A sociological model of a multicultural society was developed by the late Professor Jerzy Smolicz, School of Education at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. The aim of this paper is to review the development of the model and its impact on education and social policy in Australia. Professor Smolicz was a distinguished scholar whose works on cultural and linguistic pluralism have been well recognised in Australia and internationally. His formulation of multiculturalism was based on core values as symbolic of a particular cultural group and its members, in juxtaposition with overarching values which are shared across all groups in society. The model was developed to understand the possible patterns of social and cultural interaction among members of the dominant and minority ethnic groups and thus to provide directions for education and social policy.

The main aim of this paper is to review eight humanistic sociological studies related to Australian linguistic diversity and consider their implications for languages education in contemporary Australia. Over the period 1976-2006, Smolicz and his research colleagues used Znaniecki's humanistic sociological approach to investigate the attitudes of individuals toward maintaining their home cultural values, especially their ethnic language. Groups of respondents ranged from 23 to 90 in the case of six specific ethnic communities, and from 111 to 126 in the two larger studies drawn more generally from the Australian community. Respondents were asked to express their views on the maintenance of home languages in response to an open-ended question in a face to face interview or in the course of writing a personal statement. Many respondents expressed positive attitudes to learning their home language alongside English. The findings from these studies support the development of the Australian Languages Curriculum in eleven key languages, as well as the provision of opportunities for students to learn the smaller Australian community languages.

This research project explores Palestinian perceptions of education with regard to its capacity to facilitate desired employment futures. In particular this project investigates the perceptions of internally displaced Palestinian high school students and other education stakeholders associated with or who attended the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) high school located at Area 7, Beirut, Lebanon. This research project used a post-colonial theoretical framework underpinned by Homi Bhabha’s (1994) notion of ambivalence and Edward Said’s (1975) concept of Orientalism to frame and understand the relationship between education and this group of education stakeholders. Located within the broad field of postcolonial studies, the research project methodology was primarily concerned to map the voice of the ‘colonised’ in what comprises a largely colonialist-like context insofar as the presence of a displaced Palestinian is concerned. Research participants in this project provided data in the form of personalised textual accounts that were analysed using principles of Foucauldian macro-level critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Foucault 1982, Fairclough 1995, Hall 1997). This textual analysis specifically focused upon the presence of ambivalence in participant discourse and used Bhabha’s (1994) notion of ambivalence analysis to show how education and desired career pathways are informed by the relationships of power between displaced populations and their host nation.
Significantly, analysis of the data drawn from this Palestinian group will show that in the description of education, internally displaced Palestinians seem to reproduce a discourse about the Self, which paradoxically reproduces Lebaneseconstructions of Palestinian internally displaced persons (IDPs) as unworthy of admittance to full ‘citizenship’, and thus access to equal rights. In the process of highlighting the ‘problem’ as this group of Palestinians see it, the research participants often reproduced – perhaps unwittingly – a range of perspectives on education that ultimately seemed to reinforce the dominant status of the Lebanese host-nation as ‘Master’ and the subordinate (or dominated) status of Palestinians position as ‘Slave’. Drawing upon Homi Bhabha’s (1994) reworking of the ‘classic’ Master-slave dialectic, this research project locates this paradox within a context which is not only colonialist-like, but also grounded in a slave-slave dynamic.
Though it might be claimed that Lebanon is indeed a post-colonial context, the analysis of the data strongly suggests that in relation to the opportunities and rights afforded to the displaced Palestinian population, aspects of colonialism continue in this context. In elaborating this argument, this thesis shows that for many internally displaced Palestinians in Lebanon, education comprises a site wherein Palestinian identity is structured if not de-structured. Thus education of this Palestinian population is not simply about buildings and the curriculum, though these remain important. For this group, education is a site intimately linked to the process of Self-construction, which is otherwise grounded in a relationship with the Lebanese host-nation.
Following Homi Bhabha’s (1994) model of ambivalence, this thesis not only identifies multiple instances of ambivalence, it accounts for these in terms of movements in the process of Self-other construction. With a focus upon the relationship between subject formation and discourse, three key internally displaced Palestinian discourses are identified; one that explores the positive perceptions and value of education; one that explores the negative perceptions and value of education, and a third discourse which comprises perceptions that explore education as a means of survival. Though at one level these three discourses seem to be different from each other, it is asserted that they all share one key characteristic. Each of these discourses reveals that the Palestinian perception of the value of education in terms of securing desired career futures is mostly if not always elaborated on the grounds of a relationship with the Lebanese host-nation, even if the Lebanese host-nation is otherwise excluded from discussion.

The study investigated student involvement in sports as part of co-curricular activities in the school and outside, and the effect of parental support upon their child's participation in sport. The purpose of the study was to investigate in-depth the views of year 11 students from six Australian schools about their parents' influence on their participation in sport. The schools agreed to allow their students to participate on a voluntary basis. The primary data were gathered from 111 students in the form of written personal statements in response to the researcher's open-ended guideline questions, based on the humanistic sociological approach of studying respondents' personal perspectives on a particular phenomenon. The 80% of respondents who claimed to play sport were involved in a total of 23 different sports, with soccer being the most frequently mentioned (29%). The 20% of respondents who did not play sport all attended schools where participation in sport was not compulsory. Parental support for sports participation was evident in 89% of their comments, but only 11% of parents played an active role. The negative family constraints identified by 15% of respondents referred to issues such as lack of parental interest in sport, concerns about safety, maintaining a balance between sport and other areas of life, and the cost involved.

Students all over the world learn linear equations, which is a universal topic in junior secondary mathematics curriculum. In relation to learning linear equations, the balance method is usually preferred in Western countries. Apparently, the balance method highlights the concept of "balance" on both sides ·of a linear equation, which is critical in understanding the equal (i.e.,- '=') sign concept in equation solving. In contrast, the inverse method is popular in many Asian countries. The inverse method conceptualizes, for example, addition as an inverse operation to subtraction in equation solving. Asian mathematics teachers tend L view the balance method as complicated, error prone, and inefficient for effective learning. Western mathematics teachers, in contrast, regard the inverse method, which emphasizes the importance of procedural manipulation (change sign, change side), a being limited in addressing the equal sign concept. The main difference between the inverse method and the balance method lie in the critical procedural step (e.g., + 2 on both side versus- 2 becomes + 2). For the balance operation (e.g., + 2 on both side. ), the interaction between elements occurs on both sides of the equation. ln contrast, for the inverse operation (- 2 becomes+ 2), interaction between elements occurs on one side of the equation only. Research has indicated that the balance method imposes higher cognitive load than the inverse method, and therefore is inferior in learning linear equations. The present study, cross-cultural in nature, intends to shed light on the ongoing debate between Asian countries and Western countries in regard to the effectiveness of instructional practices (i.e., balance method versus inverse method) for learning linear equations . .Drawing from our previous research inquiries, we implemented an intervention design by which secondary school students in Australia and Malaysia (N = 147) who had no prior knowledge of linear equations were randomly assigned to the balance method or the inverse method lo learn how to solve one-step equations (e.g., x - 3 = - 7). Both the balance group and the inverse group completed a pre-test, studied an instruction sheet completed multiple example-equation pairs, and a post-test. Each example-equation pair comprised of a worked example paired with an equation. For both Australian and Malaysian students, the inverse group outperformed the balance groups for the practice equations not but the post-test. Malaysian students outperformed Australian students on practice problems irrespective of the balance group or the inverse group, whereas Malaysian student outperformed Australian students on post-test for the inverse group only. The present study, in line with the scope of this edited book, is significant for its inquiries into comparative instructional approaches for effective mathematics learning from the perspective of cognitive load imposition. Om examination of an in-class intervention has clarified the myth concerning cross-cultural differences in perceptions, appreciation and understanding of different instructional approaches ( i.e., balance method versus inverse method). The findings have indicated an advantage of the inverse method over the balance method in facilitating learning of one-step equations irrespective of cultural context.

The focus of this study was the personal views of 111 secondary students on playing sport. The study included a year 11 class from six schools across the state, independent and catholic school sectors in Adelaide; the principals agreed to allow their students to participate on a voluntary basis. The method followed the theoretical framework for understanding individuals' personal perspective on a particular phenomenon, derived from the humanistic sociological approach of the Polish American sociologist, Florian Znaniecki, and developed by J J Smolicz for research on cultural pluralism in Australia. Only 10% of the respondents indicated that they did not participate in any form of sport. The remainder claimed to be involved in 24 different sports, with soccer named by 29%, eight other sports by 6 - 19% and each of 14 sports by less than 5% of the students. The respondents' feelings towards sport, were ascertained in two questions on what they liked and disliked about playing sport. The 196 likes and 103 dislikes mentioned were categorized into major themes and subthemes. Sport as fun was mentioned 37 times and making friends through sport 34 times. Twelve respondents disliked the possibility of being injured while playing sport and another ten the competitive element in sport. This study contributes to an in depth understanding of these secondary students' participation in sport, especially the range of sports played, and the many facets of what they liked or disliked. The students' views have implications for those teaching and administering sport for young people.

No matter where they live on the globe, most young people involved with sport today find themselves confronted with cultural diversity. At the spectator level they watch live, or on television coverage, players from different countries, with differing cultural traditions, competing in international competitions, such as the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, the Wimbledon, French or American Tennis Championships, the Tour de France, or even the Adelaide Tour Down Under in cycling. Except in the case of the Olympics, the professional teams involved are assumed to be made up of the best players available, regardless of the culture and country they come from. As a result, individuals from quite different cultural backgrounds who are outstanding performers in their particular sport attract much media attention. They become familiar figures to viewers around the world who see them continually on TV, playing in matches or appearing on sports shows. T. Marjoribanks and Farquharson (2012) have pointed out that such international stars often become role models for young people across the globe, inspiring them in their participation in sport.

This paper reviews some key memoir studies, which were carried out in South Australia, and considers their process of data collection and analysis. A second aim is to explore the current status and usefulness of Znaniecki's memoir approach in contemporary educational research. Smolicz followed Znaniecki in emphasizing the need to accept social and cultural values and actions as facts, just as human agents themselves accept them. Every individual was seen as a member of various group social systems and interpreted as a center of experience and actions based on the cultures of those groups. Smolicz also adopted Znaniecki's memoir method of collecting and analyzing personal data in order to understand the actions and attitudes of young people of immigrant families and their educational experiences in Australian schools. These conscious human agents played an important role in maintaining and changing their group's cultural systems. This paper highlights examples of various forms of memoirs collected from four different studies focused specifically on the issue of cultural identity. The comments of the participants, who came from various minority ethnic groups living in Australia, illustrate the nature of the comments made, as well as the researchers’ analysis and findings. The research studies of Smolicz and his associates demonstrate that memoir method has an important place in understanding the culture of different groups, which can be applied in many contexts - global, ethnic, national, and local.

Raewyn Connell in her discussion of Southern social science theories, considers Ibn Khaldun's contribution to the understanding of civilisation and sociology as so rich and important that it is still relevant today. This paper builds on Connell's introduction to Ibn Khaldun's work by first reviewing his ideas of education in the Muqaddimah and then investigating the extent of their contemporary relevance, for example, in teacher education programs today in Australia's multicultural society. Ibn Khaldun was a Muslim scholar born in what is now called Tunisia, North Africa, in 1332. His writings, which encompassed history, philosophy of history, sociology, education and pedagogy, are best exemplified in his greatest work, the Muqaddimah, written as an introduction and commentary on his universal history. Ibn Khaldun provided a long and detailed discussion of the concept of education and pedagogy in Chapter Six of the Muqaddimah. His classification of knowledge according to classical Islamic tradition is a valuable guide to the range of sciences in existence at that time. He also provided his views on teaching and learning issues which have their counterparts in today's classrooms. The latter part of this paper looks at the nature of curriculum in current teacher education programs in Australia and considers the development of a more inclusive approach in relation to Islamic communities in Australia. Such a move could result in Ibn Khaldun's ideas on education being incorporated into teacher education programs in Australia.

This special issue contains five articles that have been written by members of our research network. As we have said above, these articles have emerged out of our combined efforts at grappling collectively with Southern Theory and education. As such the editorial process we have undertaken has been collaborative (although not usually without a deal of debate), and we hope will be productive - in an intellectual, not instrumental sense that is! The articles included here are very diverse in their foci and contexts and we hope that they may stimulate thought and offer resources for, and examples of, doing Southern Theory in Education.