Adults’ numeracy practices in fluid and unstable contexts—An agenda for education, policy and research?

Numeracy practices are always dependent on the social context in which they emerge. These contexts, however, are unstable because of a range of technological and socio-political changes. How does this instability affect people’s agency in the world? After reviewing key approaches to numeracy practices research, we distil key findings from recent numeracy studies. We introduce the concept of the numerate environment to examine the context in which opportunities, supports and demands present themselves for people’s numeracy development, explaining how cultural-historical activity theory can be used to analyse the effects of changes in numerate environments. We consider examples of social trends likely to effect such changes and conclude with implications of shifts in people’s numerate environment for future educational provision, policy and research

A comparative analysis of national media responses to the OECD survey of adult skills: policy making from the global to the local?

OECD’s Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is put forward as a landmark development in the lifelong monitoring and international comparison of education. PIAAC’s first round of the Survey of Adult Skills compared performance in Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments across 24 countries. However, the translation of any OECD agenda into national policies is mediated by many actors including the media. This paper examines and compares how national media of Japan, England and France reported on the PIAAC results of their countries, and the extent to which these reports mirror key messages from the OECD’s Country Notes. It begins to trace how the OECD PIAAC agendas materialise into national policies. Although their role in this initial period was limited, we argue the roles of the media together with other policy actors must be monitored as they interact to shape possibilities for sustainable adult education policies

Getting the best of you for nothing: casual voices in the Australian Academy

This research was supported by the National Recruitment funding of the NTEU. Its aim was to undertake an in-depth qualitative study of the experiences of casual academic staff in an Australian University, particularly, long-serving casual staff. The study complements the sector-wide survey study conducted by Anne Junor (2004) which looked at casual and fixed term academic and general staff in Australian universities

Addressing spin transitions on 209Bi donors in silicon using circularly-polarized microwaves

Over the past decade donor spin qubits in isotopically enriched $^{28}$Si have been intensely studied due to their exceptionally long coherence times. More recently bismuth donor electron spins have become popular because Bi has a large nuclear spin which gives rise to clock transitions (first-order insensitive to magnetic field noise). At every clock transition there are two nearly degenerate transitions between four distinct states which can be used as a pair of qubits. Here it is experimentally demonstrated that these transitions are excited by microwaves of opposite helicity such that they can be selectively driven by varying microwave polarization. This work uses a combination of a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) microresonator and a dielectric resonator to flexibly generate arbitrary elliptical polarizations while retaining the high sensitivity of the CPW

Making connections to re-engage young people in learning: dimensions of practice

The education of young people who have previously been excluded from formal education is a field often associated with a high risk of failure failure for the learners, teachers and the program. In researching the teaching practices in this field, it is tempting for the researcher to do so through the lens of what they perceive as the pedagogical theories that should be informing contemporary practice. In the field of literacy and numeracy education, the social practices approach has gained prominence among researchers who are sympathetic to a socio-cultural study of literacy and numeracy because of its inclusiveness of multiple literacies and numeracies that can be found in different social contexts. This article analyses one of four case studies in a research project on the teaching practices of experienced literacy and numeracy teachers: teaching literacy and numeracy to socially excluded young people in an inner city youth centre. In their research, the authors had to critically challenge their taken for granted assumptions about what a pedagogy informed by a social practices approach to literacy and numeracy should look like. The teaching methods that they observed at the youth centre, while clearly effective particularly in establishing connections with the learners to form strong relationships of mutual trust - appeared on the surface to defy some of the key features of a social practices approach. In understanding the apparent contradictions between what the authors had expected to see and what they were seeing, Kemmiss framework for the study of practice that is based on the notion of practices as reflexive and dialectical proved fruitful. The framework allowed us to interpret both the theory (the social practices approach to literacy and numeracy) and the practices at the youth centre in more nuanced ways that deepened our appreciation of the theory practice relationship

Academic casualization in Australia: Class divisions in the university

Casualization of teaching has become a major issue in Australian universities. In 1990 casuals delivered about a tenth of all university teaching. By 2008 between a third and a half of university teaching was being delivered by casuals. Quantitative studies have assessed the scale of casualization; this qualitative study addresses the experience of casual academics. It documents a sharpening class divide among academics, which has become institutionally embedded. It reports on interviews with casual academics examining how the divide is experienced, and how it may be addressed. Academic casuals report underpayment and compromised quality; they experience persistent income insecurity; and they find themselves voiceless in the workplace. These experiences are interpreted as aspects of class subordination, and possibilities for addressing them are discussed. © Industrial Relations Society of Australia SAGE Publications Ltd

Numeracy skills and the numerate environment: affordances and demands

In the 2012 PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills of 23 industrialised countries, the UK (England & NI) scored below average on adult numeracy. Several recommendations focus on the need for (some) individuals in the population to undergo training. Yet, even in “high-performing countries” like the Netherlands, many adults (1.5M) score at or below PIAAC Level 1 (sometimes designated as “functionally innumerate”). The question arises as to how all of these people manage in important domains of their lives. In this article we aim to consider the context of the exercise of numeracy by adults, drawing on earlier research in mathematics education. We examine a recent conception of an adult’s ‘literate environment’ (EU HLG on Literacy, 2012), and extend this to reflect on the idea of an adult’s ‘numerate environment’. We consider the range of practices that particular adults may engage in, and the demands that these may make on the adult, the affordances the practices may offer; the latter include the opportunities, and the supports and / or barriers produced within these practices, and in cultures more generally, that may foster or impede an adult’s ongoing numerate development. We give examples of each of these aspects of adults’ numerate practices, and consider implications for the teaching, learning and development of numeracy

The benefits of adults learning numeracy

We examine the benefits of adult numeracy learning in the current Australian context by drawing on Schullers framework for analysing the benefits of learning in terms of three capitals: human capital, social capital and identity capital. We argue that although the current adult education policy framework in Australia is biased towards the achievement of only one of the three capitals human capital, the practices of experienced adult educators help to extend the benefits of learning to encompass identity and social capital benefits. We take a case study of a numeracy workshop in an Adult Basic Education (ABE) program in Australia to show how one teacher exemplifies teaching practice that despite the policy gap, helps her learners reap a range of benefits from their numeracy learning

Avian visual ecologists should consider UV absorbance and all sensory modalities: A response to Wisenden et al. (2020)

In a recent publication, Wisenden et al. (2020) examined responses of territorial male Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) to models constructed with ultraviolet (UV)-reflective red epaulets for the purpose of determining if the addition of UV reflectance to epaulets ( UV+ ) changed the effectiveness of signals to receivers relative to control epaulets under field conditions. The authors hypothesized that UV+epaulet coloration represents a visual signal with increased efficacy in territorial interactions. They presented behavioral data but no visual modeling data. Our aims in this commentary are to suggest alternative terms to those used by the authors, to express concern about the use of sunscreen to manipulate the UV condition of surfaces, and to make a plea for additional data collection in future studies of avian visual ecology. The terms UV+ and UV- should be reserved for studies that create environments free from UV radiation for comparison with environments that include UV radiation. We believe that commercial sunscreens are not an appropriate choice for altering the UV conditions of surfaces presented during behavioral trials because they potentially introduce confounding influences from other sensory inputs or irritation of peripheral nerves. Wisenden et al. altered the UV absorbance of their sunscreen-treated models but did not present absorbance spectra and may not have collected those data. We acknowledge that the lack of absorbance spectra is not unusual. We implore any such future studies to collect absorbance spectra of treated and control surfaces so that those data may be used to improve visual models for UV-sensitive animals. Los ec´ologos visuales de aves deben considerer la absorbencia UV y todas las modalidades sensoriales: respuesta a Wisenden et al. (2020) RESUMEN (Spanish)—En una publicaci´on reciente, Wisenden et al. (2020) examinaron las respuestas de machos territoriales del tordo Agelaius phoeniceus a modelos construidos con charreteras rojas reflejantes ultravioletas (UV) con el prop´osito de determinar si la adici´on de reflectancia a las charreteras (‘‘UVþ’’) cambiaba la efectividad de las se˜nales dirigidas a receptores en relaci´on con charreteras ‘‘control’’ bajo condiciones de campo. Los autores ten´ıan la hip´otesis de que ‘‘la coloraci´on UVþde las charreteras representa una se˜nal visual con eficacia aumentada en interacciones territoriales’’. Los autores presentaron datos conductuales pero no datos de modelado visual. Nuestra meta en este comentario es sugerir t´erminos alternativos a aquellos empleados por los autores, expresar preocupaci´on por el uso de bloqueador solar para manipular la condici´on UV de superficies y hacer un llamado para la colecta de datos adicionales en futuros estudios de ecolog´ıa visual aviar. Los t´erminos UVþy UV– deben estar reservados para comparaciones con ambientes que incluyan radiaci´on UV. Pensamos que el uso de bloqueadores solares comerciales no es una elecci´on adecuada para la alteraci´on de las condiciones UV de superficies durante pruebas de comportamiento porque podr´ıan introducir influencias confusas provenientes de otras se˜nales sensoriales o irritar nervios perif´ericos. Wisenden et al. alteraron la absorbencia UV de sus modelos tratados con bloqueador solar pero no presentaron espectros de absorbencia y podr´ıan no haber colectado esos datos. Reconocemos que la carencia de espectros de absorbencia no es inusual. Pedimos que cualquier estudio futuro colecte espectros de absorbencia en superficies tratadas y controles para que esos datos puedan ser usados para mejorar los modelos visuales de animales sensibles a UV

Researchers as Policy Actors? Examining interactions between mathematics education research and PIAAC

Education policy making is a fluid and political process involving various actors bringing with them different perspectives and ideologies. We ask what is a policy actor, what types of roles can be played in the policy field, and what actions can be performed, by researchers in areas like mathematics education, and particularly adults’ mathematics education. We then focus on a relatively new part of the OECD’s portfolio, the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The first wave of the Survey of Adult Skills (SAS), in 2011-12 involved an assessment of adult skills in Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments in 24 industrialised countries. It is likely to have significant transnational influences on agenda setting with respect to national lifelong learning policies in participating OECD countries. In this paper, we examine a selection of analyses published by mathematics education researchers to investigate whether, and in what ways, such researchers are interacting with the PIAAC agenda