Academic literature on the topic 'Perceived IVET quality'

Summary The quality of education and training is a key factor in explaining apprentices’ motivations and helping sustain their efforts in acquiring the necessary skills for their future occupation. Yet, the perceived quality of initial vocational education and training (IVET) may vary according to the learning location and the occupational fields. To identify the characteristics defining IVET quality, according to apprentices, and whether these characteristics differ between occupational fields, a survey was administered to 320 apprentices enrolled in a Swiss dual IVET program in the fields of retail and technics. The apprentices were asked what they consider to be the high- and low-quality aspects of their education and training. Results showed that the most frequently mentioned aspects reflecting high quality referred to the apprentices’ social learning environment, whereas the codes related to poor quality referred to the IVET context. Differences in the perception of quality were found between the two occupational fields.

In a dual initial vocational education and training (IVET) system, an integration between school- and work-based learning is essential to provide apprentices with necessary trade-specific skills and to ensure the quality of training. However, apprentices often perceive a disconnection between learning sites. Accordingly, based on the concepts of boundary crossing and school-workplace connectivity, this study aimed to investigate how the integration between school- and work-based learning contributed to the quality of Swiss IVET from the perspective of apprentices, vocational teachers and in-company trainers. Data were collected through focus groups (n = 64) and thematic data analysis was carried out following an inductive and deductive approach. Key findings indicated some issues related to sociocultural differences between school and training company: a general devaluation of school-based learning (non-aligned with workplace-learning or perceived as useless) and the diversity of apprentices’ experiences at the training company. Furthermore, the analysis revealed how these situations perceived as disconnected can become learning opportunities: by applying a skill acquired at school in the workplace that is not part of the routine (learning mechanism of transformation); by bringing in the classroom authentic situations experienced by apprentices at work (learning mechanism of reflection). Implications for training and teaching are addressed.

Summary Given the growing focus on initial vocational education and training (IVET) quality in Switzerland, a study investigating in-company training quality as perceived by 320 apprentices in technical and retail occupations was conducted. The aims were 1) to examine potential differences in the perceived quality of in-company training between the two occupational fields and 2) to analyze how the perceived quality of in-company training was associated with apprentices’ sociocognitive learning processes (self- efficacy beliefs, self-regulated learning, help seeking tendencies) and their intention to prematurely terminate a contract. A survey was used to collect the data. The results reveal a single difference, related to time overload, between the two fields. Furthermore, multiple aspects of quality mattered for the sociocognitive processes considered, over and above the effects of control variables (motivations for choosing the apprenticeship). Finally, interaction effects between the occupational field and the quality aspects were found. The study constitutes a very first step in providing recommendations for incompany training.

The text presents differences between the mechanism of seeing and recording images and potential sources of errors in color reproduction in recorded images. The measurements show that despite the relatively high values of indices (Ra, Rf i Rg) not all tested lamps are suitable for use on a photo set, as indicated by the value of TLCI index. The lighting requirements on a film set prioritize the quality of color reproduction, even at the expense of reducing the Luminous efficacy of a source (LES ) value. Full Text: PDF ReferencesL.T. Sharpe, A. Jagla, W. Jägle, "A luminous efficiency function, V*(λ), for daylight adaptation", J. Vision 5(11), 948 (2012) DirectLink K. Mangold, J.A. Shaw, M. Vollmer, The physics of near-infrared photography, Eur. J. Phys. 34 (2013), pp. 51-71 CrossRef Simunovic M. P., On Seeing Yellow The Case for, and Against, Short-Wavelength Light-Absorbing Intraocular Lenses, Archives of Ophthalmology, vol. 130, no. 7, pp. 919-926, 2012 CrossRef M. Gilewski, The ecological hazard of artificial lighting in greenhouses, Phot. Lett. Pol., vol. 11 Issue: 3, pp. 87-89, 2019. CrossRef M. Gilewski, The role of light in the plants world, Phot. Lett. Pol., vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 115-117, 2019 CrossRef I. Fryc and E. Czech Spectral correction of the measurement CCD array, Optical Engineering 41(10), pp.2402-2406 (2002). CrossRef L. Bellia, U. Blaszczak, F. Fragliasso, L. Gryko, Matching CIE illuminants to measured spectral power distributions: A method to evaluate non-visual potential of daylight in two European cities, Solar Energy, Volume 208, 2020, Pages 830-858 CrossRef J. Kusznier and W. Wojtkowski, Impact of climatic conditions on PV panels operation in a photovoltaic power plant, IEEE, 2019 15th Selected Issues of Electrical Engineering and Electronics (WZEE), Zakopane, Poland, pp. 1-6, 2019 CrossRef J. Kusznier and W. Wojtkowski, Impact of climatic conditions and solar exposure on the aging of PV panels, IEEE, 2019 15th Selected Issues of Electrical Engineering and Electronics (WZEE), Zakopane, Poland, pp. 1-6, 2019 CrossRef J. Fan, Y. Li, I. Fryc, C. Qian, X. Fan and G. Zhang, Machine-Learning Assisted Prediction of Spectral Power Distribution for Full-Spectrum White Light-Emitting Diode, in IEEE Photonics Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1-18, Feb. 2020, Art no. 8200218, CrossRef M. Gilewski, L. Gryko, A. Zajac, Digital controlling system to the set of high power LEDs, Proc. of SPIE, 8902, 89021D, 2013 CrossRef J. Kusznier, W. Wojtkowski, Spectral properties of smart LED lamps, Phot. Lett. Pol., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 16-18, 2020. CrossRef J. Kusznier, Changes in the Spectral Power Distribution of Light Sources for Smart Lighting, IEEE, 14th WZEE, pp. 1-5, 2018 CrossRef H. F. Ivey, Color and Efficiency of Luminescent Light Sources, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 53, 1185-1198 (1963) CrossRef F. Zhang, H. Xu, Z. Wang, Optimizing spectral compositions of multichannel LED light sources by IES color fidelity index and luminous efficacy of radiation, Appl. Opt. 56, 1962-1971 (2017) CrossRef T. W. Murphy Jr., Maximum spectral luminous efficacy of white light, Journal of Applied Physics 111, 104909 (2012) CrossRef Po-Chieh Hung and Jeffrey Y. Tsao, Maximum White Luminous Efficacy of Radiation Versus Color Rendering Index and Color Temperature: Exact Results and a Useful Analytic Expression, J. Display Technol. 9, 405-412 (2013) CrossRef V. M. Lisitsyn, V. S. Lukash, S. A. Stepanov, and Ju Yangyang , White LEDs with limit luminous efficacy, AIP Conference Proc 1698, 060008 (2016) CrossRef J. Kowalska, I. Fryc, Colour rendition quality of typical fluorescent lamps determined by CIE Colour Fidelity Index and Colour Rendering Index, Przeglad Elektrotechniczny R. 95(7), pp. 94-97, 2019 CrossRef I. Fryc, J. Fryc, A. Wasowski, "Rozważania o jakości oddawania barw źródeł światła, wyrażanej wskaźnikiem Ra (CRI), uwzględniające fizjologię widzenia oraz zagadnienia techniczno-prawne", Przeglad Elektrotechniczny R. 92(2), 218 (2016) CrossRef TECH 3353, Development of a "standard" television camera model implemented in the TLCI-2012, Source: FTV-LED, EBU, Geneva November 2012 DirectLink TECH 3354, Comparison of CIE colour metrics for use in the television lighting consistency index (TLCI-2012), Source: FTV-LED, EBU, Geneva November 2012 DirectLink TECH 3355, Method for the assessment of the colorimetric properties of luminaires the television lighting consistency index (TLCI-2012) and the television luminaire matching factor (TLMF-2013), Source: FTV-LED Geneva March 2017 DirectLink J. Kusznier, Mixing colours inside the optical fibre elements, Przeglad Elektrotechniczny, R 84(8), pp 182-185, 2008 DirectLink

Daylight improves indoor environmental quality, the physical and mental health of occupants, and their efficiency. Research in the area of human-centric lighting that considers the visual and non-visual effects of light on human vision, have focused on examining human visual perception in response to a wide variety of lighting aspects. To investigate the effect of surface materials, window size, and shading patterns on participants’ evaluation of brightness, daylight distribution, contrast, and satisfaction with view, a virtual reality experiment is implemented in a university classroom. Moreover, responses are compared with metrics (i.e., RAMMG and illumines level) to evaluate their performance and robustness. Thirty-three subjects evaluated thirteen immersive virtual environments (IVEs) with different glazing visible light transmittance, reflectance coefficient of surfaces, window to wall ratio, number of windows, and shading geometry using a Likert-type scale survey. The results indicated that participants’ evaluation of brightness is influenced by reflection coefficient of the surfaces and WWR. While daylight distribution is affected by number of windows and shading geometry in addition to other studied parameters. Based on the subjects’ responses the contrast is only affected by reflection coefficient of the surfaces. Their satisfaction with amount of outside view is also influenced by WWR and number of windows. Moreover, based on statistical results defining a specific range of acceptable contrast based on the RAMMG metric is not suggested, and users' evaluation depends on the surface material in addition to the reflection coefficient of them. Furthermore, the level of lighting perceived by people is affected by materials and their color (beside the reflection coefficient of the surfaces), number of windows (even with similar WWR), and shading pattern (even with the same aperture ratio) as well as the glazing visible light transmittance.

World languages: people, migration and cultures - shifting paradigms in the 21st century. New literacies emphasises theoretical-methodological frameworks describing the way linguistic systems work by drawing on users’ perspective while bearing in mind that linguistic productions and language change in natural languages operate with various extralinguistic dimensions and contexts (Baym 2015; Collins, Baynham, & Slembrouk 2009; De Meo et al. 2014). This desideratum, in the scope of a pluricentric approach (Batoréo, & Casadinho 2009, Silva et al. 2011) featured by lingua-cultural identity studies, is only possible by highlighting this relationship with various social and cultural dimensions (Brekhus 2015; Extra et al. 2009), such as, peoples’ migration moves, with their communicative ethno-styles, and their language contact has evidenced new and other linguistic uses (Canagarajah 2017; Ellero 2010; Hickey 2010; Holm 2004). It is a cross-disciplinary volume, addressing core issues such as standardisation, language contact, globalisation (Collins, Baynham, & Slembrouk 2009), plurilingualism, dialects, language education in conflict zones, in translocal/transcultural spaces, and intercultural communication (Lustig, & Koester 2013) in European languages (with reference to Kachru’s inner and outer circle). Despite turning the focus onto English and the Portuguese languages, and their varieties being shaped at the turn of the new millennium onto/from different continents, it is meant to open the study to other languages, for example, German and Italian (Osório 2018), different uses and linguistic topics, discursive and pragmatic strategies (Almeida 2019; Fraser 2010). It provides a forum for discussing language diversity and change within a selection of languages not frequently gathered in one publication, for instance Angolan Portuguese (Gaspar et al. 2012; Osório 2022), or the Italian language for migrants (Vedovelli 2013, 2017). This special issue brings together a group of scholars on the much-debated issue of global languages in the contemporary (Dovchin, & Canagarajah 2019) ever-shifting communicative paradigms[1] (Bowe, Martin, & Manns 2017; Osório, & Nkollo 2015; Osório 2018; Sousa, & Osório 2020) gathering diverse but complementary context in the study of language, following, for instance, Larina’s contention (2015) that culture-specific communicative styles deserve a framework for interpreting linguistic and cultural idiosyncrasies (Wierzbicka 2009; Samovar et al. 2013). It extends and illustrates some of the tenets debated in the last decades, shortly brought forth in the World’s major languages (Comrie 1990:ix): “every human language is a manifestation of our species’ linguistic faculty and any human language may provide an important contribution to our understanding of language as a general phenomenon”. The papers shared by the set of contributors of this JoLIE special issue are, thus, intended to share their current research about interesting facts about their research on language(s). It would be impossible to address the issues often dealt in such a short number of pages, notably: the number of languages spoken all over the world and their distribution, language families and genetic classification, social interaction of languages (i.e., global languages, language contact and diversity), migrations, post-conflict societies, post-colonial languages, or even linguistic cosmopolitanism (Salazar 2010, Sonntag 2015), language maintenance, among others. Therefore, it addresses global languages particularly emphasizing the relation between different language productions and the new (epistemological, social and cultural) paradigms of the 19th century throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. There is, thus, a list of references / research papers written by several academics to provide evidence for the underlying theoretical-methodological background of this publication, with reference to Portuguese, English, Italian and German. The first contribution is entitled “Unity and diversity in Angolan Portuguese - a pluricentric approach”, by Marçalo and Silva (University of Évora, Portugal). The paper addresses the conflict between national languages and Portuguese in the Angolan society. The latter being the official language is, nonetheless, influenced by the first from a linguistic perspective. The linguistic environment in Angola is clearly a multilingual one; consequently, language interference is a common phenomenon among the languages spoken in Angola. The authors surveyed specific features of Angolan Portuguese from a phonetic, phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and semantic points of view to provide evidence of an emergent standard in the country. The volume continues with the joint contribution by Lima-Hernandes (University of São Paulo, Brazil) and Marçalo (University of Évora, Portugal) with the challenging title “Intensifying elative periphrases in European languages: Criterion of pluricentrism?”. It revisits Meillet’s work, arguing that autonomous words in the sentence could, if submitted to a grammaticalisation process, assume functions of a grammatical element. However, Meillet did not imagine that the process he has described could be at the service in other linguistic changes. The focus of this study is to show a new approach to pluricentric languages, this time, based on the study of elative constructions. “A world without translation: the monolingual utopia” by Neves (New University of Lisbon) claims that language is essentially diverse and it is a human feature to contact with other language systems. Only after the rise of nationalism, in the 19th century, was the monolingual utopia, as he calls it, introduced in societies, giving space to unhealthy attitudes towards language diversity. The scholar also argues that the so-called monolingual utopia is a source of tension, division and cognitive poverty. In fact, recognising multilingualism and diversity is perceived as a step towards solving dystopia. “The pluricentrism of the Portuguese language and radio broadcast: some reflexions about the OMLP – O mundo da língua portuguesa (RADIOLAVIDE)”, by Mendes Cintado (Pablo de Olavid University, Seville, Spain), gives an account of the above-mentioned radio broadcast and its role as the first Portuguese language program in the Andalusian capital. Its objectives have been devised to enhance ongoing linguistic, cultural, artistic and musical exchange among the university community and the public with affinities with the Portuguese language and the CPLP (Comunidade de Países de Língua Portuguesa / Portuguese Speaking Countries). The researcher suggests the use of technology to develop communicative skills in a second language learning context by highlighting the pluricentric feature and internalisation of the Portuguese Language. Sousa (University of Madeira, Portugal) discusses the extent to which linguistic cosmopolitanism has been featured in the multiple communicative events displayed in Madeira (Ives 2010, Salazar 2010, Janssens, & Steyaert 2014, Teixeira 2016, Moniz et al. 2021). The article is entitled “Voyage and cosmopolitanism: the long relationship between Portuguese and English in Madeira” and advocates that language is perceived not only as a means of communication there, but also as a marker of cultural identity (Leech, & Larina 2014; Larina 2015). The empirical study of diachronic sort presented by the researcher unveils multiple uses of the English language in Madeira across domains (Sousa 2009a-b, 2014, 2018). Allegedly a monolingual community, Madeira stands out in the Portuguese speaking context with lingua-cultural identity specificities by incorporating English into the Portuguese language for long and having a quired a socio-cognitive and pragmatic stance in several walks of life. The selected corpus also includes evidence gathered from local newspapers issued between 1880 and 1915 and written in English. Hinner (TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany) discusses “The pitfalls of perceived shared meaning when using English as the lingua franca (Seidelhofer 2005) in international business discourse: a conceptual analysis”. These pitfalls are the result of an assumption of shared meaning which is likely to occur when at least one of the interlocutors is not a native speaker of English. In these situations, one should expect some degree of misunderstanding. The author also argues that identity can influence perception, thus discussing self-image and self-esteem as playing a role in perceptual differences. Cultural taxonomies are used to illustrate the way cultural dimensions can be used to identify potential misunderstandings. Horníčková and Stranovská (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia) share their views on “Reading competence in the second foreign language and its measurement”, as complex cognitive and metacognitive activities along with affective and social dimensions are triggered when speakers/learners and readers interact with a text, yet there has not been any consensus as to the measurement of these dimensions so far. The focus of the paper is based on the method of assessing reading competence in the light of the Schulz method. The research study not only aims at the analysis of suitable methods for assessing students’ reading competence in a second foreign (additional) language, but also the definition of indicators of reading comprehension quality. “Foreign writers in Italian. A non-post-colonial literature” by Ferrari’s (Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy) delves into two historical phenomena which have contributed to the linguistic and cultural hybridisation, notably, colonialism and migration. The author approaches the postcolonial cultural phenomena, with evidence from the American literatures (USA and Canada, Francophonie in Quebec, the Hispanic American literature) up to the recent Anglo-Indian literatures, emphasizing cultural creativity indebted to the structure of the language. Recognizing that Italian is not well spread as a post-colonial literary language, or even not as strong as to its cultural impact, one should admit that the Italian post-colonial literature is misrepresented. Indeed, there is high quality literary production by “foreign” authors, often globally referred to as “migrant literature”. Another paper addressing the Italian language, “The role of dialects in the integration of migrants in Italy”, by Monica Mosca (Università di Scienze Gastronomiche – Pollenzo, IT, and Uniwersytet Wroclawski – Instytut Studiów Klasycznych, Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych), extends the discussion by Ferrari’s claims by discussing language and culture as the most meaningful tools to foster migrants’ integration in the hosting communities. Italy, however, has a standard language coexisting with rather differentiated regional dialects, which can raise some communicative obstacles to any newly arrived migrant. The researcher shows some data on both the national language and the dialects as perceived by migrants (Mirzaei, Roohani, & Esmaeili 2012). Čapek (Universität Pardubice, Czeck Republic) presents “Die Reflexion der kolonialen Geschichte und der Rassismusdebatte im gegenwärtigen deutschen Wortschatz”. The author reflects upon the short, yet racist and hierarchical ruling model, with reference to the German colonial history. In his view there is an economic model of exploitation still evidenced. The colonial influence can be identified in street names and many lexical terms and concepts of the German language, yet with negative connotations. The researcher provides an extensive list of words or phrases possibly with a post-colonial underpinning, therefore, potentially considered unfriendly, rude, xenophobic, or even racist. Last but not least, Teodora Popescu (1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia, Romania) contributes a study on “Social realities reflected in proverbs: A comparative approach to Romanian and English cognitive metaphors in proverbs”, which emphasises the relevance of cultural conceptualisations of proverbs in English and Romanian, as well as the way in which they contribute to a better understanding of societal norms, behaviours and expectations. The proverbs analysed were clustered around four key areas of human experience, namely: time (4 categories), work (9 categories), money (6 categories) and man vs woman (11 categories). The author identifies both similarities and differences between the two cultures, English and Romanian and provides an interpretation from an anthropological perspective. This special volume also includes three book reviews. The first book review by Nunes on Tagg’s Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action (2015) sheds some light on the central role of language in digital communication as a multimodal phenomenon. Concerns, issues and fears related to online communication in contemporary society constitute the starting point for a better understanding of synchronous and asynchronous language use (Osório 2003). The second one addresses Stroud and Prinsloo’s Language Literacy and Diversity: Moving Words (2015) in eleven chapters accurately reviewed by Jasmins. All things considered the book asks the reader to reflect upon the concept of linguistic stability, concluding that mobility should be the norm in a globalised world. It also aims at explaining the impact of migration and new media on language variation or change. Third, Maria-Crina Herteg reviewed the book La violence verbale: Représentations dans le discours littéraire et dans la communication quotidienne edited by Iuliana-Anca Mateiu. The book brings together five articles on the topic of verbal violence representing part of the results of a research project on verbal violence embedded in literary discourse and in everyday speech.

Summary Dual Systems like the Swiss initial vocational education and training (IVET) entail both a school- and a workplace-based learning. The connections between these two learning locations in terms of transfer of knowledge can contribute to IVET quality. This study focused on how these connections are perceived by retail and technical apprentices (N=320). Their answers to six open-ended questions about their perception of quality at school and at the training company were analyzed in an inductive and a deductive way. Results show that, overall, apprentices perceived the connections between learning at school and at the training company as good and effective. However, some apprentices—especially from the technical occupations— perceived that what they learned at school is not useful and aligned with their learning at the training company. The results are interpreted as reflecting a superficial and utilitarian conception of knowledge acquisition.

The aims of this study are to gain insight on how primary care veterinarians in the UK diagnose and treat canine idiopathic epilepsy (IE) and what they perceive as challenges in the management of canine IE. Two hundred and thirty-five primary care veterinarians took part in this survey. The questionnaire asked about the type of practice the respondent worked in, any relevant post-graduate qualifications, how many years' experience they had in practice and the participant's canine IE caseload. Participants were asked how they diagnose canine IE, how they select antiseizure drugs (ASDs) and how they assess outcome. The questionnaire also explored which information sources they have access to for deciding on canine IE treatment, challenges that may be faced when managing these cases and areas in which more support can be provided. 94.5% of participants (n = 222/235) managed <10 canine IE cases in a year and 87.8% (n = 206/235) used phenobarbital as their first line ASD. The reported mean initial phenobarbital dose was 2.1 mg/kg (standard deviation = 0.71) every 12 h. When considering how closely participants aligned with IVETF guidelines on the topics of diagnosis, ASD initiation and outcome assessment, on average participants would score around half of the available points. 53.2% (n = 125/235) of respondents recommended neutering in canine IE and 46.8% (n = 110/235) did not. 53.2% (n = 125/235) did not recommend any additional treatments for canine IE beyond use of ASDs. 23.4% recommended Purina Neurocare diet (n = 55/235), 12.8% recommended environmental modification (n = 30/235), and 6.8% (n = 16/235) recommend medium chain triglyceride supplements. In this study participants found managing client expectations to be most challenging alongside canine IE emergency management. The main limitation of this study is the relatively low response rate and therefore the results may not reflect the entire small animal veterinary profession in the UK. However, the results of this study represent a starting point to inform educational resources and support strategies to improve quality care of canine IE in primary care.

It was always based on a teenage love story between the two kids. One is a sniffer and one is not. It was designed for Central Australia because we do write these kids off there. Not only in town, where the headlines for the newspapers every second day is about ‘the problem,’ ‘the teenager problem of kids wandering the streets’ and ‘why don’t we send them back to their communities’ and that sort of stuff. Then there’s the other side of it. Elders in Aboriginal communities have been taught that kids who sniff get brain damage, so as soon as they see a kid sniffing they think ‘well they’re rubbish now, they’re brain damaged.’ So the elders are writing these kids off as well, as in ‘they are brain damaged so they’re no use now, they’ll be in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.’ This is not true, it’s just information for elders that hasn’t been given to them. That is the world I was working with. I wanted to show two incredibly beautiful children who have fought all their lives just to breathe and how incredibly strong they are and how we should be celebrating them and backing them up. I wanted to show that to Central Australia, and if the rest of Australia or the world get involved that’s fantastic. (Thornton in interview)Warwick Thornton’s 2009 film Samson and Delilah won the hearts of Australians as well as a bag of awards — and rightly so. It is a breathtaking film that, as review after review will tell you, is about the bravery, hopelessness, optimism and struggles of two Indigenous youths. In telling this story, the film extends, inverts and challenges notions of waste: wasted youths, wasted memory, wasted history, wasted opportunities, getting wasted and wasted voices. The narrative and the film as a cultural object raise questions about being discarded and “the inescapable fact that the experience of catastrophe in the past century can only be articulated from its remains, our history sifted from among these storied deposits.” (Neville and Villeneuve 2). The purpose of this paper is to examine reaction to the film, and where this reaction has positioned the film in Australian filmmaking history. In reading the reception of the film, I want to consider the film’s contribution to dialogical cultural representations by applying Marcia Langton’s idea of intersubjectivity.In his review, Sean Gorman argues thatThe main reason for the film’s importance is it enables white Australians who cannot be bothered reading books or engaging with Indigenous Australians in any way (other than watching them play football perhaps) the smallest sliver of a world that they have no idea about. The danger however in an engagement by settler society with a film like Samson and Delilah is that the potential shock of it may be too great, as the world which it portrays is, for many, an unknown Australia. Hence, for the settler filmgoer, the issues that the film discusses may be just too hard, too unreal, and their reaction will be limited to perhaps a brief bout of anger or astonishment followed by indifference. (81.1)It is this “engagement by settler society” that I wish to consider: how the voices that we hear speaking about the film are shifting attention from the ‘Other’ to more dialogical cultural representations, that is, non-Indigenous Australia’s emerging awareness of what has previously been wasted, discarded and positioned as valueless. I find Gorman’s surmise of white Australia’s shock with a world they know nothing about, and their potential power to return to a state of indifference about it, to be an interesting notion. Colonisation has created the world that Samson and Delilah live in, and the white community is as involved as the Indigenous one in the struggles of Samson and Delilah. If “settler” society is unaware, that unawareness comes from a history of non-Indigenous power that denies, excludes, and ignores. For this reason, Samson and Delilah is a dialogical cultural representation: it forces a space where the mainstream doesn’t just critique the Aborigine, but their own identity and involvement in the construction of that critique.Wasted VoicesWaste is a subjective notion. Items that some discard and perceive as valueless can be of importance to others, and then it also becomes a waste not to acknowledge or use that item. Rather than only focusing on the concept of “waste” as items or materials that are abandoned, I wish to consider the value in what is wasted. Centring my discussion of ‘waste’ on Thornton’s film provides the opportunity to view a wasteland of dispossession from another cultural and social perspective. Reaction to the film has constructed what could be perceived as an exceptional moment of engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices in dialogic intercultural dialogue. By revisiting early examples of ethnographic collaboration, and re-examining contemporary reactions to Samson and Delilah, I hope to forge a space for intervention in Australian film criticism that focuses on how ‘non-Aboriginality’ depends on ‘Aboriginality’ in a vast wasteland of colonial dispossession and appropriation.Many of the reviews of Thornton’s film (Buckmaster; Collins; Davis; Gorman; Hall; Isaac; Ravier; Redwood; Rennie; Simpson) pay attention to the emotional reaction of non-Indigenous viewers. Langton states that historically non-Indigenous audiences know ‘the Aborigine’ through non-Indigenous representations and monologues about Aboriginality: “In film, as in other media, there is a dense history of racist, distorted and often offensive representation of Aboriginal people” (24). The power to define has meant that ethnographic discourses in the early days of colonisation established their need to record Indigenous peoples, knowledges and traditions before they ‘wasted away.’ At the 1966 Round Table on Ethnographic Film in the Pacific Area, Stanley Hawes recounts how Ian Dunlop, an Australian documentary filmmaker, commented that “someone ought to film the aborigines of the Western Desert before it was too late. They had already almost all disappeared or gone to live on Mission stations” (69). This popular belief was one of the main motivations for research on Indigenous peoples and led to the notion of “smoothing the dying pillow,” which maintained that since Aborigines were a dying race, they should be allowed to all die out peacefully (Chandra-Shekeran 120). It was only the ‘real’ Aborigine that was valued: the mission Black, the urban Black, the assimilated Black, was a waste (Cowlishaw 108). These representations of Aboriginality depended on non-Indigenous people speaking about Aboriginality to non-Indigenous people. Yet, the impetus to speak, as well as what was being spoken about, and the knowledge being discussed and used, relied on Indigenous voices and presences. When Australia made its “important contribution to ethnographic films of its Aborigines” (McCarthy 81), it could not have done so without the involvement of Indigenous peoples. In her work on intersubjectivity, Langton describes “Aboriginality” as a “social thing” that is continually remade through dialogue, imagination, representation and interpretation. She describes three broad categories of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal intersubjectivity: when Aboriginal people interact with other Aboriginal people; when non-Aboriginal people stereotype, iconise, and mythologise Aboriginal people without any Aboriginal contact; and when Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people engage in dialogue (81). Since W. Baldwin Spencer’s first ethnographic film, made between 1901 and 1912, which recorded the customs of the Aranda and neighbouring Central Australian tribes (McCarthy 80), the development of Australian cinema depended on these categories of intersubjectivity. While the success of Samson and Delilah could be interpreted as opening mainstream eyes to the waste that Indigenous communities have experienced since colonisation — wasted knowledge, wasted youths, wasted communities — it could also signify that what was once perceived by dominant non-Indigenous society as trash is now viewed as treasure. Much like the dot paintings which Delilah and her nana paint in exchange for a few bucks, and which the white man then sells for thousands of dollars, Aboriginal stories come to us out of context and filtered through appropriation and misinterpretation.Beyond its undeniable worth as a piece of top-notch filmmaking, Samson and Delilah’s value also resides in its ability to share with a wide audience, and in a language we can all understand, a largely untold story steeped in the painful truth of this country’s bloody history. (Ravier)In reading the many reviews of Samson and Delilah, it is apparent there is an underlying notion of such a story being secret, and that mainstream Australia chose to engage with the film’s dialogical representation because it was sharing this secret. When Ravier states that Aboriginal stories are distorted by appropriation and misinterpretation, I would add that such stories are examples of Langton’s second category of intersubjectivity: they reveal more about the processes of non-Indigenous constructions of ‘the Aborigine’ and the need to stereotype, iconise and mythologise. These processes have usually involved judgements about what is to be retained as ‘valuable’ in Indigenous cultures and knowledges, and what can be discarded — in the same way that the film’s characters Samson and Delilah are discarded. The secret that Samson and Delilah is sharing with white Australia has never been a secret: it is that non-Indigenous Australia chooses what it wants to see or hear. Wasted SilencesIn 1976 Michael Edols directed and produced Floating about the Mowanjum communities experiences of colonisation, mission life and resistance. That same year Alessandro Cavadini directed and Carolyn Strachan produced Protected, a dramatised documentary about life on the Queensland Aboriginal reserve of Palm Island — “a dumping ground for unwanted persons or those deemed to be in need of ‘protection’” (Treole 38). Phillip Noyce’s Backroads, a story about the hardships facing a young man from a reserve in outback New South Wales, was released in 1977. In 1979, Essie Coffey produced and directed My Survival as an Aboriginal, where she documented her community’s struggles living under white domination. Two Laws, a feature film made by four of the language groups around Borroloola in 1981, examines the communities’ histories of massacre, dispossession and institutionalisation. These are just some of many films that have dealt with the ‘secrets’ about Indigenous peoples. In more recent times the work of Noyce, Rolf de Heer, Stephen Johnson, Iven Sen, Rachel Perkins and Romaine Moreton, to name only a few, have inspired mainstream engagement with films representing Indigenous experiences and knowledges. “We live in a world in which, increasingly, people learn of their own and other cultures and histories through a range of visual media — film, television, and video,” writes Faye Ginsburg (5). Changing understandings of culture and representation means that there appears to be a shift away from the “monologic, observational and privileged Western gaze” towards more dialogic, reflexive and imaginative mediation. Perhaps Samson and Delilah’s success is partly due to its contribution to social action through compelling the non-Indigenous viewer to “revise our comfortable and taken for granted narrative conventions that fetishise the text and reify ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference.’ Instead, we — as producers, audiences, and ethnographers — are challenged to comprehend the multiple ways that media operate as a site where culture is produced, contested, mediated and continually re-imagined” (Ginsburg 14). In his review, Tom Redwood writes about the filmLike life in the desert, everything is kept to a minimum here and nothing is wasted. ... Perhaps it took an Indigenous filmmaker from Alice Springs to do this, to lead the way in reinstating meaningfulness and honesty as core values in Australian cinema. But, whatever the case, Thornton's Indigenous heritage won't make his difficult vision any easier for local audiences to swallow. Most Australians aren't used to this degree of seriousness at the movies and though many here will embrace Samson and Delilah, there will no doubt also be a minority who, unable to reject the film as a cultural curiosity, will resist its uncompromising nature with cries of 'pessimism!' or even 'reverse-racism!’ (28-29)Perhaps the film’s success has to do with the way the story is told? — “everything kept to a minimum” and “nothing is wasted.” In attempts to construct Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal intersubjectivity in previous representations perhaps language, words, English got in the way of communication? For mainstream white Australian society’s engagement in dialogic representations, for Indigenous voices to speak and be heard, for non-Indigenous monologues to be challenged, perhaps silence was called for? As the reviews for the film have emphasised, non-Indigenous reactions contribute to the dialogic nature of the film, its story, as well as its positioning as a site of cultural meaning, social relations, and power. Yet even while critiquing constructions of Aboriginality, non-Aboriginality has historically remained uncritiqued—non-Aboriginal endorsement and reaction is discussed, but what this reaction and engagement, or lack of engagement (whether because of ignorance, unawareness, or racism) reveals is not. That is, non-Aboriginality has not had to critique the power it has to continue to remain ignorant of stories about wasted Indigenous lives. Thornton’s film appears to have disrupted this form of non-engagement.With the emergence of Indigenous media and Indigenous media makers, ethnographic films have been reconceptualised in terms of aesthetics, cultural observations and epistemological processes. By re-exploring the history of ethnographic film making and shifting attention from constructions of the ‘other’ to reception by the mainstream, past films, past representations of colonisation, and past dialogues will not be wasted. With the focus on constructing Aboriginality, the cultural value of non-Aboriginality has remained unquestioned and invisible. By re-examining the reactions of mainstream Australians over the last one hundred years in light of the success of Samson and Delilah, cultural and historical questions about ‘the Aborigine’ can be reframed so that the influence Indigenous discourses have in Australian nation-building will be more apparent. The reception of Samson and Delilah signifies the transformational power in wasted voices, wasted dialogues and the wasted opportunities to listen. Wasted DialoguesFelicity Collins argues that certain “cinematic events that address Indigenous-settler relations do have the capacity to galvanise public attention, under certain conditions” (65). Collins states that after recent historical events, mainstream response to Aboriginal deprivation and otherness has evoked greater awareness of “anti-colonial politics of subjectivity” (65). The concern here is with mainstream Australia dismantling generations of colonialist representations and objectifications of the ‘other.’ What also needs to be re-examined is the paradox and polemic of how reaction to Aboriginal dispossession and deprivation is perceived. Non-Indigenous reaction remains a powerful framework for understanding, viewing and positioning Indigenous presence and representation — the power to see or not to see, to hear or to ignore. Collins argues that Samson and Delilah, along with Australia (Luhrmann, 2009) and First Australians (Perkins, 2008), are national events in Australian screen culture and that post-apology films “reframe a familiar iconography so that what is lost or ignored in the incessant flow of media temporality is precisely what invites an affective and ethical response in cinematic spaces” (75).It is the notion of reframing what is lost or ignored to evoke “ethical responses” that captures my attention; to shift the gaze from Aboriginal subjectivity, momentarily, to non-Aboriginal subjectivity and examine how choosing to discard or ignore narratives of violence and suffering needs to be critiqued as much as the film, documentary or representation of Indigenality. Perhaps then we can start to engage in dialogues of intersubjectivity rather than monologues about Aboriginality.I made [Samson and Delilah] for my mob but I made sure that it can work with a wider audience as well, and it’s just been incredible that it’s been completely embraced by a much wider audience. It’s interesting because as soon as you knock down that black wall between Aboriginals and white Australia, a film like this does become an Australian film and an Australian story. Not an Aboriginal story but a story about Australians, in a sense. It’s just as much a white story as it is a black one when you get to that position. (Thornton in interview)When we “get to that position” described by Thornton, intercultural and intersubjective dialogue allows both Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality to co-exist. When a powerful story of Indigenous experiences and representations becomes perceived as an Australian story, it provides a space for what has historically been ignored and rendered invisible to become visible. It offers a different cultural lens for all Australians to question and critique notions of value and waste, to re-assess what had been relegated to the wasteland by ethnographic editing and Westernised labels. Ever since Spencer, Melies, Abbie and Elkin decided to retain an image of Aboriginality on film, which they did with specific purposes and embedded values, it has been ‘the Aborigine’ that has been dissected and discussed. It would be a waste not to open this historiography up to include mainstream reaction, or lack of reaction, in the development of cultural and cinematic critique. A wasteland is often perceived as a dumping ground, but by re-visiting that space and unearthing, new possibilities are discovered in that wasteland, and more complex strategies for intersubjectivity are produced. At the centre of Samson and Delilah is the poverty and loss that Indigenous communities experience on a daily basis. The experiences endured by the main characters are not new or recent ones and whether cinematic reception of them produces guilt, pity, sympathy, empathy, fear or defensiveness, it is the very potential to be able to react that needs to be critiqued. As Williamson Chang points out, the “wasteland paradigm is invisible to those embedded in its structure” (852). By looking more closely at white society’s responses in order to discern more clearly if they are motivated by feelings that their wealth—whether material, cultural or social—or their sense of belonging is being challenged or reinforced then ruling values and epistemologies are challenged and dialogic negotiations engaged. If dominant non-Indigenous society has the power to classify Indigenous narratives and representation as either garbage or something of value, then colonialist structures remain intact. If they have the self-reflexive power to question their own response to Indigenous narratives and representations, then perhaps more anti-colonial discourses emerge. Notions of value and waste are tied to cultural hierarchies, and it is through questioning how a dominant culture determines value that processes of transformation and mediation take place and the intersubjective dialogue sparked by Samson and Delilah can continueIn her review of Samson and Delilah, Therese Davis suggests that the film brings people closer to truthfulness, forcing the audience to engage with that realism: “those of us ‘outside’ of the community looking in can come to know ourselves differently through the new languages of this film, both cultural and cinematic. Reformulating the space of the national from an ‘insider,’ Aboriginal community-based perspective, the film positions its spectators, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, in a shared space, a space that allows for new forms of attachment, involvement and self-knowledge, new lines of communication.” Davis goes on to caution that while the film is groundbreaking, the reviews situating the film as what Australian cinema should be need to be mindful of feeding “notions of anti-diversity, which “is an old debate in Australian Cinema Studies, but in this instance anti-diversity is doubly problematic because it also runs the risk of narrowly defining Indigenous cinema.” The danger, historically, is that anything Indigenous, has always been narrowly defined by the mainstream and yes, to continue to limit Indigenous work in any medium is colonising and problematic. However, rather than just caution against this reaction, I am suggesting that reaction itself be critiqued. While currently contemporary mainstream response to Samson and Delilah is one of adoration, is the centre from which it comes the same centre which less than fifty years ago critiqued Indigenous Australians as a savage, noble, and/or dying race wasting away? Davis writes that the film constructs a new “relation” in Australian cinema but that it should not be used as a marker against which “all new (and old) Indigenous cinema is measured.” This concern resembles, in part, my concern that until recently mainstream society has constructed their own markers of Aboriginal cultural authenticity, deciding what is to be valued and what can be discarded. I agree with Davis’s caution, yet I cannot easily untangle the notion of ‘measuring.’ As a profound Australian film, certainly cinematic criticism will use it as a signifier of ‘quality.’ But by locating it singularly in the category of Indigenous cinema, the anti-colonial and discursive Indigenous discourses the film deploys and evokes are limited to the margins of Australian film and film critique once more. After considering the idea of measuring, and asking who would be conducting this process of measuring, my fear is that the gaze returns to ‘the Aborigine’ and the power to react remains solely, and invisibly, with the mainstream. Certainly it would be a waste to position the film in such a way that limits other Indigenous filmmakers’ processes, experiences and representations. I see no problem with forcing non-Indigenous filmmakers, audiences and perceptions to have to ‘measure’ up as a result of the film. It would be yet another waste if they didn’t, and Samson and Delilah was relegated to being simply a great ‘Indigenous Australian film,’ instead of a great Australian film that challenges, inverts and re-negotiates the construction of both Aboriginality and non-Aboriginality. By examining reaction to the film, and not just reading the film itself, discussions of dialogical cultural representation can include non-Aboriginality as well as Aboriginality. Films like this are designed to create a dialogue and I’m happy if someone doesn’t like the film and they tell me why, because we’re creating dialogue. We’re talking about this stuff and taking a step forward. That’s important. (Thornton)The dialogue opened up by the success of Thornton’s beautiful film is one that also explores non-Aboriginality. If we waste the opportunity that Samson and Delilah provides, then Australia’s ongoing cinematic history will remain a wasteland, and many more Indigenous voices, stories, and experiences will continue to be wasted.ReferencesBuckmaster, Luke. “Interview with Warwick Thornton”. Cinetology 12 May 2009. 18 Aug. 2010 ‹http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/05/12/interview-with-warwick-thornton-writerdirector-of-samson-delilah›.———. “Samson and Delilah Review: A Seminal Indigenous Drama of Gradual and Menacing Beauty”. Cinetology 6 May 2009. 14 June 2010 ‹http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/05/06/samson-delilah-film-review-a-seminal-indigenous-drama-of-gradual-and-menacing-beauty›.Chang, Williamson, B. C. “The ‘Wasteland’ in the Western Exploitation of ‘Race’ and the Environment”. University of Colorado Law Review 849 (1992): 849-870.Chandra-Shekeran, Sangeetha. “Challenging the Fiction of the Nation in the ‘Reconciliation’ Texts of Mabo and Bringing Them Home”. 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