Bicycles, ‘informality’ and the alternative learning space as a site for re-engagement: a risky (pedagogical) proposition?

Abstract

Andrew is also Coordinator of Research and Research Training in the School of Arts and Communication and Immediate Past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. Carly Smith's professional background lies predominantly in secondary state school education in Queensland and she is currently teaching in the areas of pre-service teacher education and communication studies at the University of Southern Queensland. Her research interests include the relationships between 'official' institutions and individual and collective identities.

Relational Pedagogy and Democratic Education

“…Such a pedagogy also recognises the conditions that define predominant formulations of schooling and the minutiae of influences that shape how students and teachers come into relation. This includes taking account of the effects exerted by the structural transformation of schooling in recent decades (Fuller & Stevenson, 2019;Lingard, Rezai-Rashti & Martino, 2017;Ball, 2015), the ordered 'formality' of teaching-learning exchanges (Hickey, Pauli-Myler & Smith 2020) and the accompanying performativity required of students and teachers therein.…”

“…• Acknowledge that students bring with them the capacity to generate complex understandings of the worlds they inhabit (Freire, 1970;Hickey, 2020).…”

Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling: activist teaching and pedagogically driven reform

“…There are some resonances in the current context to how Waller (1932) described the hostility of schooling systems to young people's lives. Hickey et al (2020) argued that such moments can be characterised in terms of the informality they offer. Opportunistic moments of informal encounter open particular possibilities for engaging with students in ways that are unexpected and that diverge from formal modalities of interaction, which otherwise define contemporary schooling.…”

“…Opportunistic moments of informal encounter open particular possibilities for engaging with students in ways that are unexpected and that diverge from formal modalities of interaction, which otherwise define contemporary schooling. Citing how informal moments of exchange-unexpected moments of encounter that proceed beyond the edicts typically regimented in schools-provided an effective means for repairing relationships between students and teachers in one high-poverty alternative education context, Hickey et al (2020) illustrated how this enactment of informality extended space for meaningful learning and student engagement. They noted that the informality of unexpected student-teacher encounters afforded opportunities that otherwise were not available in the routine functioning of the school.…”

The Pedagogies of Cultural Studies

“…Andrew Hickey is an Associate Professor of Communications at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia and his research foci have been critical pedagogy, public pedagogies and emancipatory social practice. For instance, a recent article co-authored by Hickey and colleagues in 2018 examines how an in-school alternative learning program, focused on the repair of old bicycles, allowed students to reconfigure their relationships with their peers, teachers and schooling (Hickey, Myler, & Smith, 2018). The Pedagogies of Cultural Studies has individual chapters that examine the gender and power dynamics in specific athletic communities (e.g., competitive surfers) and includes studies of how nationally mandated multicultural awareness/inclusion practices should (and should not) ideally be integrated across the curriculum of Australian primary schools.…”