The complex interconnection among issues affecting rural—regional sustainability requires an equally complex program of research to ensure the attraction and retention of high-quality teachers for rural children. The educational effects of the construction of the rural within a deficit discourse are highlighted. A concept of rural social space is modelled, bringing together social, economic and environmental dimensions of (rural—regional) sustainability. This framework combines quantitative definitional processes with more situated definitions of rural space based on demographic and other social data, across both geographic and cultural formations. The implications of the model are examined in terms of its importance for teacher education.

No abstract

No abstract

Teacher induction programs provide the critical support that new teachers need as they move from university teacher education studies to the everyday realities of teaching. Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) work through a range of new and challenging experiences as they explore their sense of themselves as professionals. Their identities are being constantly constructed and reconstructed as they work through their subjective experience of being a teacher and the objective structures of the wider educational field of the classroom, school and the local community. A high percentage of NQTs leave the teaching profession within the first 5 years of beginning teaching as they grapple with and succumb to the challenges caused by a number of stressors they encounter. New teachers frequently become dissatisfied with the outcomes of their work and decide that they are unsuited to teaching and leave the profession. This article is based on a study of beginning teachers in two Australian states. The focus is on multiple ways to meet the needs of new teachers to establish their professional identity within the context of a community of learners and to value diversity and complexity in the professional community. Key issues addressed included: teacher induction and quality teaching, changing school cultures and the culture of professional learning, teacher learning and responding to changes in the wider community.

This paper reports on the ndings of a study, the 'Constructing Classroom Cultures' project, funded by a small Australian Research Council grant at the University of Melbourne. Located in three primary school classrooms in Melbourne, Victoria, this study investigated how teachers and grade 3-4 students develop shared values and understandings concerning formal and informal codes of behaviour. Drawing on classroom observations, individual interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with children, this paper discusses the ways that teachers and children together build classroom cultures. Practices that work to produce supportive classroom environments as well as problem areas are identi ed.Examining classroom cultures at the micro-political level offers scope for considering how power relations can contribute positively to educational processes. Additionally, the ways in which informal interactions between teacher and students and among students call into play collaboration, compliance and resistance are opened up for examination. These case studies aim to contribute to understanding how productive classroom cultures are constructed in day-to-day interactions, a signi cant area of concern for teachers and teacher education students.Every government school in Victoria, Australia is required to have a Code of Conduct that will elaborate the rights and responsibilities of students, teachers, administrators and parents. While this Code sets out the school community expectations for desired behaviour, how individual teachers and their students work through rules that govern their interactions within classrooms has been less well documented or analysed. Yet, in order to promote quality teaching and learning outcomes, it is necessary to understand how a positive classroom culture can be established through the interactions of all members of the classroom. The research project reported on here set out to explore how three primary teachers and their respective classes established the culture of the classroom by working through some issues of authority and power relations. Setting and MethodologyThe small empirical study, an aspect of which is reported on in this article, was located in three primary schools in Melbourne, Victoria. There were similarities among the three schools that in uenced our choice of them as sites of this study. First, each school had a large population of students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and, since we were interested to investigate how ethnicity enters into classroom cultures, this was a factor in our selection. As teacher educators, we had prior contact with each school and believed them to be places where children were encouraged to work together collabora-

This paper provides teachers with an opportunity for thinking about the kinds of 'people' constructed in their classes, the kinds of 'dances' choreographed and the ways space is organised for learning. We argue that this is essential for teachers to think about if they are to enact socially just professional practices. In this study, we explore the ways in which students learn to be particular kinds of people. We understand this as happening through their participation in communities of practice. Becoming a member of a community of practice, of a classroom and of a school is a process of developing a particular identity, modes of behaviour and ways of knowing. It is through these 'normalising' practices that power is constituted, boundaries constructed and certain 'kinds of people' are recognised, represented and constituted, whilst others are not. All individuals are implicated in these processes and active in the construction of their own as well as others' identities. This paper locates this discussion using social relations of gender and ethnicity, and considers how diversity and difference are actively constituted and play out in one primary school classroom. How students participate in the spatial practices and the construction of pedagogical spaces, what identities are available to them in these spaces and which they take up, is explored. The metaphor of dance is used to analyse these spaces, a metaphor which helps us to understand the complexity of classroom relationships and the way macro-social practices are both reflected and reconstituted in classroom practices. We argue that the ways teachers think about how they place students, space students and construct students are crucial for student and teacher learning.

No abstract

No abstract