Jim Albright
How I conceptualizing my research in English education, and pedagogy and schooling in general owes a debt to French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. My research continues to clarify, broaden and deepen my use of Bourdieusian theories and methodologies, especially field analysis. A Bourdieusian stance can enable a powerful sociological and cultural analysis, enabling researchers, teachers and students to engage with and transform available capital, social fields, and systems of exchange. I am interested in how principled and practicable relations can be drawn from Bourdieusian concepts and models to help us understanding the peculiar economy of texts and textual practices circulating in disciplinary fields, how texts are produced and how they are described, interpreted and explained. This interest has been at the heart of my most writing on multiliteracies and disciplinarity and has focused on my continuing research in literacy education, curriculum studies, professional development, school reform, and qualitative research. Over the past few years I have worked on innovations projects whose broad goals have been to improve our understanding of the impact of current pedagogical practices, institutional arrangements, and assessment regimes on student outcomes. My understanding of the relevant research suggests that this is best achieved through building teacher capacity through supporting schools as professional learning communities.
Phone: Ph: + 61 2 4921 6738 Fax: + 61 2 4921 7818
Address: School of Education
HC65
The University of Newcastle
Callaghan, NSW, 2308
Australia
Phone: Ph: + 61 2 4921 6738 Fax: + 61 2 4921 7818
Address: School of Education
HC65
The University of Newcastle
Callaghan, NSW, 2308
Australia
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Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, the sixth largest school system in Australia, has undertaken implementation of the AusVELS: English F-10 (Victorian Essential Learning Standards: Foundation to Year 10) curriculum using an embedded approach. Coordinating the work of personnel charged with implementation of the new curriculum, key features of this approach include literacy leadership, the professional learning practices of using a knowledge building cycle of inquiry and professional learning teams, distinctive literacy-based projects and the system priority of school improvement. Analysis of interview and documentary data has been methodologically informed by Institutional Ethnography and Bourdieusian field analysis. Understanding of specific institutional responses to the AC:E may provide orientation for
informed reflection on, and comparative analysis of, curriculum implementation experiences and practices.
education as a sociological field and attempts to evaluate and re-inscribe aesthetic,
literary, historical, economic, philosophical and other positions within it as a means
for framing a new research and pedagogical agenda. Literacy education as a social
field is conceptualized as a structure of provisional balances within which various
forms of power and capital circulate. Position, distinction and contest, within sites
in fields like literacy education, structure social space and enable reproduction
and change. A heuristic that weds Fairclough’s (1989) work on textual production
and consumption with Bourdieu’s model of social space as relational structured
contested fields is proposed.
researched the practical aspects of developing a curriculum of multiliteracies. This
article examines multiliteracies as a crossdisciplinary curriculum practice, drawing
on data from a 3-year study in an urban middle school. The data show possibilities for
students to engage in critique and to move toward designing multimodal texts. Using
Bourdieusian concepts of social capital and academic field, we explore the struggles
around learning to inhabit certain school discourses.
assumptions underpinning much of this activity: that students from low-SES backgrounds hold lower career aspirations; and that outreach activities appropriately target secondary school students, given that younger students’ aspirations are relatively
under-developed. Drawing on a sample of 3,504 students, we map the intersection of the career aspirations of students in Years 4, 6, 8, and 10 with SES and other demographic variables in order to contribute to the evidence base for academic, educational,
and political work on access to higher education and the policies, practices, and outcomes that might ensue. Aspirations are assessed in terms of occupational certainty, occupational choice, occupational prestige, and occupational justification. We
found fewer differences by year level and by SES than expected. Our analyses demonstrate both the complexity of students’ career aspirations and some of the challenges associated with undertaking this kind of research, thus signalling the need
for caution in the development of policy and interventions in this field.
Curriculum also presents a valuable opportunity to develop educational research methodologies that attend to the complex and multifaceted processes of curriculum reform, from systems to classrooms. Taking two of the disciplinary towers of modern curricula (English and mathematics) and Australia’s two largest jurisdictions (New South Wales and Victoria) as the focus, this article draws on a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage Project to outline an approach to researching major curriculum reform.
orientations and practices reinforcing presentism. We found a strong orientation of presentism in both schools, but had some success in engaging teachers in taking a longer-term perspective. The article concludes with implications for educational leaders about ways in which presentism can be challenged in school settings.
Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, the sixth largest school system in Australia, has undertaken implementation of the AusVELS: English F-10 (Victorian Essential Learning Standards: Foundation to Year 10) curriculum using an embedded approach. Coordinating the work of personnel charged with implementation of the new curriculum, key features of this approach include literacy leadership, the professional learning practices of using a knowledge building cycle of inquiry and professional learning teams, distinctive literacy-based projects and the system priority of school improvement. Analysis of interview and documentary data has been methodologically informed by Institutional Ethnography and Bourdieusian field analysis. Understanding of specific institutional responses to the AC:E may provide orientation for
informed reflection on, and comparative analysis of, curriculum implementation experiences and practices.
education as a sociological field and attempts to evaluate and re-inscribe aesthetic,
literary, historical, economic, philosophical and other positions within it as a means
for framing a new research and pedagogical agenda. Literacy education as a social
field is conceptualized as a structure of provisional balances within which various
forms of power and capital circulate. Position, distinction and contest, within sites
in fields like literacy education, structure social space and enable reproduction
and change. A heuristic that weds Fairclough’s (1989) work on textual production
and consumption with Bourdieu’s model of social space as relational structured
contested fields is proposed.
researched the practical aspects of developing a curriculum of multiliteracies. This
article examines multiliteracies as a crossdisciplinary curriculum practice, drawing
on data from a 3-year study in an urban middle school. The data show possibilities for
students to engage in critique and to move toward designing multimodal texts. Using
Bourdieusian concepts of social capital and academic field, we explore the struggles
around learning to inhabit certain school discourses.
assumptions underpinning much of this activity: that students from low-SES backgrounds hold lower career aspirations; and that outreach activities appropriately target secondary school students, given that younger students’ aspirations are relatively
under-developed. Drawing on a sample of 3,504 students, we map the intersection of the career aspirations of students in Years 4, 6, 8, and 10 with SES and other demographic variables in order to contribute to the evidence base for academic, educational,
and political work on access to higher education and the policies, practices, and outcomes that might ensue. Aspirations are assessed in terms of occupational certainty, occupational choice, occupational prestige, and occupational justification. We
found fewer differences by year level and by SES than expected. Our analyses demonstrate both the complexity of students’ career aspirations and some of the challenges associated with undertaking this kind of research, thus signalling the need
for caution in the development of policy and interventions in this field.
Curriculum also presents a valuable opportunity to develop educational research methodologies that attend to the complex and multifaceted processes of curriculum reform, from systems to classrooms. Taking two of the disciplinary towers of modern curricula (English and mathematics) and Australia’s two largest jurisdictions (New South Wales and Victoria) as the focus, this article draws on a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage Project to outline an approach to researching major curriculum reform.
orientations and practices reinforcing presentism. We found a strong orientation of presentism in both schools, but had some success in engaging teachers in taking a longer-term perspective. The article concludes with implications for educational leaders about ways in which presentism can be challenged in school settings.