2012, Maniam, Vegnes

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.

2021-12-02, Warsidi, Warsidi, Adnan, Zifirdaus, Maniam, Vegneskumar, Ryan, John S

There have been a considerable number of studies on the rhetorical patterns of Indonesian research articles (RAs); however, none of these studies has investigated RAs in the history and law disciplines, nor have they investigated the RAs as a whole entity. Also, intertextuality and grammatical functions have rarely been studied. Given these identified gaps, this study investigates the generic structure, intertextuality, and grammatical functions in Indonesian history research articles (IHRAs) and Indonesian law research articles (ILRAs) as a whole, examining the RAs from the introduction to the discussion. Each corpus consists of 15 RAs, so both corpora consist of 30 RAs.

The introduction, method, results, discussion (IMRD) framework is employed to analyse the generic macrostructure. Then, to analyse the microstructure, several models are used for the analysis. The CARS model (Swales, 1990) and the Isocpol model (Adnan, 2010) are used to analyse the introduction section, Zhang and Wannaruk’s model (2016) is used to analyse the method section, and Tessuto’s (2015) and Hopkins and Dudley-Evans’ models (1988) are used to investigate the results and discussion sections. Then, typologies from Wang (2006), Kuhi and Mollanghizadeh (2013), and Varga and Gradečak-Erdeljić (2017) are used to analyse the intertextuality. Typologies from Verspoor and Sauter (2000) and Moeliono in Mustika (2017) are used to analyse the grammatical functions.

The results of the analysis reveal that IHRAs and ILRAs have similarities and differences, but their differences are minor. They also have similarities and differences when compared to English RAs. The key reason for the differences is that Indonesian researchers are not aware if they need to justify their RAs with a critical review of the literature and point to a niche such as a research gap in the literature (in the introduction section). It is not in their writing guides, nor is it required by the journal guides. Also, they are not aware that when commenting on the research findings, they need to compare them with findings presented in the literature (in the discussion section).

2022-02-03, Rubasing Siriwardhana, Kosala Manori, Yilmaz, Devrim, Feez, Susan, Maniam, Vegneskumar, Nye, Adele

This thesis emerges from a study that explored both the difficulties faced by Sri Lankan university students who are learning English as a second language (ESL) and the pedagogical strategies practised by ESL teachers to minimise these difficulties. Sri Lankan university students require high levels of English language proficiency to succeed academically and to succeed professionally after graduation; however, for many of these students, developing this proficiency has proven to be very challenging. The main aim of the study was to investigate the causes of the difficulties faced by Sri Lankan university students learning English. The investigation was undertaken through the lens of a conceptual framework that was designed to align English language learning difficulties with pedagogical solutions. The framework was developed by drawing on critical approaches to pedagogy, post method pedagogy and a sociocultural theory of learning following Vygotsky.

Using a qualitative multiple case study methodology, first and second year students and their teachers at three Sri Lankan universities were interviewed and observed in class. The data collected were analysed thematically. ESL learning difficulties reported by the students and teachers were categorised according to whether they relate to sociocultural or institutional barriers or to language learning difficulties. Strategies used by the ESL teachers were analysed using the KARDS framework (Kumaravadivelu, 2012).

The sociocultural barriers to students successfully learning English that were revealed by the study were the family environment, their earlier English education and the university subculture. The institutional barriers identified were crowded and mixed ability ESL classes, limited time and resources allocated to ESL lectures, poor quality and outdated teaching content, materials and teaching styles, a high academic workload and students' limited to English outside the classroom. Language learning difficulties arose because of students' low level of English proficiency, lack of engagement and participation in classroom interaction and limited commitment to English skills development. A major barrier was the mismatch between the English that students needed to learn and the English offered in the university ESL programs. Strategies used by the university ESL teachers to assist students were bringing the local context into their teaching, using the Sinhala language, encouraging classroom interaction and learner autonomy, building motivation and positive teacher±learner relationships and differentiating instruction according to proficiency level and target skills. Despite teachers using these strategies, students reported being dissatisfied with the ESL programs. The recommendation emerging from the study is for universities in Sri Lanka to develop ESL pedagogies that are specific to the Sri Lankan university context and responsive to the needs of Sri Lankan students.

, Ahlstrand, Jane, Maniam, Vegneskumar

The indigenous education activist and feminist of the late Dutch colonial era, R.A. Kartini, has remained an enduring public icon for more than a century. While celebrated as a national hero in Indonesia, like many iconic women of the Global South, Kartini’s symbolic force has been readily appropriated for political ends. As a ‘floating signifier’, her image absorbs fluctuating meanings and ideologies, making the analysis of her representation at a given point in time a valuable approach to political analysis. This article focuses on Kartini’s portrayal in the second term of the Jokowi presidency in mainstream Indonesian online media discourse. Recognising the dialectical relationship between the online news media and dominant political discourse, we use critical discourse analysis to identify and examine the mainstream ideologies embedded in the news media’s representations of Kartini. Our analysis provides a snapshot of dominant Indonesian political discourse, revealing a set of intersecting ideologies: conservative feminism, neoliberalism, softened Islamic piety, and perfunctory nationalism.

2021-10-06, Bartley-Heterick, Vanessa, Berman, Jeanette, Maniam, Vegneskumar

This study has aimed to develop an understanding of Australian educators’ perspectives of gifted education in light of emergent changes in the field. The purpose of the study was to identify recommendations specific to Australian educational policy and professional learning, with the assumption being made that educators’ perspectives of gifted education influence their teaching practice. Emergent changes in gifted education were identified as emanating from theoretical perspectives and from Australian gifted education policy perspectives. This study developed a framework made up of four elements: definitional constructs/definitions (conceptions); rationales (belief of purpose); identification; and provisions, by which to investigate educators’ conceptions of giftedness and their support of gifted education. To gain breadth and depth of data from Australian educators a mixed methods approach was adopted for this study. This involved an Australia-wide on-line survey (n=102), and semi-structured interviews (n=13) with Australian registered teachers. Key findings from the study revealed that Australian educators generally: (i) have wide-ranging conceptions of giftedness; (ii) are open to a change in terminology; (iii) consider equity as the basis for gifted education; (iv) believe that identification of students should be multi-disciplinary; and (v) support a range of gifted education provisions. Considering the findings within the context of Australian policies, barriers were identified in the Modern perspectives emphasis on gifted and talented education, including: (i) absence of shared understanding of terminology; (ii) ‘tall poppy’ syndrome; (iii) limited knowledge of how best to support students with high ability; and (vi) lack of and limited access to specific professional learning. Implications for Australian gifted education policy include: the embedding of gifted education within the equity-based framework of inclusive education; the use of operational definitions and language that more closely reflect Australian educators’ professional usage; and more positive support for the evidence-based gifted education practices of in-class and administrative differentiation (acceleration).

Implications for professional learning for educators include a focus on equity, inclusion and teacher responsiveness through knowing their students well and developing expertise in differentiation.

2013-01-01, Maniam, Vegneskumar, Secombe, Margaret J

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.

2022-03-04, Maniam, Vegneskumar, Soliman, Izabel

The world 'announces' itself to us through the frameworks of our theories (Bernstein 2000, cited in Moore, 2007, p. 37).

The purpose of this text is to encourage teachers (both pre- and in-service) to engage in critical inquiry about the curriculum - about both 'what' and 'how' it is taught - and about the classroom and school contexts, as well as the local and wider social/cultural contexts. These can be investigated through multiple frameworks. The intent of the various chapters is to provide both theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools to inform teachers' inquiry with knowledge about the debates, arguments and research findings around educational issues. These frameworks are in relation to critical inquiry, the curriculum, social justice, social class, gender, critical multicultural and critical race theory, Aboriginal education, ethics, rural location and globalisation. Critical engagement with these topics and about their implications for curriculum policies and practices can deepen and situate teachers' inquiries in a wider context, beyond personal experience and opinion.

, Maniam, Vegneskumar, Bleeze, Rachel, Harrington, Ingrid

En la época del dominio británico de los Estados Malayos Federados (EMF), de 1895 a 1941, muchos indios, especialmente los tamiles del sur de la India fueron traídos como mano de obra. Se crearon escuelas primarias tamiles de larga duración para atender las necesidades educativas de sus hijos e hijas. Este artículo presenta una investigación histórica del desarrollo, los retos y la disparidad a la que se enfrentaron las escuelas primarias tamiles en los EMF entre 1895-1941. El estudio emplea el análisis de contenido temático para estudiar las fuentes históricas primarias y secundarias. Las conclusiones indican que surgieron cuatro temas en torno a los retos y la disparidad entre las escuelas tamiles de los EMF a saber, el edificio y el equipamiento, las asignaturas y los planes de estudio, los maestros/as y la formación del profesorado. El estudio destaca el desarrollo de las escuelas tamiles en los EMF, los importantes problemas a los que se enfrentaron las escuelas bajo el dominio colonial británico y las implicaciones para los hijos e hijas de las personas emigrantes tamiles. Este estudio aporto nuevos conocimientos a la historia de la educación durante el colonialismo británico, haciendo hincapié en el papel crucial de las escuelas tamiles en la preservación de la lengua y la cultura, y contribuyendo a futuras investigaciones en este ámbito.

2022-03-04, Maniam, Vegneskumar

This chapter begins with a discussion of 'common sense' thinking as a way of apprehending the social and cultural environment and then moves on to discuss the challenges of critical thinking. In the second part, the role of critical thinking in two well-known curriculum frameworks is explored. These frameworks can be used as templates for the analysis and evaluation of current curriculum policies and practices. The final section includes an exploration of the impact on the curriculum of the current neo-liberal thinking in major English speaking countries.

2019-07-08, Rangi, Richard, Tamatea, Laurence, Maniam, Vegnes

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.