Against Professional Development

This paper raises questions about the sort of knowledge which has come to count as professional development knowledge. The author interrogates the curriculum and pedagogy of academic professional development programs in Australian universities, drawing parallels with Third World development programs. She argues that professional development knowledge is privileged over disciplinary knowledge in setting lifelong learning agendas for academics, and notes some problematic consequences of this for academics engaged in professional development programs

W(h)ither Practitioner Research?

The purpose of this paper is to understand better the possibilities for practitioner research as a mode of educational inquiry that is yet to be legitimated within the academy. The paper maps the current state of play, and then moves on to consider what might yet be done to optimise its potential to contribute to rigorous new thinking about educational practice. Its exploration proceeds in 3 parts: first, it seeks to account for the ambivalent status of practitioner research in the larger context of the modern university; second, it moves on from this account to argue both the value and the limitations of practitioner research as a contemporary mode of knowledge production in education; and finally, it suggests ways that practitioner research might be less de-limited in terms of its capacities to produce knowledge that is useful to a wider range of stakeholders

Reflections on a native title anthropology field school

Anthropologists play a significant role in the native title system in Australia, especially in undertaking connection research to demonstrate the evidentiary basis of claims. In 2010, recognising the lack of sufficiently qualified anthropologists working in native title, the Australian Government introduced a grants program to attract and retain practitioners. This paper describes a field school in the Northern Territory that was funded through the Native Title Anthropologist Grants Program. Through dialogue and interaction with the Aboriginal community, the organisers aimed to expose and interpret ideas, practices, memories, mythologies, relationships and other aspects of society and culture in the terms required for the demonstration of native title. Both novel and successful, the field school points the way for future training initiatives in native title anthropology. Related identifier: ISBN 9781922102317 (paperback) | ISBN 9781922102300 (ebook : pdf) | Dewey Number 346.940432

Two Red Clumps and the X-Shaped Milky Way Bulge

From 2MASS infra-red photometry we find two red clump (RC) populations co-existing in the same fields toward the Galactic bulge at latitudes |b|>5.5 deg., ranging over ~13 degrees in longitude and 20 degrees in latitude. We can only understand the data if these RC peaks simply reflect two stellar populations separated by ~2.3 kpc; at (l,b)=(+1,-8) the two RCs are located at 6.5 and 8.8+/-0.2 kpc. The double-peaked RC is inconsistent with a tilted bar morphology. Most of our fields show the two RCs at roughly constant distance with longitude, which is also inconsistent with a tilted bar, although an underlying bar may be present. The stellar densities in the two RCs changes dramatically with longitude: on the positive longitude side the foreground RC is dominant, while the background RC dominates negative longitudes. A line connecting the maxima of the foreground and background populations is tilted to the line of sight by ~20 +/-4 deg., similar to claims for the tilt of a Galactic bar. The distance between the two RCs decreases towards the Galactic plane; seen edge-on the bulge is X-shaped, resembling some extra-galactic bulges and the results of N-body simulations. The center of this X is consistent with the distance to the Galactic center, although better agreement would occur if the bulge is 2-3 Gyr younger than 47 Tuc. Our observations may be understood if the two RC populations emanate, nearly tangentially, from the ends of a Galactic bar, each side shaped like a funnel or horn. Alternatively, the X, or double funnel shape, may continue to the Galactic center. This would appear peanut/box shaped from the Solar direction, but X-shaped when viewed tangentially.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, revised following referee comments, 12 pages, 8 figure