Description:
Part 1 Overview: Growth of the quality movement in higher education. Part 2 Leadership of quality in higher education: Initiative-based quality development and the role of distributed leadership; A leadership model for higher education quality; A framework for engaging leadership in higher education quality systems. Part 3 Approaches of managers to quality in higher education: Quality management in higher education: A comparative study of the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Finland; Towards a culture of quality in South African higher education. Part 4 Auditing quality in higher education: Auditorsâ perspectives on quality in higher education. Part 5 Academic development and quality in higher education: Academic development as change leadership in higher education; Quality in the transitional process of establishing political science as a new discipline in Czech higher education (post 1989)
Description:
This article examines the implications of the Australian Football League’s Rule 30 on vilification in football and society. Considering the views of key industry, government, community, multicultural, Indigenous and academic stakeholders it addresses the themes of community harmony, multiculturalism and reconciliation. The paper evaluates the role of Australian Rules football in changing contemporary attitudes towards vilification and how public policy in this area has been driven by sports-led initiatives such as the AFL Rule 30. It briefly provides an international context for understanding these Australian-led initiatives. ”Racism denies people the fundamental human right to be judged by their character, by what is inside. This is why it is not easy to experience a lifetime of racial abuse, be constantly reminded of it and yet be expected to ignore it”. (The Age 1997: 16).
Description:
During the period from 1989 to 2004 the school-based Health and Physical Education curriculum in Victoria (Australia) underwent three major reforms. A review of the literature revealed that there was a gap in our understanding of the impact of these reforms on the behaviours of physical educators in Victorian secondary schools. The research documented in this doctoral thesis investigates curriculum processes surrounding the last of the reforms for this period, i.e. the development of the Health and Physical Education Curriculum and Standards Framework II (HPE CSF II) and its implementation in a Victorian secondary school.
Description:
This paper canvasses one of the most debilitating issues currently disfiguring schools – the absent voices of teachers in the policy reform of schooling. This is a phenomenon that has afflicted schooling around the world for more than three decades, and it is not without effects. The escalating levels of student disaffection, alienation, violence, disengagement and ‘dropping out’ are not unconnected to the marginalisation of teachers and the disrespectful and distrustful ways in which they have been treated by policy makers, politicians and a largely hostile media. What is advanced in its place in this paper is a way of conducting research that restores trust through acknowledging and celebrating the distinctive repertoires of knowledge teachers and students possess, and points to the way in which a more respectful policy paradigm might be re-invented.
A systematic review of the psychological and social benefits of participation in sport for adults : Informing development of a conceptual model of health through sport
Description:
Preparing teachers to work effectively within increasingly diverse contexts is a key goal of teacher education programs. This study analyses the extent to which a semester unit within a teacher education course provided pre-service teachers with the understanding and practices required to teach in low socio-economic status (SES) contexts. The results suggest that a unit, which emphasises links between theory, historical perspectives and practice, can effectively provide pre-service teachers with the key understandings and skills associated with improving equity outcomes in education. However, when the ideas being presented conflict with pre-existing, strongly held ideas about the role of schooling, practices associated with equity will not be sustained.
Description:
Drawing on Bourdieu's (1990, 1998, 2000) socio-cultural theories, this article explores the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers, specifically in regard to their home computer use, which for many of them is their primary site of leisure. The qualitative study involved observations and interviews with eight teenagers aged 13 to 17. All the participants considered themselves to be technological experts, and their peers and/or their family supported this self-description. This article examines differences between the concepts and value of learning, expertise and technology, and how they are valued differently between generations. After discussing the habitus (dispositions) prevalent in the field of out-of-school leisure of teenage experts, the notion that the participants are addicted to their computers is explored. This article highlights a tension regarding how practice in the field is conceptualised differently by digital insiders and digital newcomers, and discusses some implications for educators.
Description:
Purpose – Using the case of a cross-cultural setting, the purpose of this paper is to compare perceptions of students towards face-to-face learning and blended learning. A social constructivist perspective is used which implies that cultural data are in fact social constructs made on the basis of the participants’ own cultural thought patterns and the concepts and categories to which they are socialised within learning organisations. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Perceptual evidence forms the primary qualitative and quantitative data for this study. The paper uses social constructivist approach with empirical data in developing the notion that cross-cultural management is a process whereby people, through social interactions, acquire participative competence for working in cross-cultural settings. Findings – Perceptual data emerging from this study point out that considering the learning objectives of a cross-cultural context are paramount when engaging in cross-cultural management curriculum and teaching design. Such social contexts, while complex and challenging, is often a perfect opportunity where cross-cultural competence can be developed. Originality/value – The value of the study lies in the original insights it offers into student experiences and the challenges to adopt a “one size fits all” strategy in a cross-cultural setting.