Professional paradoxes : context for development of beginning teacher identity and knowledges

It is anticipated that the current workforce of teachers in Victoria, Australia will retire within the next 5-15 years. The paradox for teachers at the career entry point is that while they are expected to quickly assume responsibility for education in this state, beginning teachers are reporting dissatisfaction with teaching and describing it as an &lsquo;unprofessional&rsquo; profession. Drawing from recently commissioned research for the Victorian Institute of Teaching, a study of sixty beginning teachers and a micro study of the &lsquo;internship&rsquo; experience of teacher educators, this paper explores the consequences of what counts as professional knowledge. By problematising identity issues for beginning teachers it is hoped that greater understanding of the complexities of their realities is revealed. The aspirations for the (re) generation of a profession are entangled in discordant displacement of meanings of what it is to become a teacher. What do &lsquo;othering&rsquo; and power(less) positions of beginning teachers mean for the immediate future of the profession? What then are the implications for school contexts, colleague support and pre-service teacher education?<br /

From profiles to rich tasks : the situated nature of \u27authenticity\u27 in the context of reforming curriculum and assessment practices

Outcome based education that has dominated Australian education in the 1990s is under review in the early years of the twenty first century. The available historical \u27texts\u27 produced during the first half of the 1990s, which include the national Statements and Profiles, and the state Curriculum and Standards Frameworks, provide us with documents that we can engage with not simply for \u27history\u27s sake\u27, but with an opportunity to, in the words of the feminist author Dorothy Smith, \u27displace[s] the analysis from the text as originating in writer or thinker, to the discourse itself as an ongoing intertextual process\u27 bringing into view the social relations in which texts are embedded and which they organise\u27 (1990, p. 161-2). Most Australian states and territories have now commenced significant situated, local curriculum renewal and reform. This renewed interest in curriculum offers insights into the character of recent assessment practices in Australia, recognising the tensions inherent in assessment practices and authentic assessment models. This paper explores, by way of an overview of the broad curriculum and assessment practices adopted in Australia over the past twenty-five years, the situated nature of \u27authenticity\u27 in the context of curriculum and assessment practices and how as teacher educators we are responding through our everyday work. <br /

Inclusive schooling : representation and textual practice

This paper reports on a larger study carried out in the island state of Tasmania, Australia, between 1996 and 1998. The research reviewed the impact of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (ISDP) within the government school system. The qualitative study describes the interpretations of five key informants: a parent; two teachers&mdash;a support teacher and a class teacher&mdash;a policy-maker and a university academic, during the early period of the implementation of the ISDP. The visual and literary &lsquo;data stories&rsquo; of the research are woven together to narrate inclusive schooling in the Tasmanian context as a &lsquo;detective story&rsquo; of the special education knowledge tradition. Drawing from poststructuralist methodology and narrative theory the multi-voiced text is a deliberate attempt to enter into conversations with the reader rather than tell the story. Researching inclusive schooling policy through representation and textual practice, I question dominant research practices in the special education field and populist slogans of &lsquo;inclusion&rsquo;.<br /

Inclusive schooling policy : an educational detective story?

Since the publication of the Salamanca statement (UNESCO 1994), inclusive schooling has formed a growing part of the deliberations of the special education community. Inclusive schooling research in Australia in the main continues to reproduce traditions of the special education field, emphasising the dominant psychological perspectives that have been superimposed on inclusive education discourses. At the fifth International Congress of Special Education (ISEC 2000) held in Manchester, &lsquo;the death knell of the concept of special education&rsquo; (ISEC 2000) was announced. The concept proposed by Mike Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich, asserts an end to understandings of diversity dependent on medical, psychological and charity-based discourses. From a recent study of inclusive schooling policy, and drawing from poststructuralist methodology, I suggest an approach to research, policy development and practice that questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Reflecting on the implementation of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (DECCD 1995) in the Tasmanian government school system, I outline my alignment with Oliver&rsquo;s view and highlight how questions of epistemology and reconstructions of research methodologies are central to rethinking understandings of difference. I also illustrate a methodological orientation that offers possibilities for a different science to take place, thereby understanding diversity as multiple and contradictory &ndash; and beyond the single &lsquo;detective story&rsquo; (Gough 1998) of the medical, psychological and charity-based discourses that circulate in schools as the populist conceptions of &lsquo;inclusion&rsquo;.<br /

The principles of learning and teaching (PoLT)

In Victoria, Australia, under the Blueprint agenda, The Principles of Learning and Teaching (Department of Education and Training, 2005) are being used to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal. The University of Melbourne is one of the three contracted providers and in 2005 and 2006 has supported 450 teachers from state, independent and special schools in Victoria and 70 teachers in Singapore. The paper outlines the workings of the model and illustrates how through a deeper and renewed focus on pedagogy schools are being asked to examine and change their practice for all students. One benefit of the initiative is that special schools are an integral part of the cluster network and are reconsidering their role in school renewal and systems transformation more broadly. However the regime of pedagogical renewal must be understood as part of the past and the present, multiple transgressions and intense struggles in reform practices more broadly. None the least being the persistent stratification of schooling into special and regular in the Victorian context and professional learning being constructed as weak professional socialization. Working visually and reading intertextually undoing some of the problematics of the implementation process the challenges of system wide professional learning and curriculum reform are exposed.<br /