robert, Hattam , Smyth, John
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Pedagogy, Culture & Society Vol. 11, no. 3 (2003), p. 379-398
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This article draws on the Students Completing Schooling Project, conducted in Australia, which has developed an account of early school leaving though listening to how 209 young people made sense of their experiences of leaving school. In this study, we were keen to understand the way young people deliberate upon how schooling fits into their plans for living a life: for 'becoming somebody'. We propose understanding early school leaving as a tactical manoeuvre and part of the complex process of identity formation. Our interview material indicates that a powerful 'interactive trouble' contributes to the non-completion of school and involves underestimating the demands of private life, especially for those living in poverty.
- Description: 2003003524
Teachers in the middle : Reclaiming the wasteland of the adolescent years of schooling
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Taking account of the issues of youth alienation and disengagement described in this study, the main intent of the present research was to explore the ways in which teachers and schools are reinventing themselves for young adolescents.
- Description: A1
- Description: 2003005594
Teachers' work : What is happening to it?
- Authors: Smyth, John
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Critical thinking and learning: An encyclopedia for parents and teachers Chapter p. 216-221
- Full Text: false
- Description: 2003003500