List of Titles

ABRACADABRA for magic under which conditions? Case studies of a web-based literacy intervention in the Northern Territory

- Helmer, Janet, Lea, Tess, Harper, Helen, Chalkiti, Kalotina, Wolgemuth, Jennifer, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Helmer, Janet , Lea, Tess , Harper, Helen , Chalkiti, Kalotina , Wolgemuth, Jennifer , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2012
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Australian Journal of Language and Literacy Vol. 35, no. 1 (February 2012 2012), p. 33-50
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Description: This paper reports on a study examining the use of ABRACADABRA (ABRA), a Canadian web-based tool for supporting early literacy instruction that was trialled in the Northern Territory of Australia over the period 2008-2010. The three year trial established ABRA's effectiveness in urban and remote primary schools with a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students under quasi-experimental and experimental conditions. Both this Australian trial and preceding studies in Canada demonstrated ABRA's capacity to generate significant student outcomes against a range of literacy measures. These studies further found student effects are greatly enhanced when teachers confidently integrate ABRA content into their broader literacy program; and conversely, that ABRA has reduced impact when teachers are less confident with integrating the technology into their teaching. Given ABRA is freely available on the internet, we additionally felt it was important to consider ABRA's likely implementation fate in non-research circumstances. The study reported here examines four north Australian primary schools which implemented ABRA outside of trial conditions, and was conceived as something of a pre-emptive strike against premature uptake of this otherwise promising program. We develop our analysis from classroom observations and interviews with practitioners, and explore how ABRA might fare if it were implemented with minimal support; or rather, with a level of support equivalent to that typically offered in Northern Territory schools for other literacy programs. Our findings confirm a universal education truism about the importance of carefully targeted training and support to ensure optimal outcomes for program effect; a truism which arguably has greater import in the turbulent school environments facing socially disadvantaged students in north Australian schools. This study has implications for how educational interventions, particularly in remote and cross-cultural settings, might be implemented and sustained at scale.
Description: C1

Attendance, performance and the acquisition of early literacy skills: A comparison of Indigenous and non-Indigenous school children

- Ehrich, John, Wolgemuth, Jennifer, Helmer, Janet, Oteng, Georges, Lea, Tess, Bartlett, Claire, Smith, Heather, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Ehrich, John , Wolgemuth, Jennifer , Helmer, Janet , Oteng, Georges , Lea, Tess , Bartlett, Claire , Smith, Heather , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2010
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties Vol. 15, no. 2 (2010), p. 131-149
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Description: As part of an evaluation of a web-based early literacy intervention, ABRACADABRA, a small exploratory study was conducted over one term in three primary schools in the Northern Territory. Of particular concern was the relationship between attendance and the acquisition of early literacy skills of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Using the GRADE literacy assessment, it was found that students made significant gains in a number of early literacy skills (e.g. phonological awareness skills and vocabulary processing). Classroom attendance was strongly and positively correlated with the acquisition of phonological awareness skills and early literacy skills (e.g. letter recognition, word identification processing). Indigenous children attended class significantly less frequently than non-Indigenous children and performed significantly worse overall, particularly with regard to phonological processing tasks. In light of these findings, it is suggested irregular attendance contributed to the Indigenous students' lowered literacy acquisition.

Inclusion, equity, diversity, and social justice in education in the twenty-first century

- Goriss-Hunter, Anitra, Burke, Jenene, Weuffen, Sara, Plunkett, Margaret, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Goriss-Hunter, Anitra , Burke, Jenene , Weuffen, Sara , Plunkett, Margaret , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2023
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Inclusion, equity, diversity, and social justice in education: a critical exploration of the sustainable development goals Chapter 1 p. 1-10
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Description: The chapter offers a road map that charts the key issues raised in this edited collection that contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) series. Throughout the book, questions are raised, tensions observed, and practices highlighted, often through passionate discussion, regarding the ways in which considerations of equity, inclusion, and social justice are configured, challenged, observed, or ignored in a range of educational settings. All chapters address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education which advocates for the provision of inclusive and equitable education and the promotion of lifelong learning for all. This chapter extends the focus of diversity, inclusion, and social justice to examine the inclusive approaches embedded in the production of the book. Rejecting potentially exclusionary publication processes, the editors mobilized inclusive approaches to selecting, reviewing, and editing chapters and the development of edited scholarship. Focusing on connections and capacity building, a diverse range of authors, reviewers, and editors worked together in a supportive, inclusive, and encouraging framework to produce an interwoven contemporary narrative about the state of diversity and inclusion in mainstream education settings.

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Policy, discourse and epistemology in inclusive education

- Burke, Jenene, Goriss-Hunter, Anitra, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Burke, Jenene , Goriss-Hunter, Anitra , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2023
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Inclusion, equity, diversity, and social justice in education: a critical exploration of the sustainable development goals Chapter 2 p. 13-27
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Description: This chapter begins a conversation about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the concepts of rights, diversity, equity and inclusion that underpin them, and the ways in which they are enacted in a variety of contexts. There is a specific focus on SDG4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Based on examinations of the SDGs, the conversations throughout the book give voice to those who work at times within and sometimes outside mainstream education discourse people who use inclusive approaches to teach early childhood, primary and secondary school and higher education students, parent-educators, parents and carers, academics teaching and researching in the field of inclusion and teachers and academics who themselves have impairments and disabilities. In this chapter, we investigate the policies, discourses and epistemologies that are foundational for the concepts of rights, diversity, equity and inclusion. To examine issues of social justice, epistemic injustice, equity and equality, the authors describe a framework of discourse and intersectional analysis.

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Promoting the development of children's emotional and social wellbeing in early childhood settings : How can we enhance the capability of educators to fulfil role expectations?

- Temple, Elizabeth, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Temple, Elizabeth , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2013
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Australasian Journal of Early Childhood Vol. 38, no. 1 (2013), p. 66-72
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Description: This article discusses the expectations implicit in both Early Years Learning and National Quality Frameworks regarding the role of early childhood educators in promoting the development of children's social and emotional wellbeing. There is a specific focus on factors that may impact on the ability of early childhood educators to successfully adjust their practice to meet these expectations. Suggestions are made in relation to the training and education of pre-service teachers and the professional development of the current early childhood workforce to ensure that all early childhood educators are able to promote the development of social and emotional wellbeing in children. Copyright 2013. All rights reserved by Early Childhood Australia Inc.
Description: 2003011108

Reimagining and transforming identity as rural researchers and educators : A (con)textual fugue

- Plowright, Susan, Glowrey, Cheryl, Green, Monica, Fletcher, Anna, Harrison, Dianne, Plunkett, Margaret, Emmett, Susan, Johnson, Nicola

Authors: Plowright, Susan , Glowrey, Cheryl , Green, Monica , Fletcher, Anna , Harrison, Dianne , Plunkett, Margaret , Emmett, Susan , Johnson, Nicola
Date: 2016
Type: Text , Conference paper
Relation: Association for Research in Education (AARE)
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Description: This paper presents the educational and research journey of a group of rural academics as a (con)textual fugue. We understand a fugue as a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase is introduced by one part and is successively taken up by other interweaving parts. Through weaving the multiple motivations and methodological underpinnings of the authors‟ individual research and education aspirations, a collective composition emerges. Our „fugue‟ represents the sum of the parts but it also challenges individualised conceptions of research and researcher identity. By conceptualising an assemblage of relational research presences and intentions for „disruptive transformations‟ in the rural context to which we are all deeply committed, we present another way of imagining or "seeing" research. Our „place‟ is Gippsland, Victoria, a distinctive and extensive area encompassing regional, rural and remote communities; diverse natural environments and localities; and correspondingly complex social, cultural and economic underpinnings. The establishment of Federation University in this setting, where the authors are situated, has precipitated what Mezirow might describe as a sudden, dramatic, reorienting insight and a reframing of habitual interpretations. Through coming together, we create a fresh impetus to pursue a collective but polyphonic purpose, impact and researcher identity.

Working towards a sustainable, responsive, inclusive, and diverse global education future

- Weuffen, Sara, Burke, Jenene, Goriss-Hunter, Anitra, Plunkett, Margaret, Emmett, Susan

Authors: Weuffen, Sara , Burke, Jenene , Goriss-Hunter, Anitra , Plunkett, Margaret , Emmett, Susan
Date: 2023
Type: Text , Book chapter
Relation: Inclusion, equity, diversity, and social justice in education: a critical exploration of the sustainable development goals Chapter 19 p. 277-286
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Description: In this chapter, we synthesise the interwoven narrative presented in this edited collection that interrogates discourses and policies of inclusive education, foregrounds the lived realities of diverse cohorts, and offers new ways of thinking and acting through a process of capacity building. Through thematic analysis, we analyse emergent themes pertaining to diversity and inclusion to illuminate the divergence between rhetoric and practice where the provision of quality education is concerned. Ultimately, we question whether the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 of quality education for all is being actualised in the twenty-first century and offer provocations on the possibilities of actualising a sustainable, responsive, inclusive, and diverse education future globally.

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