The children's playground as a microcosm of society
- Authors: Burke, Jenene
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: 5th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation p. 3030-3039
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Play, as a major social institution, influences the shaping of society. By gathering in playground environments, children who do not necessarily know each other learn about others, social values and the communities in which they live. In this paper, the playground is examined as a place that can offer opportunities for children with impairments to play freely and creatively, or alternatively, to experience restrictions through structural oppression. The qualitative study reported on in this paper is drawn from an Australian Research Council Linkages Project. Data were collected from 72 participant children, who compiled personal photographic scrapbooks and were observed at play in playgrounds. Data were also obtained from a series of focus group discussions with parents of children with impairments and adults with impairments. In this paper, evidence is presented to demonstrate that children, through the spatiality of a purposed-provided play space, as a microcosm of society, come to understand disability and, therefore, those who are considered disabled. The presentation concludes that taken-for-granted and exclusive practices around playground configuration can have powerful repercussions upon the way difference attributed to impairment is socially constructed by children.
Pathway to success : Using students’ insights and perspectives to improve retention and success for university students from low socioeconomic (LSE) backgrounds
- Authors: Sadowski, Christina , Stewart, Margaret , Pediaditis, Mika
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: International Journal of Inclusive Education Vol. 22, no. 2 (2018), p. 158-175
- Full Text: false
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- Description: In an increasingly complex landscape of diversification and massification, universities are grappling with challenges of student attrition. This paper presents findings from a project investigating how students from low socio-economic backgrounds at a regional Australian university perceive challenges and supports associated with retention and success. Twenty-seven students received intensive one-to-one support from a Faculty-embedded ‘academic advisor’, and reflected on this support, their overall student experience, and strategies to enhance student success. Students identified a range of challenges that they experienced across an academic year (personal circumstances, lack of preparedness for university study, timely access to support, course/programme difficulties) and what worked well for them (academic advisor, University support services, growing confidence in self as competent student, peer support). A range of strategies for enhancing student success were identified by students, namely consistency across teaching design and delivery, transparency of delivery modes, mandatory orientation, access to a dedicated academic advisor, and increased peer connectedness. The applicability and viability of the proposed strategies within current higher education settings are explored. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Approaching play and inclusion
- Authors: Claughton, Amy
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Inclusive education : making sense of everyday practice Chapter 4 p. 45-59
- Full Text: false
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- Description: The aim of this chapter is to explore the way in which play is used in a range of educational settings. It compares and contrasts play principles as adopted in early childhood settings, regular primary schools and special educational settings. Focusing on play for children with impairment, play in special educational settings is deconstructed using a disability studies lens and a way forward recommended through combining disability studies with childhood studies. Investigating the focus on assessment of and in play development, the embedded culture of approaching play for children with impairments is challenged. Reframing how children are perceived to engage in play can reimagine how play can be incorporated into special educational settings. Inclusive Education : Making Sense of Everyday Practice, BRILL, 2017.
- Description: The aim of this chapter is to explore the way in which play is used in a range of educational settings. It compares and contrasts play principles as adopted in early childhood settings, regular primary schools and special educational settings. Focusing on play for children with impairment, play in special educational settings is deconstructed using a disability studies lens and a way forward recommended through combining disability studies with childhood studies. Investigating the focus on assessment of and in play development, the embedded culture of approaching play for children with impairments is challenged. Reframing how children are perceived to engage in play can reimagine how play can be incorporated into special educational settings. Inclusive Education : Making Sense of Everyday Practice, BRILL, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ballarat/detail.action?docID=4803299.
Dyslexia and learning: An Insider account of negotiating barriers and aids in secondary education
- Authors: Burke, Jenene , Bushby, Alanna
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Inclusive education: Making sense of everyday practice Chapter 10 p. 141-157
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Personal narratives derived from insider accounts of schooling can illuminate our understanding of how individuals negotiate their learning; and how teachers and schools might empower or marginalise students on the basis of a specific learning disability. This chapter retrospectively examines the lived experience of one of the authors, Alanna, as a student diagnosed with dyslexia. Alanna, who is a graduate teacher, is positioned as an ‘insider’ in the recounting of her secondary schooling experiences. She negotiated her learning at secondary school in two contrasting Australian schools and reflects on how her learning was both supported and limited within these educational settings. We consider Alanna’s learning experiences through the lens of the social relational understanding of disability (Thomas, 1999) along with the principle of educational inclusion. We tease out how schools and individual teachers can create conditions for learning that contribute to the success of a student diagnosed with dyslexia in a secondary education setting, and also how a learner can ultimately take control of her own learning.
- Description: Personal narratives derived from insider accounts of schooling can illuminate our understanding of how individuals negotiate their learning; and how teachers and schools might empower or marginalise students on the basis of a specific learning disability. This chapter retrospectively examines the lived experience of one of the authors, Alanna, as a student diagnosed with dyslexia. Alanna, who is a graduate teacher, is positioned as an ‘insider’ in the recounting of her secondary schooling experiences. She negotiated her learning at secondary school in two contrasting Australian schools and reflects on how her learning was both supported and limited within these educational settings. We consider Alanna’s learning experiences through the lens of the social relational understanding of disability (Thomas, 1999) along with the principle of educational inclusion. We tease out how schools and individual teachers can create conditions for learning that contribute to the success of a student diagnosed with dyslexia in a secondary education setting, and also how a learner can ultimately take control of her own learning. Inclusive Education : Making Sense of Everyday Practice, BRILL, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ballarat/detail.action?docID=4803299.
Working towards a sustainable, responsive, inclusive, and diverse global education future
- 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
- Full Text: false
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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.