ORCID Profile
0000-0003-4686-4245
Current Organisations
Macquarie University
,
Polish Academy of Sciences
,
University of New England
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Linguistics | Early Childhood Education (excl. Māori) | Mental Health | Applied Linguistics and Educational Linguistics | Health Promotion | Education Systems | Language in Culture and Society (Sociolinguistics)
Mental health | Languages and Literacy | Communication Across Languages and Culture | Early childhood education |
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 21-03-2019
Abstract: We use Weick’s sense-making and Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy to tease out understandings and perspectives about youth night patrol services in New South Wales, Australia. We examine synergies, tensions, and contradictions in the different ways participants make sense of the purpose of youth night patrols and their role in service delivery. Although all the service were based on the same model, used the same program logic, and reported against the same measureable outcomes, they all looked different on the ground. We explore these differences in the light of participants’ sense-making efforts, demonstrating that a unitary policy does not necessarily result in similarity of program delivery.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2021
Publisher: Canadian Center of Science and Education
Date: 21-12-2017
DOI: 10.5539/JEL.V7N2P21
Abstract: Exposing pre-service teachers to international professional experiences through a short-term visiting programme serves to challenge their understandings of good quality practice through disturbing assumptions and expectations previously formed through experiences in their own country/culture. Much of the research in international study focuses on pre-service teachers preparing to teach in primary, secondary or language classes. In this study we present the perceptions of pre-service early childhood students who underwent a short-term international experience. In particular we explore the ways in which their experiences impacted on their understandings of quality early childhood service provision. In the increasingly neoliberal Australian early childhood sector externally imposed standards define quality and this is enacted in relatively homogenous ways in practice, opportunities to observe practice arising from different understandings serves to challenge thinking, potentially leading to different world views (Piaget’s accommodation).
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2006
DOI: 10.1111/J.1365-2214.2006.00632.X
Abstract: Cortisol levels are increasingly being used as an indicator of stress levels. Research suggests that children who attend child care demonstrate higher cortisol levels than children in their homes, suggesting that child care acts as a risk factor for poor child outcomes. However, it is also suggested that quality influences outcomes. Cortisol levels were measured through s les of saliva taken from children (3-5 years of age) attending long-day care centres in Perth, Western Australia. Quality of the programme was measured using industry national quality assurance indicators designed for child care centres. The analysis employed a 2 (time of collection: average am cortisol, average pm cortisol) by 3 (centre quality: high, satisfactory, unsatisfactory) split plot ANOVA with repeated measures on the time factor. Cortisol levels of children attending high-quality programmes demonstrated a decline across the child care day. Levels in children attending unsatisfactory programmes demonstrated an increase across the day. Although we do not yet know how high, and for how long, cortisol levels need to be elevated for risk of undesirable outcomes to increase, this research signals the importance of emphasizing the need for high-quality care for young children.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-01-2019
Publisher: Sciedu Press
Date: 15-11-2015
DOI: 10.5430/JCT.V4N2P122
Publisher: Canadian Center of Science and Education
Date: 20-12-2017
DOI: 10.5539/JEL.V7N1P223
Abstract: We explore the way dominant political discourses are perceived to influence developing professionalisation of early childhood in three contexts. The UK is strongly influenced by the neoliberal agenda which positions managerialism, bureaucracy, accountability and control as necessary to drive quality improvement. Bhutan has been exposed to western ideologies for a short time (as time counts in human history) and is attempting to manage tensions between western ideologies and the philosophy underpinning Gross National Happiness. Fiji has a history of colonisation. With a growing commitment across Pacific nations to postcolonialism, Fiji professionals are struggling to manage the intersection between their neoliberal western history and their own postcolonial ambitions. We argue a better understanding of the ways in which dominant ideologies impact on the development of early childhood professionalisation will uncover unintended, taken-for-granted assumptions and illuminate potential risks, thus better positioning readers to make informed choices about their work and the development of their profession.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2016
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-05-2018
Abstract: In many Western nations (an area of the world identified by Connell as the Global North), the early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse. This positioning brings along with it the neo-liberal agenda in relation to education – i.e. that education’s key aim is the preparation of employable future employees (children as human capital). Along with this is the increasing imposition of employer-identified skills and knowledges on the curriculum in order to shape children, through education, into the ‘right’ attitudes, dispositions and knowledges. Thus, early childhood education has become increasingly subject to external accreditation, whereby services are evaluated based on their adherence to predetermined standards. Early childhood educators’ work has increasingly required the operation of a panoptic view of children, whose every behaviour is observed, recorded and judged. The authors argue that such standards, in some contexts, act as barriers to effective service delivery and present ex les of work from the Global South, demonstrating how an early childhood development focus facilitates a holistic approach to early childhood service delivery. The authors demonstrate how that development focus can be operationalised in the Global North and suggest that, as the sector proceeds towards professionalisation, it needs to consider its direction.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 1994
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-02-2018
Publisher: Science Publishing Group
Date: 2019
Publisher: Redfame Publishing
Date: 31-07-2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2017
Abstract: THIS STUDY EXPLORES KOREAN childcare teachers' attitudes toward the integration of care and education and the primary issues related to such integration. Ninety-three childcare teachers (91 females and two males) residing in the Seoul metropolitan areas of South Korea participated in this study. Most teachers in this study believed that combining care and education would enhance the professionalisation of the early care and education field and enable better services for children. The teachers expected the following fundamental elements from the integration: heightened criteria for teacher certifications better work conditions for teachers age-specific standardised curricula and improvements to the quality of facilities because of consolidated administration and management. However, the teachers were concerned with possible challenges in the childcare field after integration and its impact on childcare teachers' job opportunities. The teachers' perspectives voiced in this study offer timely data that may facilitate the development of specific guidelines and directives for the integration of care and education. Implications from this study may also contribute valuable information to other countries experiencing similar challenges in combining early education and care.
Publisher: OMICS Publishing Group
Date: 2014
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 30-07-2015
Abstract: In this article, we propose to critique the way in which a hegemonic understanding of quality in early childhood settings is imposed upon practitioners, families and children through legislated quality assurance processes. The reality of neoliberalism is played out in the establishment and maintenance of the Australian early childhood quality assurance processes as they operate up to 2015, and the definition of approved qualifications for those working in early childhood. In both cases a tightly defined, top-down approach is used to assure quality. This has the effect of limiting flexibility and de-professionalising the work of early childhood professionals. It is our contention that in this neoliberal climate, early childhood practitioners have failed to construct their arguments in ways that could be better understood by outsiders to the profession instead they are focusing on how best to be compliant. Challenging these hegemonic positions may even be perceived as being ‘anti-quality’ and not in the best interests of the early childhood sector. We analyse the current context in Australia (which reflects international trends) and explore possible strategies to re-empower the early childhood profession.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-02-2016
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2013
DOI: 10.2304/CIEC.2013.14.2.112
Abstract: Family day care in Australia is currently undergoing rapid ‘professionalisation’ within a national reform agenda that seeks to raise and standardise early childhood service quality. Included within this reform is a requirement that all family day care workers obtain formal qualifications and that workers are referred to as ‘educators' rather than ‘carers’. This study drew on focus groups and interviews with family day care workers, management, government and industry representatives collected as part of a larger study into family day care workers' capacity to promote children's social and emotional wellbeing. Our analysis identified three discourses of professionalisation within family day care that provide important insights into the sector at a time of significant change. Management promoted workers as ‘educators' aligned with a neo-liberal, masculine understanding of professionalism and the objective measures used to assess service quality. This discourse excluded what ‘carers' felt were important, subjective and maternal aspects of their service delivery. To reconcile these discursive extremes, some workers took up a discourse that emphasised the requirements of their ‘job’ and the standards of professionalism required by management. In conclusion, we contend that the take-up of educational discourses in family day care produce and reproduce tensions between ‘women's work’ and ‘masculine professionalism’ that undermine the sector's attempts to increase their status and recognition.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-10-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2013
DOI: 10.1016/J.JAGING.2013.09.002
Abstract: The matrilineal advantage theory suggests that paternal grandparents are more at risk of having little or no contact with their grandchildren. However, there is significant family ersity within Australia and we wished to understand the experiences of a wide range of grandparents in order to determine if the matrilineal theory can be effectively used in practice to identify those grandparents most at risk for estrangement. A convenience group of grandparents with little or no contact with grandchildren (n=38) told their stories in their own words using narratives obtained through interview or writing. We found that paternal grandparents, as per the matrilineal advantage theory, were more likely to be estranged from their grandchildren when their son orced, particularly when he was not the resident parent or when he re-partnered. However, in contrast, we found that maternal grandparents who experienced conflict in their relationship with their daughter were also at risk for estrangement. This occurred even when grandparents had previously been highly involved in the lives of their grandchildren. Some estrangements appeared to result from a cultural bias towards the nuclear family form. We argue that practitioners need not only to expand their understanding of the risk categories for estrangement, they also need to actively support parents and grandparents in creating and maintaining wider family support networks in order to improve family resilience.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2002
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-09-2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2014
Abstract: The current Australian government is proposing an agenda focused around social inclusion in an attempt to address the complex issues associated with inequality evident in this country. Despite valiant attempts, many agencies struggle to offer inclusive services, particularly to families who have migrated to Australia from culturally and linguistically erse (CaLD) backgrounds. In this study, we surveyed a range of programs identified by key informants as offering inclusive service delivery with the aim of identifying those aspects of their practice they believed facilitated successful inclusion. We then attempt to position our findings within recently emerging critiques of the concept of social inclusion, of which our participants appeared unaware. This critique addresses the fundamental purpose of social inclusion, and the strategies commonly used to achieve it, arguing that these are based on a deficit approach that positions those who are excluded as “other.” In identifying those who are excluded as “other” and attempting to include them into a hegemonic idea of civil society as functioning citizens, are agencies actually being racist?
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 07-05-2019
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2018
Publisher: AOSIS
Date: 06-02-2016
Abstract: The aim is to investigate the links between job satisfaction of Finnish early childhood professionals (ECPs) and the appreciation they receive for their work, and how these are associated with their competence to work with children with erse needs and backgrounds. Data was collected via nationwide online survey for practitioners ( em n /em = 885) working in Finnish kindergartens. The main findings show that ECPs experience their work as satisfactory and receive appreciation from colleagues, friends and the children’s parents. It was also evident form the data that ECPs felt themselves to be incompetent to work with children with disabilities or children who had experienced trauma. This may reflect that more in-service training regarding these special education issues is needed. We argue that satisfaction, appreciation and competence, are key factors in the development of a strong professional identity, enhanced well-being at work and in other domains of life and particularly for high quality and inclusive early childhood education.
Publisher: lnternational Electronic Journal of Elementary Education
Date: 03-2022
Abstract: The hierarchy in our educational institutions and services often mirror societal attitudes towards power and whose voices are privileged or ignored. Historically, those with power feel uncomfortable when marginalised voices are heard. There is a lot at stake when power is threatened and new voices demand changes within society. This discussion paper explores various instances of where that has happened and the backlash faced by those who are given a chance for their opinions to be heard or those who assist them to voice their narrative through research and reporting. Using publicly available data and our own experiences, we examine incidences where society has listened to children, the victims of sexual abuse in institutions and Indigenous Australians. For people to reach their potential, their voices need to be heard in matters that affect them, according to the United Nations Human Rights Declaration (United Nations, 1948). Using discourse and narrative analysis, the authors discuss the cost of exercising those rights within a neoliberal context and examine how this influences peoples’ agency as they face media backlash, online trolling and death threats. Despite this, when marginalised people are bold enough and are allowed to tell their stories, societies, educational institutions, and services have the chance to adapt and improve. This will interest those who educate and research with marginalised people or who study social and institutionalised power.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 16-03-2021
DOI: 10.3390/SOC11010025
Abstract: In my last years in academia, I have experienced the intimidating impact of pettybureaucracy and top-down micromanagement that typify managerialism in higher education today. In this paper I use my own experiences to reflect on why this is happening, attempting to gain understanding that can support others still working in the sector to survive and ultimately thrive. I argue that neoliberalism operates as an ideology, shaping the way we perceive and act in the world. In higher education, it is enacted through managerialism, together creating a social imaginary that defines what is expected of managers and what is expected of workers. Women are particularly vulnerable in this social imaginary given that the challenges they face in the workforce are attributed to their own shortcomings rather than any systemic barriers. Women face choices as to how to operate in this social imaginary, but all choices have consequences that need to be understood and managed. Ultimately, systemic disadvantage will not change without significant action taken by collectives of women who have a clear vision of better alternatives.
Publisher: AOSIS
Date: 24-04-2018
Abstract: We contend that the conventions, practices and philosophies underpinning working with infants and toddlers provide an alternative way of viewing early childhood work, and such a perspective may well help to challenge the ‘wicked problem’ of neoliberalism. It is in this context that we propose that a deeper understanding of the perspectives of those professionals working with our youngest children in a range of different countries may inform a wider resistance to neoliberalism across all of early childhood. We seek, in this article, to share the voices of early childhood professionals reflecting on the manner in which they understand work with infants and toddlers, and how this relates to their understanding of issues related to education and care. We hope this exploration will lead us into further refining our argument that infant and toddler pedagogy has the potential to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism in early childhood. Our dream is to steer early childhood away from the tyranny of standardisation, accountability and economic rationality into a space where children are valued for being, where in iduality and ersity flourish, where learning academics is one (relatively unimportant) element amongst many others and where relationships and participation (and dare we say, happiness) reign supreme.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2002
Abstract: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that a child (any person under 18) has the right to be protected from work which is exploitative or threatens their normal development. International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 182 further defines particularly hazardous or demeaning child labour. This research project investigates the experiences of junior (aged 14–16) childcare workers in Western Australia (WA) working under conditions which violate these conventions. The childcare sector has undergone changes, resulting in the employment of an increased number of juniors. These young people work for low wages, are given a high level of responsibility, and are often unassertive, inarticulate and unaware of their industrial rights. The research draws on workers' own accounts of their work experiences to document and analyse the current situation, and makes recommendations for action.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 1997
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-11-2011
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2014
DOI: 10.1177/183693911403900309
Abstract: THIS PAPER PRESENTS BASELINE data from Thrive, a capacity-building program for family day care educators. Educators completed a self-report survey assessing knowledge and confidence in promoting children's social and emotional wellbeing. An in-home observation was used to assess care quality. Twenty-four educators responded to the survey (40 per cent response rate). They had an average of nine years' experience and 82 per cent held childcare qualifications. Educators reported knowledge of, on average, three early signs of social and emotional problems in children, three risk factors and two protective factors. Using a scale from 0–10, mean educator confidence levels ranged from an average of 6.69 to 7.25. Quality of care ratings were moderate. Although educators had a good understanding of children's social and emotional wellbeing, the study identified opportunities for significant changes in the quality of the educators' interactions with children in their care and their professional development.
Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich
Date: 29-07-2019
DOI: 10.3224/8474219918
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-1997
DOI: 10.1007/BF02589418
Publisher: Scholink Co, Ltd.
Date: 30-05-2019
Abstract: In this paper I argue that early childhood professionals have a key role in providing learning opportunities that aim to prevent children placing their feet on the beginning of the slippery slope of racism. At the bottom of this slippery slope of racism, as we have seen in recent world events, are acts of extremist terrorism. This responsibility is increasingly important given that in many countries political rhetoric is leaning further towards far right extremism accompanied by forms of nationalism where those who are different (for ex le Muslims and refugee groups) are being portrayed as threatening standards of living of citizens in their host countries. As professionals we have a responsibility to identify early (often, on the surface, benign) acts, reflect on the value position underpinning such acts, and provide opportunities for children to learn to value and respect the differences they see every day in the people around them. In this paper I provide suggestions as to the kinds of behaviours (and the value positions underpinning them) that we see in young children and the ways we might address these.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Date: 23-06-2022
Abstract: A key factor that has been found to be critical in shaping family language policy is parents’ linguistic identities, or “parents’ personal experiences with bilingualism, biculturalism or second language learning” (King, Kendall A. & Lyn Fogle. 2006. Bilingual parenting as good parenting: Parents’ perspectives on family language policy for additive bilingualism. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 9(6). 695–712, p. 703). In other words, parents’ experiences of languages will colour and influence both their aims for their children’s plurilingualism, and the practices that they bring to bear to that end. This proposition was explored in a paper by Sims, Margaret, Elizabeth M. Ellis & Vicki Knox. 2017. Parental plurilingual capital in a monolingual context: Investigating strengths to support young children in early childhood settings. Early Childhood Education Journal 45. 777–787 (p. 779), that “parents construct their own understandings of plurilingualism based on their own experiences with languages” meaning that the parents’ linguistic identity indeed provides the potential and the basis for bringing up their children as plurilinguals. This paper, based on an Australian ARC-funded study, reports on the link between parents’ linguistic identity and their family language policy, on their impact beliefs (De Houwer, Annick. 1999. Environmental factors in early bilingual development: The role of parental beliefs and attitudes. In G. Extra & L. Verhoeven (eds.), Bilingualism and migration , 75–95. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 83), on the ways in which their aims for their children’s language development are articulated and put into practice, and on how they deal with their children’s emerging linguistic identity as plurilinguals, in a linguistically isolated context in regional New South Wales.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-10-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-1999
DOI: 10.5172/JFS.5.1.84
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-2012
Publisher: Springer US
Date: 11-09-2013
Publisher: ACM
Date: 15-10-2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Date: 2022
Publisher: Asian Institute of Research
Date: 20-12-2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-06-2017
Abstract: In the Australian early childhood sector the role of educational leader emerged as part of a very large process of policy reform that began in 2009. The position of educational leader was established to drive the quality improvement requirements of the reform, but many organizations did not establish these positions until several years after the reforms were introduced. Lack of clear role descriptions and authority make it difficult for educational leaders to fulfil the expectations held of them. This study examines the sense leaders make of the policy reforms and the street-level bureaucracy they perform to translate the policy into action. This sense-making and street-level bureaucracy is taking place in a neoliberal context where, we argue, the demands for professional discretionary decision-making are in conflict with the top-down standardization inherent in neoliberalism. Educational leaders have the potential to challenge neoliberalism through their professional decision-making but, in the Australian context, many are currently focusing on compliance with their street-level bureaucracy.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-10-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-09-2015
Publisher: Canadian Center of Science and Education
Date: 23-03-2015
DOI: 10.5539/HES.V5N2P10
Publisher: UNE
Date: 2017
Start Date: 08-2010
End Date: 12-2013
Amount: $157,014.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2014
End Date: 03-2019
Amount: $278,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity