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Aligned with contemporary approaches to assessment that draw on ecological and sociocultural understandings of children in contexts, this chapter explores child-voiced assessment and the rich, in-depth insights it yields into children’s strengths, interests, and processes of participation and learning. Given assessment data are used to inform and transform children’s learning and the pedagogies they experience, the voices of children as key stakeholders in assessment must be considered. Acknowledging all children’s right to have input on decisions affecting their lives, child-voiced assessment is discussed, with particular explorations and examples of the use of dialogic encounters with children, and multimodal documentation and representation of children’s learning and engagement. This discussion is framed by principles of authentic child-voiced assessment that address and go beyond conventional notions of reliability, validity and fairness. Examples of voiced data from the author’s research highlight not only what can be learned and gained from children’s voices about their learning and engagement-but also demonstrate how the process itself of engaging with children’s voices can and does transform pedagogic practices.

This paper provides a telling case account of how a child called Charlie was positioned and (re)positioned himself within and across different situational types of classroom literacy encounters in his first-grade classroom. This telling case is based on a re-analysis of an originating study conducted by the author (HARRIS, 1989); and is founded on a history of research based on revisioning archived data records as new theories develop. Providing a profile of different ways in which a child positions self and is positioned by the teacher, the system and peers, this telling case presents a research approach for understanding positioning processes and their consequences for children as they develop literacy processes and identities. To make transparent how the telling case study led to new theoretical insights, this paper makes visible multiple levels of analytic scale and angles of analysis of positioning (ANDERSON, 2009) that were undertaken to make visible the dynamic nature of positioning as understood through Positioning Theory (HARRÉ & LANGENHOVE, 1999; HARRÉ, 2012). This telling case study, therefore, builds a foundation for developing theoretical understandings of the fluid and dynamic nature of positioning in classrooms, and influences of positioning on children’s opportunities to enact and demonstrate their literate identities and capabilities. RESUMO Esse artigo reporta um estudo de caso sobre como uma criança chamada Charlie foi posicionada e reposicionou-se dentre e através de diferentes tipos de encontros de letramentos escolares em sua sala de aula do primeiro ano do ensino fundamental. Esse estudo de caso é baseado na reanálise de um estudo originalmente conduzido pela autora (HARRIS, 1989); e fundamenta-se em uma história de pesquisa baseada em revisar bancos de dados arquivados à medida que novas teorias se desenvolvem. Ao fornecer um perfil de diferentes formas através das quais uma criança se posiciona e é posicionada pela professora, o sistema e os/as colegas, esse estudo de caso apresenta uma abordagem de pesquisa para compreender processos de posicionamento e suas consequências para crianças no processo de desenvolvimento de letramentos e identidades. Para deixar claro como o estudo de caso levou a novas interpretações, o artigo foca nos múltiplos níveis de escala analítica e ângulos de análise de posicionamentos (ANDERSON, 2009) que foram selecionados para tornar visível a natureza dinâmica do posicionamento a luz da Teoria do Posicionamento (HARRÉ & LANGENHOVE, 1999; HARRÉ, 2012). Esse estudo de caso constrói, portanto, inteligibilidade teórica para compreensão da natureza fluida e dinâmica do posicionamento em sala de aula, assim como das influências do posicionamento nas oportunidades para a criança agir e demonstrar suas identidades e capacidades letradas.

This chapter provides a synthesis of findings on strategies for developing community capacity. More specifically, in this chapter we discuss eight key strategies and their underlying principles that address our final research question about effective strategies for developing local capacity to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We then present our final conclusions for our central research question about how communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services can be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We include an account of the capacity that was developed in the study, and the impact and benefit that grew from this capacity.

In this chapter, we present our study’s conceptual framework for understanding language, literacy and learning. We do so against the backdrop of Fiji’s diverse and evolving cultural and linguistic context discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3 and in terms of Fiji’s early childhood curriculum framework, Na Noda Mataniciva. We explore language in terms of a functional view of language and relate this perspective to understanding children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in the communities of our study. Literacy is conceived in terms that situate literacy in children’s lifeworlds and broader cultural and linguistic settings. We relate learning to sociocultural and rights-based perspectives of seeing, understanding and supporting the literate child and literacy learner – recognising each child’s voice and agency and developing child-voiced strategies that foster authentic, culturally relevant and sustaining learning in our study. We close our chapter with an example of how we brought together the three elements of language, literacy and learning in a key action that emerged in the three communities of our study – that is, co-creating multilingual books with children and their families in their home and community settings.

In this chapter, we describe our research team, sites and participants and the study’s 3-year critical participatory action research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis et al., The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). This approach enabled participants and university researchers alike to engage as co-investigators and optimised consequence and sustainability through strategic research design, partnerships and communication and engagement. We explicitly link this CPAR approach to how we define community capacity in this study and to key considerations for building capacity within a CPAR framework. Research sites and communities are described in terms of: the three communities and the children and families in each community who took part; the community mentors who provided us with intercultural mediation and language translations in each community; and the early childhood stakeholders we interviewed. Descriptions of the study’s in-country research partners and external reference group, and the roles these people played in the study are also included. Accounts of data collection and analysis procedures are provided in relation to: dialogic encounters with children and their families and other community members and leaders in the participating communities; participant observations in commuities, artefact collection in communities; stakeholder interviews and document analysis of key policies and other related materials. Measures we took to ensure the study’s trustworthiness and ethics are explained. Throughout the chapter, we highlight and explore the complexities of conducting a cross-cultural study in an overseas context. Drawing on examples from our study, we show how we worked with these complexities in collaboration with our co-investigators, community mentors and research partners.

In this chapter, we provide a synthesis of what we learned from the three community CPAR case studies and the stakeholder interviews. This synthesis pulls together recurring themes common across these data sets as well as points of difference, in terms of the first three of our four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? and (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? We close the chapter with our conclusions for these questions. These conclusions lead us into the final chapter where we provide a synthesis of findings for our fourth and final research question that focuses on strategies for developing community capacity.

This article reports a three-year, cross-cultural study on co-constructing culturally sustaining pedagogic (CSP) practices with children and their families and communities, to foster children's literacy in their home languages and English in Fiji's settings. As we argue in this article, dialogue is a vital part of CSP - specifically, authentic dialogic encounters defined as educative encounters with people in and about their worlds, occurring in relational contexts infused with an ethics of care and commitment. The study was framed as critical participatory action research. We present key findings focusing on: ensuring contextual relevance and responsiveness of pedagogic practices, co-constructing CSP practices with children and their families and communities, and documenting children's learning and engagement through culturally inclusive means. We close with discussion about how authentic dialogic encounters served to move toward four tenets of CSP: (1) outcomes must be pluralist, (2) avoid essentializing culture and race,(3) focus on traditional languages and cultures in dynamic ways, and (4) take an inward gaze. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In this chapter, we present our study’s community case developed in the Indo-Fijian rural community of Dovubaravi. The chapter begins with an introduction to the participating children of Dovubaravi, followed by accounts of Dovubaravi findings for each of our study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Dovubaravi? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact Dovubaravi’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Dovubaravi? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Dovubaravi’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

This chapter provides a review of research related to language and literacy learning in multilingual settings. This review is presented against Fiji’s contextual backdrop and linguistic landscape that we presented in Chap. 2. More specifically, we examine the call to action in the Pacific concerning the maintenance of Pacific languages vis-a-vis the cultural and historic significance of Pacific languages and related cultural and linguistic rights; self-determination in Pacific early childhood care and education, with a particular focus on language and literacy as we examine key regional initiatives and frameworks (viz. the Dakar Framework, the PRIDE Project, universal access to early childhood care and education services and Fiji’s Kindergarten curriculum guidelines); young children’s literacy in their home languages and English, with careful consideration of how children navigate different languages in terms of code-switching and translanguaging; culturally sustaining pedagogy, including an exploration of educational practices related to language and literacy teaching and assessment; and implications of the foregoing review for informing the study at hand.

This chapter provides a rich, in-depth account of insights about literacy learning in Duavata. We begin with an introduction to the participating children and their families of Duavata, followed by Duavata findings for each of our study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Duavata? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact on Duavata’s capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English in Duavata? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Duavata’s local capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English? In addressing these questions in the context of the Duavata community case study, we illustrate literacy learning possibilities and their realisation for young children in Duavata and evidence how Duavata’s community capacity developed to support their children’s literacy.

This paper focuses on collaboration between Australian preschool and primary school teachers co-located on same sites, with a view to understanding and strengthening collaboration for supporting continuity of practice across preschool and primary school settings. Based on findings from a narrative inquiry study framed by Freire’s notion of dialogic encounters, we examine teachers’ challenges to collaboration within an Australian public education system, understood through their perspectives and enactment of their professional identities as collaborators in this physically shared space. We present a possible framework for creating a shared space in which preschool and primary teachers collaborate to support continuity of learning for children. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This chapter presents the findings of the Wavu case study on developing strategies and community capacity to foster young children’s multilingual literacy. It begins with an introduction to the participating children and their families of Wavu, followed by Wavu findings for the study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Wavu? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact Wavu’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Wavu? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Wavu’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

This book offers a comprehensive report on a three-year, cross-cultural, critical participatory action research study, conducted in children’s homes and communities in Fiji. This project contributed to building sustainable local capacity in communities without access to early childhood services, so as to promote preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. The book includes rich descriptions of the young children’s lived, multilingual literacy practices in their home and community contexts. This work advances research-based practices for fostering young children’s multilingual literacy and building community capacity in a post-colonial Pasifika context; further, it shares valuable insights into processes and complexities that are inherent to multiliteracy and cross-cultural research.

This chapter introduces readers to the project on which this book is based – that is, a 3-year, cross-cultural study in Fiji about understanding young children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in their homes and communities, and using these understandings to collaboratively develop strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy with them and their families. An overview of the project’s full team and summaries of the book’s chapters are provided. Ultimately, this chapter positions the book as a collaborative product of sustained dialogic encounters in the forms of extended talanoa in iTaukei settings and baat-chit in Indo-Fijian settings. These encounters involved a diverse range of co-investigators, children and adults alike, across time, place and setting; and led to the co-construction of knowledge and practices for developing community strategies that support young children’s multilingual literacies in their home and community settings.

This chapter explores cross-cultural data collection and analysis in a study on developing community approaches to foster young children's multilingual literacy in Fiji communities. How important it is, then, that cross-cultural research is multi-voiced research from inception to dissemination. Dialogic encounters were more complex for the project leader who engaged in all the community settings, as well as with stakeholders and the ERG, so as to develop a cross-cultural view of the entire study. Cross-cultural analysis with community mentors, framed by study's conceptual frame work, was the most significant contributor to understanding Dovubaravi's cultural contexts and literacy practices. In Wavu, families' acceptance of the researchers was crucial to all aspects of our cross-cultural collaboration. Our collaboration with an iTaukei early childhood educator, Mere Krishna, who worked with us as a research assistant, also supported our cross-cultural collaboration.

In early years literacy policies and decision-making, children’s voices are quite silent despite their right to have voice in matters affecting their lives (UNCRC, 1989). Calling for a rights-based shift in literacy research, this chapter reports a study of children’s voices about reading in their second school year. This study was driven by moral and pedagogic imperatives to engage with children’s voices about their reading education at school. Constructing children as competent participants, key informants and human rights bearers (Mayall, 2002), this study is framed by a sociocultural perspective of reading (Luke & Freebody, 1990). Children’s perspectives of their participation, efficacy and wellbeing as readers at school provoke reflection on consequences of what is provided in early years programmes, highlighting importance of understanding these consequences through children’s voices and considering children’s views in policy and decision-making.

This self-study explores my mediation as a literacy teacher educator in the context of a professional development undertaking that involved developing and leading an early school years literacy course. I examine the tensions that arose in the light of my own professional history and explore ways that the tensions led me to reconcile conflicting messages through processes of reframing. I describe how I put my reframings into action in the way I designed and presented the professional development course. This self-study advances knowledge about teacher education in terms of its role in mediating connections between research, policy and practice, identifying some of the tensions that occur in this mediation and illustrating how, as teacher educators, we can use these tensions to reframe our mediation.

Individuals with special needs encounter multidimensional experiences in identification, assessment, labeling/categorization, placement, and instruction/intervention. These experiences call for multidimensional strategies that require different educational practitioners and professionals. These individuals must bring with them different ideas on how to remediate problems experienced by children and youth with special needs. Sometimes, in dealing with these issues, we forget that collaboration, consultation, and cooperation (the 3Cs) are keys. To advance these 3Cs, the Comprehensive Support Model (CSM) must be at work. Based on the CSM, students, families, school personnel, communities, and government agencies must work together to maximize the fullest potential of all students, including those with special needs.

This article explores ways in which children's picture books form networks of relationships, and their implications for readers and classroom teachers. In this exploration, reading is seen to involve making connections within and beyond the text at hand. These connections, evoked differently across readers, shape readers' interpretations of text. Many possible meanings may arise from just one text, reinforcing the idea that no single correct meaning resides in a text. This article demonstrates tools for exploring textual connections with readers, and the value of such explorations for opening-up reader interpretations of a text.

Culturally diverse exceptional learners have consistently encountered multidimensional problems that range from misidentification to misinstruction. Rather than focus on innovative intervention techniques that could help them maximize their fullest potential, the focus has been on unidimensional techniques that highlight teachers blaming parents and parents blaming teachers. The critical question is, How can the self (i.e., learner), families, schools, communities, and governments work together for the common good? This article responds to this question by discussing the Comprehensive Support Model (CSM) as an intervention technique for culturally diverse learners with exceptionalities. Embedded in this discussion are cases that buttress the dynamic functions of the CSM.

Over the past five or so years, teachers in the early school years have been faced with the challenge of shifting their reading instruction from more implicit, child-centred approaches to more explicit, text-focused instruction. This has been in response to the introduction of the NSW English K-6 Syllabus (NSW Board of Studies, 1993). This syllabus requires teachers to provide explicit instruction about texts in terms of their features, the purposes they serve, and how they are organised. The question this has raised is, how might such an emphasis be met while still taking account of children's active roles as learners and readers?

To understand better both the ways in which human resource (HR) strategies of organizations are shaped and the understandings and actions of employees are shaped, we need to look at the parallels and interconnections between the processes of strategy making which go on at both the corporate levels and at the level of employees' own career making. Mintzberg's conceptualization of strategies as realized patterns is useful in analysing both organizational and career strategies to ascertain the extent to which they are ‘more or less deliberate’ or ‘emergent’. This implies the need for more recognition in the mainstream literature on ‘strategic HRM’ of the value of conceptualizing strategies as processes rather than as big plans. Material from on-going research is used to illustrate how the concept of strategy might be used in talking about the ways in which managers see their careers or work histories.

This paper reports a self-study of developing an integrated play-based pedagogy in a preservice early childhood teacher education subject about play. It is framed by understandings of play in children's lives and adult learning. The self-study was initially driven by a contradiction between teaching preservice teachers about play through didactic means and learning about play through play. Other tensions subsequently arose in this self-study and required me to reframe my thoughts and actions so I could move forward. This paper documents the tensions and reframings as the self-study proceeded over the course of a semester. It reveals that developing an integrated play-based pedagogy not only involves play-based activities per se but also the atmosphere in which experiences and interactions unfold and the play qualities they embody. Ideally, students become major players in the process of the development of pedagogy.

Background: Vitamin B12 deficiency is common in primary care but its treatment practices vary across centres. One important cause of B12 deficiency is pernicious anaemia (identified by intrinsic factor antibodies), which is a risk factor for developing gastric carcinoma, and should be excluded. Additionally, recent evidence has suggested that some patients have been continued on B12 injections with no clear clinical indication. Recently, guidelines were produced to improve the investigation and management of B12 deficiency. Hence, this audit studied the investigation and management of B12 deficiency and adherence to clinical guidelines in a general practice (GP) in north-west England. Aim: To evaluate the appropriate diagnosis and management of vitamin B12 deficiency in our primary care centre against recognized standards. Methods: Clinical data of patients currently on oral cyanocobalamin and/or intramuscular hydroxocobalamin injections over a 1-year period were audited. Results: Thirty-eight patients (66% females, 34% males) receiving treatment for B12 deficiency were identified. Of these, 55% (21/38) had intrinsic factor antibodies checked and 52% (13/25) were managed according to the guidelines. 100% (8/8) of patients with dietary B12 deficiency (non-vegans) and 75% (3/4) of B12-deficient patients on long-term metformin have had follow-up serum B12 monitoring. Discussion: There is a need to improve the investigation for B12 deficiency, adherence to clinical guidelines, and documentation of patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, dietary statuses, and required monitoring. We anticipate that adhering to guidelines when appropriate, with clear documentation, will improve the diagnosis and management of vitamin B12 deficiency so that safe prescribing and potential cost savings can be achieved.

Factors have been identified which are responsible for the phenomenon already reported in which regrowth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was found to occur in broth cultures containing bactericidal concentrations of carbenicillin. In cultures incubated under stationary conditions, in a water bath, the factor primarily responsible for this phenomenon of regrowth appears to be the formation of condensate on the inside of the culture vessel. In such condensate, viable cells of P. aeruginosa were found in numbers equal or higher than those in the culture broth. As a result of coalescing, and running down the vessel wall, the condensate provides a continuous reintroduction of bacteria into the culture medium, and, notwithstanding a bactericidal concentration of antibiotic in the medium, this process of continual reinoculation leads to the formation of visible growth and an increase in the viable count in the culture medium after an initial bactericidal effect. In silicone-treated flasks, incubated in a water bath, regrowth did not occur. Under such conditions, condensate again formed, but only as discrete droplets on a non-wetting surface, and in such condensate the bacterial count was found to be low. In flasks incubated in an air incubator, condensate did not form, and under these conditions the phenomenon of regrowth was not observed.