The discourse of the non-traditional classroom has found itself fundamentally intertwined with the rationalities of creating learning relevant for the future-orientated twenty-first century. In such an imaginary the idea of the conventional classroom -with its four walls, blackboard, 'closed' door, teacher-centred pedagogy and student learning conceptualised through the logics of the industrial erais being renegotiated. This article focuses on an empirical examination of some of the changes to student classroom practice enabled by the material conditions of non-traditional learning spaces. In particular, it highlights the ways in which non-traditional learning spaces have become complex settings through which students negotiate increased learner autonomy, co-operative learning, acceptable classroom behaviour and fluid relations with teachers and peers. The article presents a discussion of the discourse of 'twenty-first-century learning' and focuses on non-traditional classrooms as an example of a localised expression of this discourse, supported by ethnographic data generated from field visits to three primary schools in Sydney, Australia to explore student practices enabled by such spaces.
Non-traditional Classroom SpacesThe discourse of the non-traditional classroom has found itself fundamentally intertwined with the rationalities of creating learning relevant for the future-orientated twenty-first century. In such an imaginary the idea of the conventional classroom -with its four walls, blackboard, 'closed' door, teacher-centred pedagogy and student learning conceptualised through the logics of the industrial era -is being radically renegotiated. For example, a recent Australian state government initiative, 'Smart Classrooms', which funds the integration of information and communications technologies (ICT) into state schools, bases its policy directives on 'the demand for seamless movement between school, work, home and play' and a strategic need for education to serve as 'the launch pad for shifting from traditional to transformational ways of working and learning' (State of Queensland, Department of Education, Training and Employment, n.d., p. 2). This discourse of twenty-firstcentury learning, focused on global economic competitiveness and education as an ongoing economic resource, is reflected in a number of policy documents, including the Melbourne
Smart infrastructure is positioned as central to the liveability and viability of rural and regional towns in Australia. The Australian Government's Smart Cities Plan and Regional Connectivity Program includes Smart Investment in regional areas and the New South Wales Government has prioritised connectivity and telecommunications infrastructural development through the Regional Digital Connectivity program. And yet regional and rural communities are typically excluded from the evidence base for smart technologies and services. Local Aboriginal Land Councils are also important stakeholders in managing the digital processes associated with information and infrastructure moving across different Countries. This paper draws on data from the ‘It just works!’: Regional and rural consumer understandings of smart technologies in North West New South Wales project, including over 130 survey responses and interviews with shire councillors, land councillors, and consumers on smart development and Internet infrastructure in the region. In the areas surveyed, smart regional policy is variously emerging, non‐existent, or assembled from existing policy domains and regulation involving the Internet, telecommunications, regional development, First Nations, and local government. We argue that regional and rural understandings of growth and development are experienced through the infrastructuring processes of Internet quality, availability, and speed.
University work-life balance policies increasingly offer academic workers a range of possible options for managing the competing demands of work, family, and community obligations. Flexible work arrangements, family-friendly hours and campus facilities, physical well-being and mental health programs typify strategies for formally acknowledging the need for employees to balance work with other needs and commitments. This paper draws on examples from Australian university work-life balance policies to consider how the incalculable humanity of academic workers is constructed as posing institutional risks because of the potential ill-effects of an imbalance between work and life. We consider how work-life balance policies anticipate and attempt to manage perceived risks to the institution as a consequence of workers' utilization of such policies for their own benefit. Informed by poststructuralist theoretical and cultural analyses of risk, affect, and governmentality, we argue that work-life balance policies stage a double maneuver. They offer heavily qualified workplace conditions, benefits, and supports predicated on notions of risk and reciprocity, while simultaneously extending the reach of institutional power to include the bodies, minds, families, and lives of academic workers.
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