This is an outdated version published on 19-08-2017. Read the most recent version.

Building a sense of community belonging: Making mobile families welcome in a rural Australian school

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47381/aijre.v27i2.113

Keywords:

mobility, rural schooling, literacy education, transition, belonging

Abstract

Seasonal farm workers play an important economic role through their contributions to annual harvests and the fact that they spend income in the community where they sojourn. However, research shows that farm workers and other temporary residents are often socially marginalised in rural communities and feel as though they are outsiders who do not belong. This paper reports research that focused on a primary school in a rural community in Australia, where seasonal mobile farm workers arrived for the annual harvest. Using a single case study design, the research demonstrated that the school made a deliberate attempt to welcome newly-arrived students and their families into the school community. Using a whole school strategy, the school staff aimed to meet families’ and students’ social needs, thereby building a sound foundation for the academic work of schooling. However, the data and data analysis also suggested that the school’s strategy was helping to work against the deficit discourses that operated in the broader community, thus demonstrating the school’s role as a hub for the community’s socio-educational development.

Author Biography

Robyn Henderson, University of Southern Queensland

Robyn Henderson is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. She is interested in the intersection between student mobility and literacy education, particularly in rural communities. She is also keen to further develop how knowledge about student mobility can be used to inform and enhance teachers' pedagogical work in classrooms.

References

Alston, M. (2000). Rural poverty. Australian Social Work, 53(1), 29–34. doi:10.1080/03124070008415554

Alston, M. (2004). Who is down on the farm? Social aspects of Australian agriculture in the 21st century. Agriculture and Human Values, 21(37–46).
doi:10.1023/B:AHUM.0000014019.84085.59

Bampton, M., Daniel, S., Dempster, A., & Simons, R. (2008). Student mobility, attendance and student achievement (or disruptions and student achievement): Looking at six years of Queensland state school data. Retrieved from http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/research/forum/forum_presentation_feb_081.pps

Barbour, R. S., & Schostak, J. (2005). Interviewing and focus groups. In B. Somekh & C. Lewin (Eds.), Research methods in the social sciences (pp. 41–48). London, UK: Sage.

Butera, G., & Humphreys Costello, L. (2010). Growing up rural and moving toward family-school partnerships: Special educators reflect on biography and place. In K. A. Schafft & A. Youngblood Jackson (Eds.), Rural education for the twenty-first century: Identity, place, and community in a globalizing world (pp. 253–274). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Danaher, P. A., Moriarty, B., & Danaher, G. (2009). Mobile learning communities: Creating new educational futures. London, UK: Routledge.

Davis, S., & Bartlett, H. (2008). Healthy ageing in rural Australia: Issues and challenges. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 27(2), 56–60. doi:10.1111/j.1741-6612.2008.00296.x
de Jong, A. (2015). Dykes on bikes: Mobility, belonging and the visceral. Australian Geographer, 46(1), 1–13. doi: 10.1080/00049182.2014.986787

Donehower, K., Hogg, C., & Schell, E. E. (2012). Introduction: Reclaiming the rural. In K. Donehower, C. Hogg, & E. E. Schell (Eds.), Reclaiming the rural: Essays on literacy, rhetoric, and pedagogy (pp. 1–13). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Downes, N., & Roberts, P. (2015). Valuing rural meanings: The work of parent supervisors challenging dominant educational discourses. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 25(3), 80–93.

Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power (2nd ed.). London, UK: Longman.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 301–316). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Gale, T., & Densmore, K. (2002). Student success and failure: As a matter of fact or just how they are portrayed? Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 30(1), 7–23.

Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (2nd ed.). London, UK: Falmer Press.

Gonzáles, N. (2005). Beyond culture: The hybridity of funds of knowledge. In N. Gonzáles, L. C. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 29–46). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gonzáles, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (2005a). Introduction: Theorizing practices. In N. Gonzales, L. C. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 1–24). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gonzáles, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (2005b). Preface. In N. Gonzáles, L. C. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. ix–xii). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gonzáles, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005c). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge.

Green, B. (2015). Australian education and rural-regional sustainability. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 25(3), 36–49.

Gustafson, P. (2009). Mobility and territorial belonging. Environment and Behavior, 41(4), 490–508. doi: 10.1177/0013916508314478

Henderson, R. (2001). Student mobility: Moving beyond deficit views. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 11(1), 121–129.

Henderson, R. (2004). Educational issues for children of itinerant seasonal horticultural workers: A case study in an Australian context. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 8(3), 293–310.

Henderson, R. (2005). An invasion of green-stained farm workers from outer space(s)? Or a rural community struggling with issues of itinerancy? Education in Rural Australia, 15(1), 3–13.

Henderson, R. (2008). A boy behaving badly: Investigating teachers' assumptions about gender, behaviour, mobility and literacy learning. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 31(1), 74–87.

Henderson, R. (2009). Itinerant farm workers' children in Australia: Learning from the experiences of one family. In P. A. Danaher, M. Kenny, & J. Remy Leder (Eds.), Traveller, nomadic and migrant education (pp. 46–58). New York, NY: Routledge.

Henderson, R., & Danaher, P. A. (2012). Moving with the times: Pedagogies for mobile students. In C. Day (Ed.), International handbook: Teacher and school development (pp. 360–371). New York, NY: Routledge.

Henderson, R., & Gouwens, J. A. (2013). Mobile farmworker families using cocoon communities to negotiate multiple lifeworlds. In M. Korpela & F. Dervin (Eds.), "Cocoon communities": Togetherness in the 21st century (pp. 105–121). Newcastle
upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Henderson, R., & Woods, A. (2012). Teaching for quality and equity: (Re)focusing the lens to make diversity and difference visible. In R. Henderson (Ed.), Teaching literacies in the middle years: Pedagogies and diversity (pp. 113–131). South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press.

Kenny, M., & Binchy, A. (2009). Irish Travellers, identity and the education system. In P. A. Danaher, M. Kenny, & J. Remy Leder (Eds.), Traveller, nomadic and migrant education (pp. 117–131). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kersten, J. (2007). Literacy and choice: Urban elementary students' perceptions of links between home, school, and community literacy practices. In V. Purcell-Gates (Ed.), Cultural practices of literacy: Case studies of language, literacy, social practice, and power (pp. 133–154). New York, NY: Routledge.

Lovell, N. (1998). Introduction: Belonging in need of emplacement? In N. Lovell (Ed.), Locality and belonging (pp. 1–24). London, UK: Routledge.

Maclellan, N., & Mares, P. (2006). Labour mobility in the Pacific: Creating seasonal work programs in Australia. In S. Firth (Ed.), Globalisation and governance in the Pacific islands (pp. 137–171). Canberra, ACT: ANU E Press.
Malin, M. (1990). The visibility and invisibility of Aboriginal students in an urban classroom. Australian Journal of Education, 34(3), 312–329.

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzales, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, XXXI(2), 132–141.

Purcell-Gates, V. (2007). Complicating the complex. In V. Purcell-Gates (Ed.), Cultural practices of literacy: Case studies of language, literacy, social practice and power (pp. 1–22). New York, NY: Routledge.

Remy Leder, J. (2009). Conclusion: Whither changing schools? In P. A. Danaher, M. Kenny, & J. Remy Leder (Eds.), Traveller, nomadic and migrant education (pp. 214–220). New York, NY: Routledge.

Roberts, P., & Downes, N. (2016). Conflicting messages: Sustainability and education for rural-regional sustainability. Rural Society, 25(1), 15–36. doi:10.1080/10371656.2016.1150196

St John, E. P., Griffith, A. I., & Allen-Haynes, L. (1997). Families in schools: A chorus of voices in restructuring. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Thomson, P. (2002). Schooling the rustbelt kids: Making the difference in changing times. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Youngblood Jackson, A. (2010). Fields of discourse: A Foucauldian analysis of schooling in a rural, US southern town. In K. A.

Schafft & A. Youngblood Jackson (Eds.), Rural education for the twenty-first century: Identity, place, and community in a globalizing world (pp. 72–92). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Downloads

Published

19-08-2017

Versions

How to Cite

Henderson, R. (2017). Building a sense of community belonging: Making mobile families welcome in a rural Australian school. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 27(2), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.47381/aijre.v27i2.113

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 > >>