Critical ethnography for school and community renewal around social class differences affecting learning
- Authors: Smyth, John , Angus, Lawrence , Down, Barry , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Learning communities Vol. 3, no. (2006), p. 121-152
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Understanding and exploring complex and protracted social questions requires sophisticated investigative approaches. In this article we intend looking at a research approach capable of providing a better understanding of what is going on in schools, students and communities in "exceptionally challenging contexts" (Harris et al., 2006)-code for schools and communities that have as a result of wider social forces, been historically placed in situations of disadvantage.
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003001884
Critically engaged learning : Connecting to young lives
- Authors: Smyth, John , Angus, Lawrence , Down, Barry , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Book
- Relation: Adolescent cultures, school & society No. 42
- Full Text: false
- Description: This book - the finale in a trilogy by the authors - traces the way in which a number of disadvantaged schools and communities were able to move beyond deficit, victim-blaming and pathologizing approaches and access resources of trust, relationships, connectedness and hope. It describes how these Australian schools and communities were able to benefit from working with 'street-level' bureaucrats who had reinvented themselves around notions of socially just forms of capacity-building. The book provides a set of insights into what is possible from a critical engagement for school and community renewal perspective, by working with the resources that exist within disadvantaged contexts, even in damaging neoliberal policy times.
- Description: 2003006329
Beyond the divide : Individual institutional and community capacity building in a Western Australian regional context
- Authors: Smyth, John , Down, Barry
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Education in Rural Australia Vol. 14, no. 2 (2004), p. 54-68
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: C1
- Description: 2003000753
'Coming to a place near you?' The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based education
- Authors: McInerney, Peter , Smyth, John , Down, Barry
- Date: 2011
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education Vol. 39, no. 1 (2011), p. 3-16
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: It may seem something of a paradox that in a globalised age where notions of interdependence, interconnectedness and common destinies abound, the 'local', with its diversity of cultures, languages, histories and geographies, continues to exercise a powerful grip on the human imagination. The ties that bind us have global connections but are anchored in a strong sense of locality. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based education (PBE) and considers the merits and limitations of current approaches with particular reference to Australian studies. The authors argue that there is a place for PBE in schools but contend that it must be informed by a far more critical reading of the notions of 'place', 'identity' and 'community'. The implications of pursuing a critical pedagogy of place-based education are discussed with reference to curriculum, pedagogy and teacher education.
Activist and socially critical school and community renewal
- Authors: Smyth, John , Angus, Lawrence , Down, Barry , McInerney, Peter
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Book
- Relation: Transgressions - Cultural studies and education
- Full Text: false
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.
'Getting a job' : Vocationalism, identity formation, and critical ethnographic inquiry
- Authors: Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Educational Administration and History Vol. 44, no. 3 (2012), p. 203-219
- Relation: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP100100045
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that it is acceptable to have the bifurcation in which some young people work with their hands and not their minds. Furthermore, vocational education and training by itself cannot resolve the fundamental causes of poverty, unemployment, and economic inequality. This article draws on Australian research to describe the insights from a critical ethnographic inquiry in which young people themselves are key informants in making sense of 'getting a job'; how they regard the labour market; the kind of work they find desirable/undesirable; the spaces in which they can see themselves forging an identity as future citizens/workers - and how answers to these questions frame and shape viable, sustainable, and rewarding futures for all young people, not just the privileged few. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.
Introduction: From critique to new scripts and possibilities in teacher education
- Authors: Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Critical voices in teacher education: Teaching for social justice in conservative times p. 1-9
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: This book is about the stories of teacher educators committed to pursuing social justice in teacher education. It draws on the struggles of those who have taught about issues of social justice within universities, their accumulated knowledge and their practices in classrooms. The purpose of the book is to provide a space where teacher educators can deconstruct their own pedagogies, empower individuals to develop critical consciousness, and inspire a future generation of teachers to engage in social justice activism. To this end, the book provides some insights into the daily realities of critical teaching in conservative times (Brookfield, 2005; Kincheloe, Slattery, & Steinberg, 2000; Shor, 1992).
Critical voices in teacher education: Teaching for social justice in conservative times
- Authors: Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Edited book
- Full Text: false
Jacinta's story : challenging neoliberal practices and creating democratic spaces in public high schools
- Authors: Robinson, Janean , Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Re-Imagining Education for Democracy p. 156-173
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
Student voices 'echo' from the ethnographic field
- Authors: Robinson, Janean , Down, Barry , Smyth, John
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Leaving the field : methodological insights from ethnographic exits Chapter 8 p. 126-138
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed: