Overview

Difference and Dispersion is the fourth in a series of annual research papers produced by doctoral students from The Graduate School of Education, The University of Queensland, following their presentation at the School's annual Postgraduate Research Conference in Education.

The work featured herein celebrates the diversity of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds of education researchers who come from as far afield as Germany, Hong Kong, China, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and of course different parts of Australia.

In keeping with a postmodern epistemology, 'difference' and 'dispersion' are key themes in apprehending the multiplicity of their research topics, methodologies, methods and speaking/writing positions.

From widely differing contexts and situations, these writers address the consequences, implications and possibilities for education at the beginning of the third millennium. Their interest ranges from location-specific issues in schools and classrooms, change in learning contexts and processes, educational discourses and relations of power in diverse geographical settings, and the differing articulations of the local and the global in situated policy contexts.

Conceived and developed in a spirit of ongoing dialogue with and insight to alternative views and visions of education and society, this edited collection exemplifies the quality in diversity and the high levels of scholarship and supervision at one of Australia's finest Graduate Schools of Education.

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Table of Contents

Contributions

• Foreword
  Carolyn Baker
• Introduction: Difference and Dispersion: Educational Research in a Postmodern Context
  Cushla Kapitzke, Wing-Leong Cheung, Yuanfang Yu

Section One: Different Classrooms, Different Issues

• Bullying Amongst Middle School Aged Children
  Sandra E Chippindall
• Classroom Experiences and the Social Relations Organizing All-Male Schools
  Richard Courtice
• Risky Business: Ignoring (or inviting) Student Perceptions in the Classroom
  Lisa Hunter
• Living the Paradigm: An Experiential Journey
  Michael Brown

Section Two: Different Contexts, Different Learning

• When Participation in a Mathematical Community of Practice Leads to Good Results: Year 9 Students' Recollections of Collective Argumentation in Year 7
  Raymond AJ Brown
• 'Who Helps You?': Researching Networks of Help in the Secondary Classroom
  Min Chen
• Language Learning Strategies and English Reading Achievement in Chinese University Students
  Yuanfang Yu and Yongbing Liu
• Patterns of Visual Perception
  Norm Sheehan
• Dynamic Assessment, Background Knowledge and Learners' Development of Biological Classification Concepts
  Wai-Yu Chan
• The Context of Identifying Students with Learning Disabilities: Conceptual and Empirical Challenges
  Holly HP Chen

Section Three: Different Discourses, Different Powers

• Critical Literacy as Thinking Tools for Creating 'Thinking Schools' in Singapore
  Aaron Koh
• Face-to-Face with the Environment: Levinas and Environmental Education
  Joy Hardy
• Media Representations and Indian Women Entrepreneurs
  Radha Iyer

Section Four: Different Localities, Different Policies

• Singapore Education in 'New Times'
  Aaron Koh
• Confronting Essentialism with Essentialism: The Belfast Workers' Educational Association's Anti-Sectarian Strategy
  Simone Smala
• The Impact of Oil Revenue on Nigerian Universities from the Post Oil Boom Era to 1996
  Simeon Weli
• Educational Expansion in Post-war Hong Kong and the Maintenance of Governance: A Trial of Policy Archaeology
  Wing-Leong Cheung