A survey of 80 graduates of an Australian popular music degree revealed that graduates had a deep understanding of the value of soft skills to their employability and musical livelihoods. Soft skills are defined here as interpersonal and intrapersonal transferrable skills such as effective collaboration and communication, as opposed to the hard…

The identification of disengaged early school leavers as young people "at risk" can lead to a deficit-based framing of how educational institutions respond to them. A rural secondary school in Victoria, Australia established an alternative education programme to cater for local disengaged young people. A critical ethnographic study was…

Research confirms that when students disengage from learning, there is a greatly increased risk of them dropping out of school and not completing secondary education (Year 12). In an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) report on Equity in Education [OECD. 2012. "Investing in Equity in Education Pays off", in…

A series of experimental programs have been developed within the Granville Work Preparation Centre (GWPC) to train mildly intellectually handicapped Australian adolescents in vocational, social, and educational skills. Principles of instruction, training strategies, and techniques are discussed in relation to programs developed to run concurrently…

The paper discusses program development at the Granville Work Preparation Centre in Australia, which teaches mildly retarded adolescents work and social skills. Some broad parameters considered in program development are listed and include recognition of the Center's industrial setting, and disruption in routines through extra movement of trainees…

A study identified the academic needs of Australian vocational educators who are developing their own and others' communication competence in response to the imperative for vocational educators to provide a wide range of programs in communication for the workplace. Subjects, over 100 vocational educators enrolled in the University of Technology,…

The Exploring Together Outdoors Program is an Australian program that integrates family therapy interventions with adventure therapy, providing an opportunity for mother/child dyads that have conflictual relationships to develop more positive connections. This paper focuses on a group of four mothers and their four daughters who participated in 2…

Argues that altruism among preschool children is dependent upon children's understanding of a variety of complex cognitive and social skills and that these skills can, to some extent, be facilitated by appropriate training programs. (Author/MP)

The document presents a Macquarie University research team's evaluation report on the Granville Work Preparation Centre in Australia, which studied the processes required to prepare mildly mentally handicapped adolescents for independent living by teaching them work and social skills. A model is schematized in which research is conceived as having…

The Southern Child Care Support Program was established in 1986 to help children with disabilities gain access to child care services. The program consists of a team of four Integration Support Workers who are able to provide support in 27 child care centers in the region of Adelaide, Australia. The program's model of child care focuses on three…

Evaluation of the Mobile Classroom Project, which provided complementary and supplementary educational experiences not available through the Primary Correspondence Schools (PCS) for 58 isolated country children in Central Queensland during 1978 and 1979, used personal observations; comments from parents, home supervisors, and key educators…