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Current research suggests partnerships between universities and schools create learning advantages for pre-service and beginning teachers while opening new research avenues and school relationships for academics and universities. This paper argues that these findings are often based on a business-orientated definition of 'partnership' and originate from studies that examine partnerships which are frequently based in North America and Europe. Thus, the existing studies often focus on partnerships that create learning advantages, but only in profitable or scalable ways that might lead to formal or enhanced collaborations. This paper critically examines the literature and problematises their findings amongst four case studies of partnerships of various sizes and levels of bureaucracy to determine if the literature's broader conclusions remain true when applied to less business-driven views of partnerships that consider 'partnership' in a broader definition. The paper makes a scholarly contribution by informing the audience of what benefits can come to those involved in school and university partnerships of different sizes, and when not preoccupied with creating partnerships for immediate or potential profit.

The Australian government now mandates initial teacher education (ITE) providers to form partnerships with schools in order to maintain accreditation. The emphasis on partnerships as the crucial means of improving ITE is not new, and a body of literature from the Australian context describes a vast number of partnerships that have been enacted over the past few decades. In this literature, however, the specific work arrangements and practices of teacher educators are generally overlooked. And yet, it is the work of teacher educators that is critical in initiating and sustaining these partnerships. This paper seeks to address this disparity by employing the theoretical framework of practice architecture to consider the role of the teacher educator in partnership work. We have found that the ways in which the work of teacher educators is constrained in cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political domains significantly impact the possibility of "enduring" partnerships with schools.

University participation rates are significantly lower in low socioeconomic status (SES) areas in Australia. Specifically, rates differ between-schools and within-schools, where inequalities in opportunities to access university pathway programs exist. The aim of this study was to test whether academic encouragement supported students' school satisfaction and increased their desire for, expectation of and belief in the possibility of university study and whether differences were evident depending on pathway of study: the ATAR pathway versus a Year 12 access enabling pathway program called TLC110. A sample of 257 high school students (58% female) from 18 high schools, within a low-SES area of outer metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, were surveyed. Teacher encouragement was found to be positively associated with school satisfaction and, in turn, supported university desire, expectation and belief for ATAR students but not for TLC110 students. Qualitative data were collected (n = 9) to contextualise the inclusivity of TLC110 for high school students from low-SES backgrounds to support aspirations for university.

In the lead-up to the 2007 Australian federal election, Labor candidate Kevin Rudd described climate change as the "great moral challenge of our generation". In the years since then, the heat in Australia has been rising--in terms of both temperature and climate politics--, but government action has slowed down. Endorsement of economic growth is prioritised, with only intermittent recognition of environmental costs. At grassroots level, citizens' attitudes are influenced by social norms. This kind of social learning is a major constraint on sustainability. Therefore, it seems useful to consider how educators might help build sustainable futures. To understand how historical context entangles social learning in ways that complicate policies associated with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and practices of Education for Sustainability (EfS), the author of this paper draws on the concept of "space of orientation". Focusing on adult education, she traces the contradiction between "globalisation" and "sustainability" through policy logics, relational practices in Australian adult education and the "necessary utopia" which provides a point of reference for making futures. She argues that spaces of orientation are a critical resource in this era of intensifying conflicts of interest between economic priorities of globalisation and environmental priorities intended to slow global warming, because they mediate context and orient learning in ways that clear a path towards sustainability through the entangled histories of this present.

Students' university aspirational capacity and expectancies are key factors in predicting future university participation. Aspirations and expectations to attend university are strongly influenced by parent educational socialisation and school culture. This study investigates associations between students' university discussions with parents and their aspirations and expectations for university, and whether this link is particularly salient for students from disadvantaged schools. As well, differences in students' exposure to university are examined. Students (N = 548, 57% female) from Perth's south-west metropolitan region in Western Australia were surveyed. Multilevel analysis revealed that students from low socio-economic status (SES) schools who reported more frequent university discussions with parents had higher aspirations and expectations for university than students from similar SES schools who had fewer university discussions with parents. Furthermore, university discussions with parents predicted higher levels of aspirations for university and this link is stronger for students from lower SES schools. The effect of school-SES for the university expectations model was similar, though of weaker influence. Exposure to university is greater for students in high-SES schools. Therefore, students and parents in low-SES areas may benefit by increasing university exposure to develop knowledge and discussions about university, and support aspirations to grow expectations to attend university.

Globalising processes are shifting the established nation-building project of twentieth-century national education systems. This historic axis between education and territorialised state power is being re-spatialised and remade as a globally networked, lifelong learning educational order. Political sociology of education theorises these de- and re-territorialising trajectories; yet the practical processes of remaking educational spaces are less well documented. The concept of "boundary work" provides a lens for understanding the interplay between political and sociological processes that remake educational spaces over time and scale. Analysing two visions of education at the start of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, I track the shifting configuration of actors and processes involved in boundary work. I argue that educational spaces are "things of boundaries" and lifelong learning reforms indicate processes of boundary work involving emergent educational actors: "professionals-who-educate".

Contemporary global transitions are remaking education as a social institution and re-positioning educators in a lifelong learning political order. In this paper, I reflect on a research project that investigated the teaching occupation in learning societies in order to explain the concept of "educational work": the form of labour that makes, orients and enacts spaces, which yield learning and build citizen capabilities. I report on a case study of educational work in a global-national lifelong learning space, a small private training provider in Melbourne to illustrate this analysis. The analysis reveals how educators formed, supported and secured an educational space for learning, and its effects on citizen capabilities. I argue that the transition from the political order of public education re-frames and reforms education and the labour of educating that historically formed citizens but it does not dissolve educational work, or the importance of securing citizen capabilities. Understanding "educational work" as a practice of governing and a contradictory process of making "subjects" and "citizens" reframes the debate about "education" and "training" and highlights its continuing importance as a means of securing democratic politics.

Educational research has long been the subject of lively and agitated debate, not least because of its diversity. Ranging in scope from academic development and broad-scale policy research through to student engagement and discipline-specific research, it includes methods of traditional academic inquiry and investigations and also less traditional modes of research. However, the topography of Australian educational research and the characteristics of the people who undertake this complex body of work are currently unclear. This paper explores some of the complexities of the Australian research community, drawing on the findings of a national online survey of academics who identified as researching in the field of education from within and outside education schools and faculties. The survey attracted 504 responses from 38 of Australia's 39 universities, and just over two-thirds of respondents were located in a school or faculty of education. We draw on the results to answer the questions of who is undertaking educational research and who how they might be supported. We utilise a conceptual model that "segments" the educational research workforce represented by the survey respondents, and we conclude by indicating strategies that might be utilised to address research barriers indicated by educational researchers.

This paper reflects on the geography of Australian educational research in the context of the ERA 2010 and 2012 assessments results. These results reflect significant changes to the nature of educational research over the past decades, where this research is conducted and by whom. We recap the historical changes to the formation of educational institutions and their impact on research outputs to demonstrate that interdisciplinary work is growing in a context where there has been a shift in research outputs away from the traditional area of school education. The ERA results demonstrate a high level of research activity in the intersections between previously distinct discipline areas, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The future of ERA itself is addressed in order to propose interventions that might make a difference to an ecology that is anchored in traditions and tends towards inertia. Finally, we argue that efforts by universities to build research capacity are likely to continue to be competitive, to focus on the individual rather than on departments and schools, and to be subject to an increasingly pervasive culture of accountability. Against this discourse of accountability, and an accompanying loss in autonomy and creative "think-time", we propose that academics in education actively engage in a community of research. We conclude with interventions designed to build a high-quality, analytical and theoretically intensive research culture to underscore educational research in Australia.

Processes of national research assessment, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) are a type of audit technology that confronts and steers established institutional identities and traditions. This nexus between policy and practice drives boundary work that diffracts prevailing policy logics, organisational practices, and habits of mind. We use this notion of "boundary work" as an analytical lens for understanding the nature and effects of ERA in the Australian educational research space. This paper explains the methodology that informed the AARE-ACDE research reported in Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research. It documents the policy logic of ERA and the way it cuts across the established ecology of educational research, revealing social and symbolic work that is remaking the boundaries of educational research. We report on the historical trajectory of Australian educational research, the way ERA codes research outputs, and how educational researchers are repositioning in this shifting research space. We argue that there are specific loci of boundary work where capacity building in Australian educational research can make a difference to future educational knowledge building.

The results of Australia's first national research assessment, excellence for research in Australia, provoked considerable discussion about the state of educational research in Australia. Understanding the nature of this field of research became the focus for empirical research and analysis that was intended to inform strategic planning. This paper provides an overview of the articles in this special issue, bringing together research on Australian educational research and insights from international researchers who research the effects of research assessment in educational research in their own countries. These sources inform a commentary on Australian educational research and suggest an agenda for further action on strategic capacity building for Australian educational research.

Research assessment exercises aim to identify research quantity and quality and provide insights into research capacity building strategies for the future. Yet with limited knowledge of the ecology of Australian educational research, there is little chance of understanding what research audits might contribute towards a capacity building agenda for such a complex field. This paper draws on secondary data analysis of research outputs submitted by 13 Australian higher education institutions to the "Excellence in Research for Australia" (ERA) 2010 and 2012 national research assessment exercises, to show where Australian educational research is conducted. Findings offer a profile of education researchers by location in academic organisational units within universities. By analyzing data not accessible through reported ERA data we were also able to present information about appointment profiles, specifically levels and type of appointment within universities, as well as data on institutional and geographic region, and patterns associated with type of outputs (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and other outputs) and field of research. Analysis of the data reveals definitive shifts in the nature of the published outputs and in employment profiles of researchers and their location across university and regional groupings. Research audits are administrative processes that reshape institutional and disciplinary governance structures, policies, individual outputs, work practices and careers, but they are not the sum total of the field per se.

Problem and/or scenario-based learning is often deployed in preclinical education and training as a means of: (a) developing students' capacity to respond to authentic, real-world problems; (b) facilitating integration of knowledge across subject areas, and; (c) increasing motivation for learning. Six information and communication technology (ICT) supported, scenario-based learning (SBL) problems using case studies that integrated information across subject areas were implemented in a second-year genetics course for undergraduate veterinary science students and linked to educational outcomes. On a post-implementation questionnaire, students appreciated the use of authentic scenarios but login records indicated variable engagement among students. Comparison of learning outcomes from SBL-supported and non-SBL-supported content (within and across student cohorts) indicated that exposure to SBL generated quantifiable improvements in learning in both high and low ability students. Despite this, students did not perceive that the SBL activities improved their learning. Thus, ICT-supported SBL have the potential to reinforce connectivity of content across a range of pre-clinical courses, but to facilitate a genuine novice to expert transition may require consideration of students' perceptions of scenario relevance, their confidence, and how students of differing learning styles engage with such activities. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

The relationship between higher education and vocational education and training in Australia is under discussion as a result of the Bradley Review of Higher Education. This reform process, which is intended to create a more inclusive, mass tertiary education sector, has significant implications for VET. This article examines the implications of this reform agenda for pedagogy and the different knowledge traditions that are conveyed through learning cultures, which have developed differently in higher education and VET. We draw on recent theorisations of craft and craftsmanship to critique the persistence of the mental-manual division of knowing that underpins relations between VET and university learning. Approaching craft as an integrated form of knowing, we suggest that VET pedagogy supports the development of "knowing practice" and recognises open conceptions of knowledge that can engage learners who, traditionally, have not gone to university. We argue that the distinctive learning cultures associated with VET may be at risk in an emerging tertiary education landscape where current debates about knowledge and knowing privilege intellectual ability and are often blind to other forms of knowledge and knowing. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper was prompted by the call for submissions to the Rudd government's 2020 Summit in April 2008. It analyses the impacts of VET reform on the VET workforce in order to identify strategies that might inform an agenda to build the workforce capacity to support economic and innovation. The paper argues that VET reforms since the 1990s created disturbances and uncertainties in VET teachers' and managers' work, and working lives. In particular, these reforms failed to recognise and endorse teaching expertise that sits at the heart of VET practice. Top-down reforms and funding constraints, coupled with lack of recognition of VET occupational expertise, created perverse behaviours. These contradictory trends prompted occupational boundary work that drove innovations in the character and reach of VET teaching, yet without establishing the terms and conditions necessary to sustain such occupational expertise. Consequently these innovations continue to be vulnerable because new initiatives-identities cannot compete with established identities in the competition for recognition and resources. These trends run counter to government efforts aimed at engineering change in VET to support skill building in an innovative Australia. This model of reform is not followed by other countries, which recognise and deploy teaching expertise in productive ways to build capacities for innovation amongst young and older worker-citizens. The paper concludes by suggesting that VET teaching expertise is an unacknowledged resource in the productivity challenge that could be mobilized in sustainable ways through professional renewal.

To increase the perceived relevance of pre-clinical science courses to undergraduates, a context-based assessment item was introduced to a genetics course that occurs early within a five-year veterinary science programme. The aim was to make a direct link between genetic concepts and the future clinical profession of the students. In the assessment task, students used problem-solving skills to deduce relationships between genetic variants and nose and coat colour in dogs and to determine breeding strategies to obtain a specified colour combination. The assignment was contextualised by students presenting their results as a role-play video of a veterinarian/client consultation. The students responded enthusiastically, finding relevance and enjoyment in the task. Together with the higher cognitive skills required, contextualisation is likely to be responsible for the deeper style of learning that was adopted by the majority of students. Hence, making explicit links between pre-clinical content and its use in a workplace setting can lead to improved learning outcomes. (Contains 1 figure.)

Despite a lack of applied research, social partnerships are increasingly being adopted by both government and non-government agencies to meet localized needs in education and other fields. This article discusses the findings of an investigation of how social partnerships can best be formed, developed and sustained over time. Earlier work identified partnerships arising from community concerns, governmental enactment and negotiation between community and government agencies. However, across these distinct kinds of social partnerships, the partnership work that was central to their operation was particularly relevant. In the study reported here, researchers engaged with ten longstanding social partnerships to elicit, synthesize and verify the principles and practices underpinning their work. The principles and practices that are proposed as most likely to assist the effective formation, development and transformation of social partnerships over time comprise building and maintaining: (i) shared goals; (ii) relations with partners; (iii) capacity for partnership work; (iv) governance and leadership; and (v) trust and trustworthiness. These principles stand as ideals and goals to guide the development and continuity of social partnerships that can support important educational initiatives, and provide bases for evaluating partnership work. However, rather than being benign, this work and these practices are often underpinned by contested relations as much as collaborative work. (Contains 1 table.) [Research for this article was funded by the Australian Research Council and the National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation Program of the Australian National Training Authority/Department of Education, Science and Technology.]

This paper explores the trend towards a decentred social organization of learning that has become evident over the last 30-40 years. This is illustrated by the shifting imagery of education, from the red brick school to dispersed learning networks, or "learning bubbles", that constitute new learning spaces. In the context of our large funded research project that aims to assess new learning spaces, we problematize this decentring of education and consider theoretical social and spatial resources that help us to understand this shift in the social organization of learning. We draw these insights together as suggestions for framing a socio-spatial research agenda and the key themes that help us to interrogate decentring and the emergence of new learning spaces, how these trends are manifest in educational practices, and the implications for affective learning, learners and their life chances. (Contains 2 figures and 3 notes.)

This paper examines research into initial teacher education in light of current Australian policy initiatives concerned with both the quality of research conducted in higher education and the quality of teacher education programs. The purpose of the paper is to explore some ways in which the research is, and can be, positioned in the current policy context. The paper begins with a brief overview of some of the main characteristics of the research concerned with initial (pre-service) teacher education in Australia over the last decade. In terms of scope, scale and methodology, the research can be characterised in the following way: typically small-scale; many one-off studies; localised in nature; and a growing application of qualitative research methods. An obvious strength of this type of research is that it is closely tied to practice and to the day-to-day workings of initial teacher education programs. An equally obvious weakness is that the research does not necessarily have so called "impact" in relation to policy debates and/or other measures of success in the wider research community. The paper charts some possible new directions for teacher education research in ways that build on the strengths and address the weaknesses. The directions can be characterised as follows: a "big funding" approach; an "institutional aggregation" approach; and a "platforms and protocols" approach.

Australian public policy adopted the concept of lifelong learning in the 1980s and harnessed it to human capital theory to articulate a new policy emphasis on "up-skilling" the Australian labour force. This paper addresses the question of how this conception of lifelong learning has fared in practice as Australian Commonwealth government policies, including those related to education and training, have shifted to embrace strong market orientations and priorities. Have the policy objectives of a more highly trained labour force been met or has the concept of lifelong learning become increasingly uncoupled from links with the nation-building exercise of preparing Australia for the "information age"? (Contains 1 figure.)

This paper uses three examples of educational innovation emerging in the contemporary context of market-liberal reform as a focus for exploring the patterns and possibilities of civic formation. The first part of the paper contextualises contemporary civic formation within the long historic struggle between capitalism and democracy, highlighting the way citizen learning is being reconfigured as markets and state are mediated by community interests. The last section attempts to draw out the key features of this community-based citizen learning and its implications for citizen learning and action. This discussion provides a basis for clarifying the kind of civic and citizenship education that is needed to take community-based learning beyond localism towards formal civic engagement that can sustain and protect democracy. The idea of a "learning citizen" is suggested as a way of conceptualising and acknowledging the contradictions within this citizenship agenda that holds the imperatives of lifelong learning in tension with the imperatives of educating citizen. (Contains 1 figure.)

Social partnerships that respond to and address local needs are becoming an increasingly significant feature of public policy, particularly in Europe and more recently Australia. The trend is also being actively promoted through the development planning agencies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, UNESCO and World Bank. The common policy intent is to devolve decision-making to the local level where action consequences are more immediate and more readily realised than in more centralised forms of governance. Working to secure mutuality of interests and reconciliation of conflicting interests among client groups then becomes the hallmark of mature service delivery. This article sets out the conceptual terrain for "new" social partnerships in terms of their prospect of building communities through participation in vocational education and training (VET). It initially identifies some of the qualities and characteristics of "new" social partnerships being enacted in VET, their achievements and contributions to community building. In doing so, it highlights some bases for judging the successes and threats to these social partnerships, and to appraise the extent to which they have shifted conceptions of learning beyond traditional institutional spaces occupied by centralised policy formulation and provision of VET through education institutions. A principal concern is to identify strategies for making social partnerships work better in supporting localised decision-making and opportunities for VET to be enacted in ways to support both communities and individuals.

Questions efficacy of Gewirtz's social-justice audit and the way research in policy sociology is shaping studies of post-welfare education in England and Australia. (Contains 73 references.) (PKP)

Analysis of a training provider's capacity-building practices found that some could be characterized as functionalist. However, considerable commitment to learners, passion for learning, and awareness of the management of learning within power relations indicated that capacity building was tied to commitment for a socially progressive future. (SK)

Reports findings from an ethnographic study of educational restructuring at an institute of technical and further education in Australia. Documents Australian governments' adoption of hyperrational educational-improvement strategies by reworking institutional roles framing daily practices. Countersteering geared to other values and priorities often interrupts governmental steering. (Contains 30 references.) (MLH)

Interviews in 17 Australian vocational education and training enterprises found they engaged in 3 models of research intended to shape organizational development: informal, network based; instrumental strategic planning; and internally motivated capacity building. The capacity building model appeared to have the most utility in transforming enterprises into learning/research organizations. (SK)

The teacher reform debate in Australia is informed by contradictory individualist and work perspectives and assumptions. The challenge for policy is harmonizing perspectives to develop a basis for the practical politics of educational reform. The individualist perspective complements corporate managerialism, whereas the work perspective raises questions of industrial democracy. (20 references) (MLH)

A discussion of the issues addressed in a conference on the new eleventh and twelfth grade curriculum for Victoria (Australia) focuses on political aspects of curricular and educational change and policy formation. Implications for research on the social context within which educational policy is made are examined. (MSE)

Identifies three major areas of concern for environmental education programs in Australia. Advocates that an emphasis in educational programs be placed on conservation of the natural environment, regulation of resource use, and human population needs. The inappropriate use of environmentally related terms is also discussed. (ML)

The concept of "social context" for education has become increasingly common in educational research, but closer scrutiny suggests that social context is conceptualized in different and often conflicting ways. These competing conceptualizations should be confronted and evaluated so that research can proceed in a more meanigful way. (MSE)

Is it possible to preclude an estoppel arising from pre-contractual dealings by a suitably worded clause in the contract? The case law is divided, though no single case provides a definitive answer. The division of opinion reflects judicial attitudes to party autonomy in commercial dealings -- the extent to which it is appropriate or not for a court to impose standards over the parties' express agreement. This article explores parallel doctrines and ideas, such as the parol evidence rule and its relation to entire agreement clauses, rectification, implied terms and collateral contract. The ultimate question is: is it unconscionable to agree not to rely on unconscionable conduct? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the merits of the Australian High Court cases on the law relating to mistake in contract. Factors that could render a contract voidable due to a mistake; Protection of the rights of the third party under the equitable doctrine of mistake; Means for a contract to be set aside in equity where there was a sufficiently serious common mistake.