Mobilising spatial risks: reflections on researching Venezuelan and Australian fairground people's educational experiences

[Abstract]: One approach to conducting educational research is to strive for ‘risk minimisation’. This is presumably on the assumption that risk is always and inevitably dangerous and harmful (see also McDougall, Jarzabkowski, Mills & Gale, Moore, Danaher and Walker-Gibbs, this volume), and to be avoided at all costs. Following the theme of celebrating ‘strategic uncertainties’ (Stronach & MacLure, 1997), we prefer a different approach, one grounded in the recognition of risk as the prerequisite of new conceptual, methodological and empirical understandings. Rather than being minimised or avoided, risk should be mobilised and enthusiastically pursued – carpe diem transposed to an educational research framework. Our conviction of the utility, even the necessity, of mobilising risk derives in part from our ongoing research into the educational experiences of Venezuelan and Australian fairground people (Anteliz & Danaher, 2000; Anteliz, Danaher & Danaher, 2001). In multiple ways, the fairground people routinely enter the spaces of permanently resident communities, and in so doing they challenge the stereotypes attached to mobile groups (McVeigh, 1997). From this perspective, their physical mobility becomes allied with their mobilisation of spatial risks in order to earn their living and to sustain their cultural heritage. We see this process of mobilising spatial risks as potentially both a template and a metaphor for educational researchers. Space can be conceptualised as the site of multiple and often conflicting beliefs, discourses and values. In the context of an educational research project, space can indeed be risky and unpredictable, yet it can also become the place in which transformational educational practices are conceived and developed. This is precisely why spatial risks need to be mobilised – and why ‘strategic uncertainties’ need to be celebrated

The Principal as change leader and manager in and via the Queensland School for Travelling Show Children

Despite the extensive literature on the management of educational change (see for example Fullan, 2001, 2003), one constant in that literature is the consensus that such change is both complex and contextualised. A crucial consequence of that constant is the multiple fronts and levels on which school principals as change leaders and managers must engage with change, in order to bring about the most effective possible outcomes for students, families and communities. It is this link between change at the levels of school, community and society with which this paper is concerned. The first-named author of the paper is the Principal of the Queensland School for Travelling Show Children (QSTSC), and the paper outlines how she operates as a change leader and manager, as well as some of the challenges and opportunities that she meets in doing so. The paper begins by outlining the context of her work, then moves to discuss her multiple roles as change agent in the school, in the show community and in Australian society more broadly

Contesting ‘transitions’ and (re-)engaging with ‘subjectivities’: locating and celebrating the habitus in three versions of ‘the first year experience’ at Central Queensland University

Instead of the homogeneous and undifferentiated view of ‘the first year experience’ implied by the term ‘transitions’, we prefer to emphasise diversity and heterogeneity in mapping multiple experiences of university life, particularly in ‘the first year’. This mapping includes – in the context of Central Queensland University (CQU) – students in a pre-undergraduate preparatory program with rich life experiences but limited formal education; school leavers and mature age students in a first year undergraduate program; and students with industry and professional experience in a pre-service teacher education program with both undergraduate and graduate entry points. Despite the considerable differences among these ‘first year experiences’, they have in common a focus on the habitus (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990) as a framework for locating and celebrating student and staff subjectivities and hence for maximising student (re-)engagements with university life. The paper illustrates these crucial processes in each of these versions of ‘the first year experience’

Mobile academics Down Under: the ecologies of practice, fraternal itineraries and professional identities of three Australian university lecturers

The final part of the book is devoted to staff mobility, another theme which is under-explored in the literature. The first chapter is autoethnographic and presents the professional odysseys of three Australian academics who are brothers. Patrick Danaher, Mike Danaher and Geoff Danaher reflect on their respective and shared experiences of academic mobility. The chapter is framed and informed by the concept of ‘ecologies of practice’, which highlights the commonalities and divergences evident among system and institution-level policies, campus and faculty practices and academics’ own subjectivities. They point out how the ways in which student mobility are perceived differ from views on staff mobility, not least because the former are seen as ‘customers’ whereas the latter are ‘labour’. The implications of the Danaher analysis include the need to pay more attention to mobility within an education system

Power/knowledge and the educational experiences and expectations of Australian show people

[Abstract]: A Foucauldian perspective reveals how ‘knowledge’ can be complicit with ‘power’ in privileging some individuals and groups while marginalising others. This crucial point alerts educational researchers to the ethical and political implications of recording itinerant people’s reflections on their educational experiences and their expectations of alternative forms of schooling. Thus the Australian show people’s general dissatisfaction with the learning opportunities available in the past has fuelled their determined lobbying for a separate school for show children; here the demand for a specific form of knowledge provision articulates with the show people’s engagement with state and institutional power. The chapter illustrates this argument by drawing on the senior author’s semi-structured interviews with show children, parents, home tutors and teachers in five sites between 1992 and 1996

Inclusion versus specialisation: issues in transforming the education of Australian show children

Despite social justice rhetoric, it is more difficult and expensive for schools to cater for those who deviate from accepted social norms. At the same time, minorities often find efforts to include them in mainstream schooling uncomfortable and even frightening. Yet specialised schooling seems even more expensive, and does nothing to challenge existing marginalising stereotypes. This dilemma about the appropriate 'mix' between inclusion and specialisation has been played out in the recent educational experiences of Australian show children. Having suffered from educational neglect for generations, parents lobbied for a specialist program that still entailed interactions with local children and the dominant schooling bureaucracy. More recently, however, their efforts have seen the establishment of a separate school operating exclusively to the rhythms of their mobile lifestyle. This chapter presents these eddies and flows in the education of Australian show children as the encapsulation of broader debates about the purposes and effects of educational provision in the early 21st century. The issue of inclusion versus specialisation is linked with a discursive struggle involving material realities and ideological assumptions about schooling. In the context of that struggle, the show people have found a temporary settlement rather than a permanent resolution in their search for changing schools and educational transformation

Transforming learning through capacity-building: maximising life and learning support to mobilise diversities in an Australian pre-undergraduate preparatory program

One key manifestation of educational diversity is low socioeconomic status students and those who are otherwise marginalised from accessing higher education. This exploratory case study outlines and evaluates a long-running Australian pre-undergraduate preparatory program directed at providing maximum life and learning support to students by means that engage with and build on their diversities. Data are drawn from semi-structured focus groups with successive cohorts of students and theoretically-informed reflections by program staff members. The analysis of these data is framed by the conceptual blending of current theorising about transformative learning and capacity-building, which in combination constitute a powerful lens for illuminating student diversity in higher education. Based on that analysis, despite some inevitable limitations, the program is largely successful in its strategies to maximise life and learning support in order to mobilise the students' diversities in ways that enhance their current and prospective learning outcomes

Three pedagogies of mobility for Australian show people: teaching about, through and towards the questioning of sedentarism

[Abstract]: Questions concerning the education of mobile groups help to highlight the lived experiences of people otherwise rendered invisible by policy actors. This includes the diverse communities of occupational Travellers – those people who regularly move in order to earn their livelihood. While the category ‘occupational Travellers’ encompasses groups as varied as defence force personnel, specialist teachers and seasonal fruit pickers, the focus here is on the people who travel the agricultural show circuits of Australia to provide the entertainment of ‘sideshow alley’. Drawing on qualitative research with the Australian show people since 1992, this paper deploys the concept of ‘sedentarism’ to highlight the ambivalently valorised lived experiences and educational opportunities of the show people. In particular, the paper explores the pedagogical and policy implications of efforts to disrupt and transform the marginalising impact of sedentarism, which constructs mobility as the other in relation to fixed residence. Specifically, it is argued that anti-sedentarism makes possible the identification and interrogation of three distinct pedagogies of mobility pertaining to the show people, revealing differing stances on intersections of mobility and education. The first is teaching about anti-sedentarism, which involves demonstrating the value of the informal learning that takes place on the show circuits so that the show people’s mobility does not throw a negative light on their learning on the run. The second is teaching through anti-sedentarism, which centres on informing non-show people about the lives of show people and their contributions to cultural, economic and social life in Australia. The third is teaching towards anti-sedentarism, entailing the mapping and valuing of multiple forms of mobility. The paper considers implications for policy actions of these three pedagogies of mobility about and for the Australian show people. These implications are identified through the lens of assumptions underpinning the current Commonwealth Government policy statement on student mobility. The argument is that the evidence from the show people’s experiences suggests that pedagogies of mobility represent one among several possible ways forward in pursuing anti-sedentarism and in imagining anew traditional education for contemporary mobile learners

A team approach to researching Australian traveller education: three perspectives on integrating theory, method and writing

[Abstract]: The intersection of theory, method and writing is a contentious and crucial site in which educational researchers can and must reflect self-critically on the effectiveness and significance of their research endeavours. Both the need for, and the potential benefits of, conducting such reflection are magnified when a team of researchers is involved. This paper discusses the deployment of three different but complementary approaches – dialogism, co-operative community and performance space –to integrating theory, method and writing in an ongoing study of Australian Traveller education. A team approach to achieving and reflecting on that integration encourages cross-fertilisation among the selected approaches, and contributes to their ongoing theorisation; it also constitutes a useful strategy for ongoing reflective practice and for promoting continuing professional learning in the authors’ contemporary workplaces

Town and gown in the bush: contemporary regional universities and transforming communities [Editorial]

This special theme issue of the International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning is entitled ''Town and Gown' in the Bush: Contemporary Regional Universities and Transforming Communities' and provides a forum for multiple engagements with the relationships (or lack thereof) between contemporary regional universities and their communities, whether in Australia or in other countries. Many of the world's most prestigious universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg and Yale, are located in regional settings. Indeed in some cases, such as Utrecht, the regional town has developed around the university. Certainly, owing to the concentration of academics and students within a relatively underpopulated location, the atmosphere within a regional university town seems to be quite distinctive. Such an atmosphere has not always been mutually fruitful, and there is a long history of distrust between the university and the town of which it is ostensibly a part. In the case of Oxford, tensions between townspeople, who resented the university's growing arrogance and authority, and students boiled over on 10 February 1354, the Feast of Scholastica: 'The countrymen advanced crying...'Smyt fast, give gude knocks'....Such Scholars as they found...they killed or maimed, or grievously wounded....Our mother the University of Oxon, which had but two days before many sons is now almost forsaken and left forlorn' (Anthony Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, 1674; cited in Drake 1991, p.3). The battle led to 62 students being killed and the rest being driven from the town. In the case of Australia, most of the longstanding traditional universities were constructed within metropolitan centres and capital cities. One exception is the University of New England in Armidale. Indeed, up until the 1980s, higher education institutions in most country areas were limited to Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges and colleges of advanced education (CAEs). The reforms by John Dawkins, the then Federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training, to higher education in that decade saw these CAEs attain the status of universities, a change that enabled them to award postgraduate degrees and be recognised for research. Colloquially known as 'gumnut universities', these regional campuses have faced ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining students and academics, building a competitive research profile and finding a secure niche within the Australian higher education field on the one hand and within the often culturally diverse and geographically dispersed regional communities from which they draw their allegiance on the other. While several discourses can be discerned in these relationships, commentators on regional universities and communities commonly invoke at least two distinct narratives: Regional universities, like their communities, are marginalised and under threat, and their best chance for survival lies in working together to create alternative opportunities and futures. Regional universities, like their metropolitan counterparts, must increasingly adopt free market ideologies and practices whereby regional communities will be sidelined unless they can compete with national and international clients in accessing services from 'their' universities. In interrogating, contesting and reconstructing these discourses, the authors of the articles in this issue address three key questions currently confronting regional universities and their communities: What are the identities and the missions of contemporary regional universities? How are those identities and missions manifested in the universities' negotiated relationships with their communities, only some of which might also be regional? What are the implications of those relationships for the likely future sustainability and survival of both regional universities and communities? In seeking to address these questions, the issue is also directed at re-examining the concept of 'transformations' in regional communities in the early 21st century. Transformations, understood as permanent and substantial changes and improvements, are crucial for the ongoing development of individuals and groups. Yet often these transformations occur in spite of, not because of, the planned interventions of institutions. So it is vital, now more than ever before, to understand the drivers, influences and potential outcomes of and on genuinely meaningful and productive transformations in regional communities. Within that quest for understanding, a process of evaluating the roles and responsibilities of regional universities and communities with regard to themselves and to one another is a worthwhile endeavour. At this point we need to offer an important explanatory note. The articles that comprise this volume were largely composed in 2004. Owing to various constraints publication has been delayed until 2006. Despite this delay, we believe that the approaches outlined and issues canvassed within the articles offer an enriching understanding of the relationships between town and gown within regional settings