Higher education service learning with First Peoples of Australia

Australian higher education institutions face increasing pressure to institute Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture at every level of activity. In this paper, which takes as its context a three-university service-learning initiative with First Peoples of Australia, we argue that service-learning opportunities develop students who are more culturally responsive, adaptable and aware. In this instance we position service learning as a strategy through which Australian universities and colleges might promote Indigenous cultural content for students, faculty and the broader community. We report the experiences of a funded, arts-based service learning initiative in which creative arts students (n=70) and pre-service teachers (n=37) worked with over 290 Aboriginal community members in urban, rural and remote areas of Australia. The study adopted an action research approach and we combined a range of conceptual-theoretical resources with the voices and experiences of the students, academic researchers and community members. Our study data confirmed the potential for service learning to build valuable intercultural competencies amongst higher education students, fostering critical engagement with racial politics and a shift in extant views of cultural diversity. Participating students developed a deeper awareness of their past experiences and a greater sensitivity towards forms of social and cultural oppression. Deeper critical engagement with the issues faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities prompted students to be more responsive in their critiques of the cultural politics of their own educational experiences. As they gained confidence and self-assuredness, students learned to dra

Service learning with First Peoples: a framework to support respectful and reciprocal learning

This article outlines a framework for working with First Peoples. The framework supports respectful and mutually beneficial learning partnerships and culminates from 6 years of practice and research in arts-based service learning with Aboriginal communities in Australia. We begin by looking at synergies between global service learning and service learning with First Peoples. We then position this work within an international context, focusing on Indigenous frameworks for practice identified in service learning with First Nations communities in North America. We next describe the Australian context and touch on the multilayered intercultural processes and outcomes associated with the programmes across three universities. Finally, we introduce the framework and elaborate on its dimensions

Reconciliation and transformation through mutual learning: Outlining a framework for arts-based service learning with Indigenous communities in Australia

Service learning is described as a socially just educational process that develops two-way learning and social outcomes for community and student participants. Despite the focus on mutuality in service learning, very little of this literature specifically deals with the intense importance of mutuality and reciprocity when working with Indigenous community partners and participants. This is problematic for Indigenous service learning projects that seek to partner respectfully with Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. To address this issue, the paper draws on existing international literature and data from an Indigenous arts based service learning project conducted in the Northern Territory of Australia to propose a framework centred on relationships, reciprocity, reflexivity and representation that can be adapted for future Indigenous service learning partnerships and research

Note and Comment

Inducing Breach of Agreement by Employees Not to Join a Labor Union, in Order to Compel Unionization of Plaintiff\u27s Business - In Hitchnan Coal & Coke Compazy v. John Mitchell, et al., (Dec. 10, 1917), 38 Sup. Ct. 6s, the novel question was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, as to whether or not members of a labor Union could be enjoined from conspiring to persuade, and persuading, without violence or show of violence, plaintiff\u27s employees, not members of the Union,-and who were working for plaintiff not for a specified time, but under an agreement not to continue in plaintiff\u27s employment if they joined the Union, this agreement being fully known to defendants,-secretly to agree to join the Union and continue working for plaintiff until enough had agreed to join, so that a strike could be called, and plaintiff be thereby forced to unionize its business of mining coal

Note and Comment

New Trials for Technical Errors - A witness called to testify is presumed to be of good character. Hence no proof of it is necessary. But out of abundant caution this presumption is fortified by evidence. The witness is thus shown to be in fact exactly what the law presumes him to be. Result-the case is reversed for the commission of this grave and prejudicial error.-Lockett v. State (Ark. 1918), 207 S. W. 55

They [do more than] Interrupt Us from Sadness: Exploring the impact of participatory music making on social determinants of health and wellbeing for refugees in Australia

This paper reports on the outcomes of an exploratory narrative study on the impact of participatory music making on social determinants of health (SDOH) and wellbeing for refugees in Brisbane, Australia. A key component of this exploratory research was to map health and wellbeing outcomes of music participation using an existing SDOH framework developed by researchers in the field of health promotion (Schulz & Northridge, 2004). This paper maps reported health and wellbeing outcomes for five refugee and asylum seeker members of a participatory Brisbane-based music initiative, the Scattered People, along an SDOH continuum ranging from individual level through to macro level fundamental determinants of health.While most themes emerging from this study corresponded to distinct categories in the Schulz and Northridge SDOH framework, three key aspects, which were critical to the achievement of wellbeing for participants, did not fit any of the pre-defined categories. These were: cultural expression, music making, and consolidation of personal and social identity. The importance of those themes to participants suggests that music and wellbeing studies involving culturally diverse groups and from a SDOH perspective may need to consider broader, more relevant concepts. The paper provides recommendations for future interdisciplinary research in this field.

Reliability of a musculoskeletal profiling test battery in elite academy soccer players

The study aimed to quantify the measurement error / reliability of a musculoskeletal profiling test battery administered in young, elite academy soccer players, and to examine if the order in which the test battery was administered, and who it was administered by, influenced reliability. Players (n = 75; age 12–20 years; stature 1.47–1.95 m; body mass 36–89 kg) from U-12 to U-23 age groups were assigned to either: 1) intra-rater-fixed order; 2) intra-rater-non-fixed order; 3) inter-rater-fixed order; or, 4) inter-rater-non-fixed order groups. On two separate occasions separated by 3 to 7 days, 12 raters conducted a musculoskeletal profiling test battery comprising 10 tests (Supine Medial Hip Rotation, Supine Lateral Hip Rotation, Hamstring 90/90, Prone Medial Hip Rotation [degrees]; Combined Elevation, Thoracic Rotation, Weight-Bearing Dorsiflexion, Y-Balance [centimetres]; Beighton, Lumbar Quadrant [categorical]). The measurement error / reliability for tests measured in degrees and centimetres was evaluated using the intraclass correlation (relative reliability), coefficient of variation and ratio limits of agreement (absolute reliability). Intraclass correlations varied from 0.04 (“poor”) to 0.95 (“excellent”), coefficient of variation from 2.9 to 43.4%, and the ratio limits of agreement from 1.058 (*/÷ 1.020) to 2.026 (*/÷ 1.319) for the tests measured in degrees and centimetres. The intraclass correlation, coefficient of variation and ratio limits of agreement were smallest for five out of eight tests measured in degrees and centimetres when the tests were administered in an intra-rater-fixed test order. These findings emphasise that different testing methods, and the administration of a musculoskeletal profiling test battery using a less than optimal design, will influence measurement error and hence test reliability. These observations need to be considered when investigating musculoskeletal function and age, injury, training or asymmetry in young, elite academy soccer players

Book Reviews

The Rule-Making Authority in the English Supreme Court, by Samuel Rosenbaum. Boston, The Boston Book Co., 1917, pp. xiv, 321. This volume is the fourth in the University of Pennsylvania Law School Series, and is the work of a fellow of that school during the years 1913-1915. In common with the other books of the series, its object is to aid the scientific study of legal problems and to help to improve the law. No subject, surely, is more worthy of presentation to American readers than this, and none is more full of important suggestions for the improvement of our practice

Note and Comment

James H. Brewster - Thousands of alumni and former students of the Law School will learn with deep regret of the sudden death of Professor Brewster in Denver, Colorado, on October 7, 1920

Cross-validating models of continuous data from simulation and experiment by using linear regression and artificial neural networks

We are increasingly surrounded by sensors gathering massive amounts of data, and patterns in continuous variables are often discovered by using artificial neural networks (ANN), while linear regression (LR) is useful for detecting linear relationships. LR also provide preliminary estimates of potentially complex associations, and serve as a benchmark for the performance of ANNs. We show that while cross-validation (CV) is indispensable for insuring the robustness of the discovered patterns, it systematically leads, when combined with LR, to specific artefacts that underestimate the extent of the associations between predictor and target variables. We explain how this previously unnoticed type of artefact arises specifically from the combination of CV with LR and does not affect non-linear methods such as ANN. We also demonstrate through simulations that ANN were able to discover a wide range of complex associations missed by LR. The results were confirmed by the analysis of physiological, behavioural and subjective data collected from N=31 human subjects performing laparoscopy training experiments