University of Wollongong

About: University of Wollongong is a education organization based out in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Graphene. The organization has 15674 authors who have published 46658 publications receiving 1197471 citations. The organization is also known as: UOW & Wollongong University.

How nation‐states respond to immigration and ethnic diversity

Abstract: Large scale migrations since 1945 have led to major changes in the ethnic composition of most highly‐developed countries. Nations have responded in a variety of ways, which have helped determine patterns of ethnic group formation. This article suggest a typology of policy models: the differential exclusion model, the assimilation model, and the pluralist model. Examples are discussed for each model. The models are then linked to different historical patterns of nation‐state formation. The differential exclusion model, which is based on the desire to prevent permanent settlement, has proved very hard to maintain because it leads to social tension and because it contradicts the democratic principle of including all members of civil society in the nation‐state. Countries applying the assimilation model have generally moved to a mixed approach, embodying some elements of the pluralist model. This has led to difficulties, because of contradictions between explicit goals and actual policies. Pluralist ...

Mathematics teachers’ beliefs and curriculum reform

Abstract: This paper discusses the role of mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their impact on curriculum reform. It is argued that teachers’ beliefs about the teaching and learning mathematics are critical in determining the pace of curriculum reform. Educational change is a complex process in which teachers hold strong beliefs about the quality and the process of innovation. Curriculum implementation may only occur through sufferance as many teachers are suspicious of reform in mathematics education given its equivocal success over the past decades. It is not surprising then that many teachers, when they come to enact the curriculum in their classes, rely more on their own beliefs than on current trends in pedagogy. These beliefs, conservative as they might be, have their own rationality in the practical and daily nature of the teaching profession, and in the compelling influence of educational systems from which these teachers are paradoxically the social product. The literature indicates that many of these teachers hold behaviourist beliefs, a fact that has strong implications for the success of constructivist-oriented curriculum reform. In general, studies of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs reveal the extreme complexity of bringing about educational change, and largely explains the failure of many past reform endeavours.

Face to face: visual scanpath evidence for abnormal processing of facial expressions in social phobia.

Abstract: Cognitive models of social phobia propose that cognitive biases and fears regarding negative evaluation by others result in preferential attention to interpersonal sources of threat. These fears may account for the hypervigilance and avoidance of eye contact commonly reported by clinicians. This study provides the first objective examination of threat-related processing in social phobia. It was predicted that hyperscanning (hypervigilance) and eye avoidance would be most apparent in social phobia for overt expressions of threat. An infrared corneal reflection technique was used to record visual scanpaths in response to angry, sad, and happy vs. neutral facial expressions. Twenty-two subjects with social phobia were compared with age- and sex-matched normal controls. As predicted, social phobia subjects displayed hyperscanning, (increased scanpath length) and avoidance (reduced foveal fixations) of the eyes, particularly evident for angry faces. The results could not be explained by either medication or co-morbid depression. These findings are consistent with theories emphasising the role of information processing biases in social phobia, and show promise in the application to treatment evaluation in this disorder.

Enhancement of the capacitance in TiO2 nanotubes through controlled introduction of oxygen vacancies

Abstract: The many applications of high energy storage devices have forged an increasing interest in research areas related to electrochemical capacitors. Here, in this work, we present a facile method for the fabrication of self-organized titania nanotubes grown by anodic oxidation of titanium foil with different subsequent heat-treatment regimes for use as binder-free working electrodes in supercapacitor applications. The capacitance of these highly ordered titania nanotubes, when exposed to a reductive atmosphere during annealing, was determined to be well above 900 µF cm−2, confirming that the capacitance contribution was pseudocapacitive in nature. The behaviour of oxygen depleted titania in the anatase to rutile (A → R) phase transformation and also in electrochemical charge storage has been studied in detail. It was found that upon the reduction of Ti4+ to Ti3+, with oxygen depletion of the structure, the A → R phase transformation was promoted. In addition, the fabricated electrodes showed highly reversible charge–discharge stability.