Teachers and teaching: subjectivity, performativity and the body

It has become almost commonplace to recognise that teaching is an embodied practice. Most analyses of teaching as embodied practice focus on the embodied nature of the teacher as subject. Here, we use Butler's concept of performativity to analyse the reiterated acts that are intelligible as—performatively constitute—teaching, rather of the teacher as subject. We suggest that this simultaneously helps explain the persistence of teaching as a narrow repertoire of actions recognisable as 'teaching', and the policing of conformity to teaching thus embodied. However, like performatively accomplished subjectivity, this repertoire is unstable and ambiguous, and thus open to change and disruption. Moreover, teacher subjectivities may lead them to mobilise these possibilities of disruption

Mastering the challenge of literacy, numeracy and science education: a critical analysis of the Masters Report

The recently released Masters Report, A Shared Challenge: Improving Literacy, Numeracy and Science Learning in Queensland Primary Schools, responds to the Queensland government's concern about the state's poor performance in the 2008 NAPLAN and 2007 TIMMS tests. The report contextualises and analyses the problem and formulated five recommendations which are currently under consideration by government.\ud \ud This paper analyses the Report as a policy document. It draws on understandings of policy as strategic and tactical responses to political contingencies, and an analytical approach which focuses on the ways policies define that problem they appear simply to address. Thus, it seeks to illuminate how the Report frames and represents the 'problems' of, and its recommendations for education reform in Queensland.\ud \ud We draw attention to the Report's discursive strategies for establishing the truth of its account of the problem, and the relations among different aspects that account, and its recommended solutions. We considers its use of research literature and statistical data, its use of comparative methods, its own primary 'field' data, the relations between the comparator countries and the sources used as models for solutions to the problems. The Report's methodological tools constitute practical strategies for establishing its own regime of truth, which sets the conditions for the acceptance and implementation of its preferred policies and practices.\ud \ud The paper argues that the Report's representation of Queensland's education performance constructs student performance as an issue of teaching quality and a domain of accountability. While the Report recognises a range of social and systemic factors shaping the results, it disregards these in both its definition of the problem and its formulation of recommendations; this involves slippage between analytical considerations of 'truth' and political concern about 'acceptability'. By placing social context out of the frame of analysis, the Report sets the conditions for privileging of particular policy choices, as exemplified by the five recommendations which are directed at teachers' training, practice, and growth. This analysis, then, illuminates the way the Report forecloses a range of alternative or complementary policy responses to the state of education in Queensland and opens up space for continued discussion of those alternatives

Social and emotional learning: a critical case study

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is embedded in the emerging Australian national curriculum (ACARA 2013), reflecting a growing body of research (Durlack, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor & Schellinger 2011), professional (Merrell & Gueldner 2010) and popular writing (Covey 1998), and the uptake of that work in practice (Barnard 2006) . This paper offers a critical perspective on both the conceptualization of SEL and its uptake in one particular school. We draw on Foucauldian concepts of discourse (Foucault 1971), governmentality (Foucault, et al. 1991) and technologies of the self (Foucault, et al. 1988) as well as a substantive understanding of the role of the discipline of psychology in constituting and articulating understandings of the self (Davies 2006) and of schools in cultivating particular modes of selfhood (Hunter 1988, 1994), to show that formulations of SEL in research professional and policy play a critical role in making available particular ways of understanding and disciplines selves. We then turn to a small case study of SEL in a state primary school in northern Queensland to show the how SEL might be enacted. First, we show how SEL in this school takes up essentially individual-psychology understandings of the social and emotional domains of human being. Second, we show how SEL is ‘translated’ into practices that are quite complexly related to the understandings of SEL in the scholarly and professional literature and, in particular, are inflected into a highly traditional or conservative pedagogical and disciplinary set of practices. Third, we show how these discourses of self-competency are mobilized by a small sample of year 6 students and their teachers. While our approach is critical of SEL at each of the levels at which we consider it here, it is appreciative rather than dismissive, and we raise a series of questions about its value and about possible ways it might be elaborated or transformed in light of our critique

Teaching : making a difference

Teaching: Making a Difference has been developed to provide the pre-service teacher with new and contemporary lenses for helping them develop as future educators. It is relevant to students in undergraduate and postgraduate teacher programs. This multi-authored volume draws on the expertise of each contributor and reflects the latest contemporary research. The text is supported by a unique multi-media package designed to meet the needs of individual learners. [Book Synopsis]Click <a href="http://research.usc.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/usc:8422">here</a> to view the USC Research Bank entry for the Second Edition published in 2013

A variable age of onset segregation model for linkage analysis, with correction for ascertainment, applied to glioma.

BackgroundWe propose a 2-step model-based approach, with correction for ascertainment, to linkage analysis of a binary trait with variable age of onset and apply it to a set of multiplex pedigrees segregating for adult glioma.MethodsFirst, we fit segregation models by formulating the likelihood for a person to have a bivariate phenotype, affection status and age of onset, along with other covariates, and from these we estimate population trait allele frequencies and penetrance parameters as a function of age (N = 281 multiplex glioma pedigrees). Second, the best fitting models are used as trait models in multipoint linkage analysis (N = 74 informative multiplex glioma pedigrees). To correct for ascertainment, a prevalence constraint is used in the likelihood of the segregation models for all 281 pedigrees. Then the trait allele frequencies are reestimated for the pedigree founders of the subset of 74 pedigrees chosen for linkage analysis.ResultsUsing the best-fitting segregation models in model-based multipoint linkage analysis, we identified 2 separate peaks on chromosome 17; the first agreed with a region identified by Shete and colleagues who used model-free affected-only linkage analysis, but with a narrowed peak: and the second agreed with a second region they found but had a larger maximum log of the odds (LOD).ConclusionsOur approach was able to narrow the linkage peak previously published for glioma.ImpactWe provide a practical solution to model-based linkage analysis for disease affection status with variable age of onset for the kinds of pedigree data often collected for linkage analysis

Description of selected characteristics of familial glioma patients – Results from the Gliogene Consortium

BACKGROUND: While certain inherited syndromes (e.g. Neurofibromatosis or Li-Fraumeni) are associated with an increased risk of glioma, most familial gliomas are non-syndromic. This study describes the demographic and clinical characteristics of the largest series of non-syndromic glioma families ascertained from 14 centres in the United States (US), Europe and Israel as part of the Gliogene Consortium. METHODS: Families with 2 or more verified gliomas were recruited between January 2007 and February 2011. Distributions of demographic characteristics and clinical variables of gliomas in the families were described based on information derived from personal questionnaires. FINDINGS: The study population comprised 841 glioma patients identified in 376 families (9797 individuals). There were more cases of glioma among males, with a male to female ratio of 1.25. In most families (83%), 2 gliomas were reported, with 3 and 4 gliomas in 13% and 3% of the families, respectively. For families with 2 gliomas, 57% were among 1st-degree relatives, and 31.5% among 2nd-degree relatives. Overall, the mean (±standard deviation [SD]) diagnosis age was 49.4 (±18.7) years. In 48% of families with 2 gliomas, at least one was diagnosed at <40 y, and in 12% both were diagnosed under 40 y of age. Most of these families (76%) had at least one grade IV glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), and in 32% both cases were grade IV gliomas. The most common glioma subtype was GBM (55%), followed by anaplastic astrocytoma (10%) and oligodendroglioma (8%). Individuals with grades I–II were on average 17 y younger than those with grades III–IV. INTERPRETATION: Familial glioma cases are similar to sporadic cases in terms of gender distribution, age, morphology and grade. Most familial gliomas appear to comprise clusters of two cases suggesting low penetrance, and that the risk of developing additional gliomas is probably low. These results should be useful in the counselling and clinical management of individuals with a family history of glioma

A Variable Age of Onset Segregation Model for Linkage Analysis, with Correction for Ascertainment, Applied to Glioma

BACKGROUND: We propose a two-step model-based approach, with correction for ascertainment, to linkage analysis of a binary trait with variable age of onset and apply it to a set of multiplex pedigrees segregating for adult glioma. METHODS: First, we fit segregation models by formulating the likelihood for a person to have a bivariate phenotype, affection status and age of onset, along with other covariates, and from these we estimate population trait allele frequencies and penetrance parameters as a function of age (N=281 multiplex glioma pedigrees). Second, the best fitting models are used as trait models in multipoint linkage analysis (N=74 informative multiplex glioma pedigrees). To correct for ascertainment, a prevalence constraint is used in the likelihood of the segregation models for all 281 pedigrees. Then the trait allele frequencies are re-estimated for the pedigree founders of the subset of 74 pedigrees chosen for linkage analysis. RESULTS: Using the best fitting segregation models in model-based multipoint linkage analysis, we identified two separate peaks on chromosome 17; the first agreed with a region identified by Shete et al. who used model-free affected-only linkage analysis, but with a narrowed peak: and the second agreed with a second region they found but had a larger maximum log of the odds (LOD). CONCLUSIONS/IMPACT: Our approach has the advantage of not requiring markers to be in linkage equilibrium unless the minor allele frequency is small (markers which tend to be uninformative for linkage), and of using more of the available information for LOD-based linkage analysis

Insight in glioma susceptibility through an analysis of 6p22.3, 12p13.33-12.1, 17q22-23.2 and 18q23 SNP genotypes in familial and non-familial glioma

The risk of glioma has consistently been shown to be increased twofold in relatives of patients with primary brain tumors (PBT). A recent genome-wide linkage study of glioma families provided evidence for a disease locus on 17q12-21.32, with the possibility of four additional risk loci at 6p22.3, 12p13.33-12.1, 17q22-23.2, and 18q23. To identify the underlying genetic variants responsible for the linkage signals, we compared the genotype frequencies of 5,122 SNPs mapping to these five regions in 88 glioma cases with and 1,100 cases without a family history of PBT (discovery study). An additional series of 84 familial and 903 non-familial cases were used to replicate associations. In the discovery study, 12 SNPs showed significant associations with family history of PBT (P &lt; 0.001). In the replication study, two of the 12 SNPs were confirmed: 12p13.33-12.1 PRMT8 rs17780102 (P = 0.031) and 17q12-21.32 SPOP rs650461 (P = 0.025). In the combined analysis of discovery and replication studies, the strongest associations were attained at four SNPs: 12p13.33-12.1 PRMT8 rs17780102 (P = 0.0001), SOX5 rs7305773 (P = 0.0001) and STKY1 rs2418087 (P = 0.0003), and 17q12-21.32 SPOP rs6504618 (P = 0.0006). Further, a significant gene-dosage effect was found for increased risk of family history of PBT with these four SNPs in the combined data set (P(trend) &lt;1.0 × 10(-8)). The results support the linkage finding that some loci in the 12p13.33-12.1 and 17q12-q21.32 may contribute to gliomagenesis and suggest potential target genes underscoring linkage signals