Editorial.

As the newly appointed Editor of the Australian Journal of Education I would like first of all to thank my predecessor, Gabriele Lakomski, for the important contribution that her editorship of the journal made to education studies in Australia during the last five years. Gaby encouraged diverse articles and new ways of thinking, opening the net widely, while insisting on the highest standards of thought and exposition. We have all benefited from her meticulous and reasoned editorship, her sense of process and fairness, and her patience and warmth. In administrative terms, too, AJE is in excellent shape. Thank you also to Carole Hooper for her fine work as Editorial Assistant while the journal was housed at the University of Melbourne. AJE has been in good hands.

I am very grateful to Geoff Masters and the Australian Council for Educational Research for inviting me to take up the Editorship and to the Dean of the Monash Faculty of Education, Sue Willis for supporting the location of AJE in the Faculty. I thank also Richard Smith and Gaby Lakomski for encouraging my involvement as an Advisory Editor. AJE is a challenge: a wonderful opportunity to make a contribution to the field.

As well as wanting the quality of our national journal to be as good as it can be, I have two starting objectives:

* to strengthen the international profile of the journal, and its sense of national/ global/local reflexivities, and the global contribution of Australian education; and

* to encourage work that will contribute to the development of the field of education studies as a field of knowledge, including its discipline bases, theories and methods.

Education studies

Inevitably, our knowledge of the social world is incomplete. We can only aspire to partial certainties. We can and do improve our knowledge of the real world using the tools of research and analysis, but no tool that we devise is universal in its reach, or complete in its understanding (Dow, 1995, 1996). Neither one mode of thought, one theory nor one methodology is correct for all social settings. All of our empirical observations are in some respect undecided, in the sense that they cannot exhaustively explain what they see.

In response to this complexity and uncertainty, in the social sciences, two divergent modes of thought have developed. The first following Descartes is to model social settings as closed systems that are grounded in logical (and often mathematical) axioms, and subject to theorisations derived from these axioms. One influential variant is the Popperian approach, whereby knowledge `moves forward' through the construction of falsifiable hypotheses that survive empirical tests. The Cartesian mode of thought can be turned either to the gathering of empirical data, or to the building of abstractions for their own sake. However, the point is that both share the principle of closure. Cartesianism continues to sustain productive research programs, for example in economics and quantitative sociology, but its limits have been much discussed. For example it eliminates what other theories and methods of analysis might tell us; it eliminates empirical matter which is `fuzzy' and uncertain (a large area); there are numerous truths which in logical terms cannot be posed as testable hypotheses; and in practice empirical tests are never wholly free from influences that are `external' to the matters being tested. Thus every assertion of certainty and every effort at final closure are subject to nagging doubts.

Other social scientists model reality not as a closed system, but as an open system, and design social research programs that are partly open in character. This approach recognises that the range of theories, methods and techniques--including quantitative, qualitative and interpretative techniques--can all generate useful insights. The particular selection of tools that are used is determined by the matter at hand. The open approach is particularly useful in applied research, where the purpose of the project is to solve a practical problem rather than to generate knowledge in isolation from practice, and in scholarship and research in indeterminate and fuzzy areas such as policy and--some would argue--teaching and learning. Sheila Dow describes the open approach in these terms:

   Methodology can be approached from a variety of standpoints, depending on
   the particular path chosen for generating knowledge ... If reality is
   understood as an open system, then scope is allowed for free will, for
   creativity and for indeterminate evolution of behaviour and institutions.
   (Dow, 1996, pp. 9-14)

This does not mean that anything goes, that all theories and methods are on a plane, equally valid, with no criteria for distinguishing them. First, not all theories are equally relevant to the matter in hand. Second, an open system without any element of closure would simply be eclectic, with neither starting points, boundaries nor consistent patterns.

To develop systematic knowledge, part of the social setting is modelled as a closed system, while at the same time remaining open to influences from outside. More than one such closed system may be used, and linked, enabling a composite picture to be developed. Such intersections and syntheses should be mapped explicitly and rigorously. In this manner, tools of social research that have developed within the Cartesian approach might still be employed in the solution of educational problems, albeit subject to interpretations, and shorn of their claims to universal truth. The open systems mode of thought, far from being flabby, actually creates a more demanding set of problems. Questions of application are raised: under which conditions is the knowledge relevant and useful? Taken-for-granted assumptions are interrogated, timeless theories and methodologies are rendered provisional and temporary, and subject to supplementation and change. But a glance at the history of knowledge shows that it has always been so--and arguably, an open systems approach allows more of reality to come into view than does any one single closed system.

Turning to research and scholarship in education studies, it becomes apparent that, as a field, it mirrors the structure of the open systems approach rather than a closed systems approach, although specific closures have found a place within it. Much of educational research combines (not always rigorously) more than one set of theories and methods: for example, when quantitative studies of learning achievement are utilised in policy. Taken as a whole, works of research and scholarship in education exhibit two features.

First, there is the applied character of education studies. The vast majority of research and scholarship in education is concerned with improvements in educational policies and other practices. Educational research shares with its subject-object of study, modern institutional education, the norms of social improvement and self-improvement (though what constitutes `improvement' in education, and whose purposes are brought to bear in determining the missions of education and education studies, are more vexed questions!).

Second, there is the heterogeneity of education studies. Scholarship and research in education draws from primary disciplines and methods across the whole of the social sciences, and a large part of the humanities, the arts, mathematics and the natural sciences. This reflects the heterogeneity of personnel and the heterogeneity of specific purposes and tasks, within the common educational mission. Cross-disciplinary work abounds. The discipline of education studies is held together more by the common mission and professional sensibilities than by common intellectual methods. In other settings, we might value intellectual diversity for its own sake. Within the discipline, the argument for diversity becomes a different one. Heterogeneity of approach is needed not so much for its own sake but because it contributes to the improvement of education, however defined.

My approach to AJE is determined by these concerns. The journal should encourage heterogeneous contributions to the solution of common policy and professional problems. What constitutes those common problems is itself open for scrutiny and debate. Education studies are continually being enriched from various disciplines, theories and methods. The intellectual architecture of the field--for example, the manner in which work with different starting points might usefully be drawn together--requires our close attention, because it can facilitate many of the advances in the field. For example it would be good to see a closer conjunction between the formation of quantitative population data sets and the analysis of social codes; we need to see revisited the philosophical foundations of statistical inference in education; we need to talk more about the theory (quantitative and qualitative) of cross-national comparisons. It would be good to see techniques that have developed in social and cultural analysis, where much of the most interesting work has been done in the last 15 years, being applied more often to problems of teaching and learning, which in one sense are the central problems of education. And so on.

AJE also need to be open to contributions, on educational issues and problems, that originate from outside education studies: for example, from disciplines that are most relevant to education studies, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, linguistics, political theory, cultural studies, mathematics and statistics. At times, faculties of education and educational research centres operate almost as self-referencing fortresses with little regard for the world outside. But we in education studies have much in common with people working in other fields. Our preoccupations with pedagogy are shared (though not always well understood) in every academic field; and the world has now found that certain reflexivities long central to modern education systems--social improvement via self-improvement, equity as opportunity, investment in conditions of uncertainty, the `knowledge economy', `innovation', lifelong learning, the construction of culture, and so on--are also central to the human condition. In effect, there is increasing interest in the subject matter of what we do.

Finally, we are operating in a global setting in which the exchange of research and scholarship has been globalised, to a greater extent than has the government or the provision of education. Institutional education will remain largely national and local for the foreseeable future, and increasingly (now that geographical borders are readily crossed, and capital flows have been globalised) it is central to the constitution of national identity. In an economic and cultural setting that is partly globalised, those countries, regions and localities able to make a distinctive contribution--those able to do more than respond to global pressure--can sustain their own identity and contribute something of note in the global environment. Australian education has distinctive strengths. Its capacity has been partly undercut by the decline in national investment, but its traditions are strong. Many Australian scholars have made significant contributions to the field in the United States of America and the United Kingdom (our impact in European and Asian settings is harder to trace). We can afford to open ourselves to international communications and exchange, because we have something to give.

This issue

In varying ways, most of the contributions to this first new millennium AJE are concerned with three ideas central to the political philosophy of education in Australia, ideas that return again and again in teacher education, professional discussion and policy debate: equality/equity, identity and difference. These ideas have been drawn together in various combinations, using various discipline bases, theories, methods and techniques. Some articles are solely qualitative. Some combine verbal logic and numerical logic. Some are based on surveys. One analyses the words in policy documents. Most of the articles are concerned with educational achievement, and nearly all are focused on policy. Together they signal several of the most strongly felt issues in Australian education: gender, indigenous education, rural disadvantage, cultural difference, commercialised education.

Jo Ailwood and Bob Lingard provide a discourse analysis of the last round of national policy on gender in schooling, Gender equity: A framework for Australian schooling (Ministerial Council, 1997). In a subtle study, they trace the rise of a `recuperative masculinist' politics which signals an `endgame' for the post-1975 policy on the education of girls. The cry everywhere, not only in Australia, is, `What about the boys?'. Gender equity is a `polysemous' strategy which can be read positively by competing interests. It is a `shift in focus from girls, and boys in relation to girls, to equity for all gifts and boys'. Here equity has been used to suppress from our attention certain aspects of difference (for example, the violence associated with traditional masculine behaviours), while difference and identity are mobilised to suppress equity (all gender identities are defined as valid, confirming traditional relations of power). But this ambiguity also allows feminists to re-intervene.

Quentin Beresford uses historical analysis within the framework of public policy to assemble a devastating picture of Aboriginal education in Western Australia: from overt apartheid and neglect; to assimilation, `biological absorption' and neglect; to the first systematic reforms after the Beazley inquiry in the mid 1980s. The picture remains grim. Only one in five Aboriginal students completes school, only half the Western Australian government schools offer Aboriginal studies, more than two in five students report that they experience overt racism at school, and young Aboriginal men are 48 times as likely as non-Aboriginal men to find themselves in a juvenile detention centre. Akin to the reports on the stolen generation and black deaths in custody, Beresford finds that the undermining of identity is at the centre of Aboriginal educational failure and this undermining of identity is the long-term function of governed and institutionalised racism. Respect for difference and the strengthening of identity are the foundations of equity for indigenous students.

Joan Abbott-Chapman and Sue Kilpatrick use a study of Year 10 leavers from rural Tasmanian high schools, and their families, to present a nuanced picture of the options they face. Despite the lack of rural jobs, the economic inequalities experienced by rural people, and the potential for the dislocation of family ties if students attend one of the eight senior secondary colleges located in the cities, the sample exhibits a marked optimism. Family and rural location play a strong role in sustaining their identities in the face of the fraught and fragmented experiences offered by work, school and vocational education and training.

Paul Ghuman has interviewed a sample of South Asian parents and young people in three groups: two located in the cities and including significant numbers of professional families; and one located in the country and drawing on farming families. The study weaves socio-economic differences, religious and traditional family identities, and gender, together with education. Immigrant students and their families, encountering Anglo-Australian language and institutions, develop hybrid identities some of the time, and sustain bi-cultural identities some of the time: the rural families assert their religious and linguistic traditions more strongly. But, in the absence of teachers of Punjabi at school, all families who are determined to maintain elements of tradition are forced back on their own resources.

Ninetta Santoro, JoAnne Reid and Barbara Kamler report on a survey and interviews covering overseas-born teachers based in Victoria, for whom English is not their first language. They note that in teacher training and staffing policies this group is largely invisible. Despite their capacity in adaptability and bi-cultural identity, these teachers can face serious inequities deriving from negative readings of cultural difference. They are invisible, yet they are readily stereotyped. Most of the younger teachers, the more recent arrivals, are from East and South East Asia, and many are working in rural settings.

Ron Edwards and Julie Edwards approach the internationalisation of education from the opposite end, as a business rather than cultural matter. They apply theorisations of internationalisation drawn from the business literature to draw out the business implications for universities (especially those locating off-shore, and/or dealing with off-shore partners). Education is product variable, and nation specific: one of the challenges is to produce a generic form of international education that is not readily replicated by competitors. Another challenge is to sustain the reputation of off-shore campuses, when the core research operation is back in Australia. They contrast building bridges between cultures through "internationalisation' with building those bridges through globalisation, meaning cultural and educational homogeneity. But although people in education often see these as opposing tendencies, for business `the two stages are in a continuum, commercial forces driving both ... If universities are to resist this trend they will have to consciously plan a different path'.

The final article by Beverley Pascoe and Russell Waugh brings us to research related directly to teaching and learning. It explains the creation of a standardised measure of music achievement for students in Western Australian government schools, using a Rasch measurement model. The tasks include questions relating to listening and appreciating, identifying aspects of music and performance; the samples covered students from Year 3, Year 7 and Year 10. As an outcome of this work, Western Australian school music standards can incorporate information on creativity, knowledge of aesthetics, criticism, and past and present contexts, for the first time.

References

Dow, S. (1995). Uncertainty about uncertainty. In Sheila Dow & John Hillard (Eds.), Keynes, knowledge and uncertainty (pp. 117-127). Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

Dow, S. (1996). Macroeconomic methodology (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. (1997). Gender equity: A framework for Australian schools. Canberra: Govt Pr.

Simon Marginson
Monash University