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This paper examines the personal and professional experiences of the five arts leaders who co-wrote the foundation document for Australia's first national curriculum in the Arts. Their personal and professional backgrounds, which were explored during in depth interviews, drove the complex collaborative process that informed the first iteration of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Though each couched their responses in the context of their background and arts discipline, they shared an awareness of the important role of the Arts in providing the analytical tools for children and young people to identify and subsequently challenge social injustice. The findings, which are presented as a group narrative using a Narrative Inquiry approach, reveal how the five arts leaders' individual lived experience, disciplinary experience and expertise, and commitment to collaborative leadership informed their approach. It was one driven by their shared belief that all Australian students, regardless of their background, are entitled to a quality arts education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia coeducation dominates government schooling, with single-sex institutions usually being the preserve of selective government schools and private, often elite, institutions. For marginalised young people who 'drop out' or are forced to leave the coeducational mainstream system, flexible and/or non-traditional schools provide alternative pathways. Such schools are primarily coeducational. This paper draws upon data from two flexible/non-traditional schools in Australia that attempted to address the issues of educational disengagement via the provision of single-sex schooling: Fernvale Education Centre and Lorem School. The data are insightful with regard to these two very different gender and education paradigms and to their associated discourses about masculinity and femininity. The paper will identify the ways in which these schools both reproduce and challenge dominant constructions of gender within the context of responding to disenfranchised/disengaged young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue presents a collection of recent papers drawing on qualitative research in and about schooling in Australia and the ways in which gender-related issues in the broadest sense continue to shape people's educational experiences. These papers from the present are positioned in relation to the long histories of policy and research attention to gender equity in Australian education. We set the context for work in the present by scanning the past, noting the ambitions, the gaps and the failures of earlier policies, and drawing attention to the quality and volume of research that has previously been undertaken in this area. We explore the current policy vacuum regarding gender to consider some of the pressures and complexities that have led to the erasure or avoidance of gender-related issues. Each of the papers that form this special issue demonstrate—despite different methods, theoretical frameworks, settings and participant cohorts—how stereotypes and limitations circulate in everyday life in schools and beyond them, and how these impact on people. They each explore from a different starting point how gender injustices are perpetuated and produced, in often subtle and nuanced ways that require concerted effort to unpack. They simultaneously offer insights into the critical and creative ways that young people and those around them are reconfiguring gender and seeking more hopeful and more equitable educational experiences and outcomes. Collectively, the papers that form this special issue advocate for policies and practices that embrace the complexities of young people's lives and are oriented towards inclusive and equitable educational environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on violence in schools has been dominated by 'bullying' discourse and methodologies that place individualised pathos at the centre of problematic behaviours. This focus has resulted in the neglect of broader structures of power such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class in the violence enacted and encountered by young people. As a result, institutional solutions to school violence have often failed to acknowledge and respond to the ways that gender and sexuality might operate in the lives of young people, instead offering simplistic strategies to reduce ubiquitous forms of 'bullying'. Simultaneously, political discourses and research challenges further prohibit young people from contributing to targeted and critical interventions into the socio-cultural practices of gender- and sexuality-making in schools. As outsiders to these nuanced, complex, and dynamic spaces, university-based researchers often lack vocabulary and literacy, especially in relation to always-shifting meanings around gender and sexuality. In this paper, I argue for the need to actively include young people in research praxis to co-investigate school cultures of gender and sexuality using a Community-Led Research (CLR) approach. Reporting on work with ten student co-researchers that formed two groups in two schools in Australia, the paper details some of the ways that they impacted and benefitted the early phases of a three-year project, including through impacting methods, participant engagement, data analysis and the implementation of new strategies to improve school cultures of gender and sexuality. This article also illustrates some of the challenges and opportunities that CLR methodologies produce when working in less structured settings, including ethical and social challenges that emerge in iterative research praxis. Findings argue for the rights of young people to exert their hopes for their school cultures that relate to gender and sexuality, particularly through research-based empowerment. While often slower and more difficult, co-researching with young people can produce opportunities for transformation and change not only of research processes, but also of researchers and their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research into PhD programs and doctoral students' experiences has increased in recent years, fieldwork is overlooked as a source of learning and support. In education, the focus of this paper, fieldwork remains laced with notions of the anthropologist gathering data in a place that is not their own, which narrowly construct the role of the novice and their expectations around 'doing' research. To demonstrate the relevance of these issues and key ethical tensions that they underpin, we explored our recent PhD fieldwork experiences within classrooms in Australian and Zimbabwean schools. By analysing fieldnotes from our lived experiences, we identified similarities between conducting fieldwork 'out there' (in Zimbabwe) and 'at home' (in Australia). These similarities highlighted a multitude of roles and dynamics associated with the researcher presence, as well as the importance of balancing complex needs during fieldwork. Our analyses also revealed how daily in situ interactions with participants—and others—were crucial to the development of our identities and data gathering practices. We argue that ongoing efforts to demystify fieldwork experiences are critical for understanding that 'the field' is not simply 'out there' and offer practical suggestions for current and future doctoral students to consider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical exploration of a reported decline in student achievement in Australia (2000–2020). Declining student achievement is framed as symptomatic of broader dysfunction within the education system. The context of declining student achievement is articulated through a Bourdieusian being critical sociology of education. This is achieved using the concepts of illusio and educationalisation as they intersect with Australian schools, in which classroom teachers are given responsibility for solving social and economic ills. As such, due consideration of the goals and commitments to action in the Melbourne Declaration (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA, 2008), and the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019) is provided. Drawing from these formative documents, the 'stakes' that matter are examined highlighting the potential misalignment between equality of opportunity in ameliorating educational disadvantage and the priorities of modern educational discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores young people's understandings of gender and investigates their gender-based experiences in high schools in Australia. The discussion is based on qualitative research including focus groups and interviews with 47 recent high school leavers from diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, religious, ethnic, gender and sexuality backgrounds, who attended a broad range of high school types in New South Wales (NSW). We found that young people are critically engaging in gender issues and are often challenging binary gender and associated inequitable practices in schools and beyond. They are taking a leading role in educating adults about gender—that is, they are 'teaching up', as young people conceptualised it, to their families and teachers about gender, gender-related issues and doing gender differently in contemporary times. Their views on gender are often in contrast to those institutional views that currently prevail in NSW schools, which often still reflect stereotypes that perpetuate gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars in critical masculinities studies argue that we need men involved and engaged in gender equity movements for gender justice to be realised. Yet we need to know more about how different groups of men are understanding gender equity and what the barriers might be. Amidst significant media interest in elite private boys' schooling and its possible (re)production of sexist cultures, this paper explores how 13 men who attended such schools in Australia between the 1970s and the 2000s understand gender justice, revealing a diversity of positions and practices across the different generational groups. We argue the men's engagements with gender justice are shaped by a broad 'curriculum of privilege' including school and non-school based experiences that mediates their lives. Further research with both elite boys' schools and their alumni is needed to better understand generational change in their engagements with gender justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School uniforms are proliferating as a staple in figurations created of successful students around the world. In Australia the uniform as compulsory formal school wear is a growing phenomenon in both public and private education sectors. School uniforms have often been adopted as unproblematic, by schools, parents, policymakers, and students themselves. It remains unclear from the previous limited and often contradictory research, precisely how uniforms materially affect student academic and social outcomes. Research that considers how students themselves not just perceive but feel about their uniforms is scarce. I focus on the affective response of students to their school uniforms at one government co-educational selective science high school. A PhEmaterialist approach deprivileges human agency, accounting for matter as dynamic, affective and of consequence in activities, performances, and events. The school uniform as matter is explored as a dynamic and powerful affective force in education and is situated as an integral part of a school's iteration of binary gender differentiations. Uniforms matter twofold, as a conception that materializes what matters and the differential affect on the bodies that wear them. Bodies respond affectively to the uniform with a sense of comfort or discomfort, consciously and unconsciously. Bodies that do not fit easily with the required uniform hurt as students undergo everyday activities at school. This paper considers the affect of the uniform, with a filmic response from one high achieving 'smart' girl through a fine-grain analysis of her feelings of belonging and dis/comfort with and through her school uniform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing the numbers of Indigenous people enrolled in research higher degrees in Australia is important for building the Indigenous academic workforce, broadening the scope of knowledge production in academic institutions and ensuring effective research outcomes for Indigenous Australians. While the numbers of Indigenous research higher degree students are increasing, universities still have a lot to do to bring that number up to parity. In this paper, we explore the value of a pre-doctoral program developed for Indigenous people interested in doing a PhD that provides them the information they need to inform their choices about undertaking a doctoral project. As the only program of this kind in Australia, this research contributes to the emerging literature on the factors that have an influence on why Indigenous people choose to undertake PhD programs and the effectiveness of initiatives to support their pathway to higher degree research. The research outcomes build on the evidence base for improving initiatives across the university sector, highlighting the need for tailored, Indigenous-led pre-doctoral support programs for Indigenous students, the value of cohort experiences and the importance of universities that value Indigenous people and their knowledge systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal attendance requirements and national declarations establish a social contract between the State and its citizens for the provision of schooling. Any shortage of teachers compromises the ability of the State to meet its contractable obligations. The sovereignty of the social contract is complex as no single body has ultimate responsibility for housing the teaching workforce, but everyone has a stake in it. Empirically focused on the largest school system in the southern hemisphere, the New South Wales public education system (Australia), this paper demonstrates that 90.8% of teaching positions, over 50,000 full-time equivalent posts, are in Local Government Areas where the median rent and house sales price are severely unaffordable on a top-of-the-scale teacher salary. With the system requiring additional teachers to meet increasing enrolments, and housing costs outstripping salaries, many schools not traditionally considered difficult to staff are becoming, if not already, inaccessible for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging Australian Indigenous cultural diversity involves respecting local Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. This can be difficult for teachers who do not know about Indigenous people and their knowledge. The Differentiated Indigenous Pedagogies project evaluated digitally available information describing Indigenous in this paper, 'Indigenous' will be used when referring to First Nations and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, pedagogies, policies, and institutional contexts in Australia apart from references used which use other terminology. The authors acknowledge the contested nature of terminology and use the term 'Indigenous' as it is consistent with the title of the research project on which this article is based pedagogies in the Northern Territory. The purpose was to consolidate findings to increase positive intercultural actions in the wider education community. An important aspect of the project is addressing gaps in western, non-Indigenous teacher knowledge pertinent to the diversity within Indigenous language groups and regions. Through searching for available Indigenous pedagogies as a teacher might, we found information differs in description and levels of relationality. Pedagogies are presented in numerous ways which complicates teachers' cultural understandings. Common themes from search results and Indigenist educational research are used to define ways teachers can actively engage in more respectful, relational, and reconciliatory ways to develop a differentiated approach for themselves to use when working with Indigenous pedagogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of 2021, more than 168 million students across the globe had missed a year of face-to-face schooling due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In NSW, Australia, most students engaged in learning from home for eight weeks during 2020 and a further 14 weeks during 2021. This study provides robust empirical evidence on how two years of disruptions to schooling affected student learning. Drawing on matched data for 3,827 Year 3 and 4 students from 101 NSW government schools, this paper compares student achievement growth in mathematics and reading for 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2021 (second year of the pandemic) student cohorts. While overall there was no significant difference between cohorts, when analysed by socio-educational advantage, we were surprised to find that students in the lowest band achieved approximately three months' additional growth in mathematics. Arguably, grave concerns about the potentially dire impact of COVID-19 on the learning of disadvantaged students were met by investments that made a difference. We argue that targeted funding and system-wide initiatives to support more equitable outcomes should remain a priority after the pandemic if Australia is to meet its aspirations for excellence and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the focus on standardised assessment and performance-driven accountability, a considerable body of literature has documented differences in students' academic achievement across school sectors, both internationally and in Australia. However, few studies have to date explored the potential mechanisms underlying such differences, particularly through the lens of school climate and student engagement. And despite extensive literature on school climate and student engagement, including their relationships with achievement, the differences in these patterns across school sectors remain under-studied. In this paper, we leverage nationally representative data from a large-scale longitudinal survey in Australia with linked administrative data on student achievement to reveal different patterns of school climate and student engagement across government, Catholic and independent sectors. Employing multivariable regression analyses, we identify unique school climate and student engagement facets that are associated with improved achievement in each of these sectors, offering important pointers for educational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment policy internationally places significant importance on the use of assessment criteria across all subject areas. However, in order to ensure effective use of criteria, it is critical for teachers to develop an in-depth understanding of them. This paper reports on a study of a range of Australian Science teachers' views and uses of criteria in practical work. Six Science teachers working in secondary schools across Sydney were interviewed, their classroom activities were observed, and the data obtained were analysed using a qualitative constant comparative method. The findings indicate that despite the emphasis on Assessment for Learning (AfL) in assessment policy in Australia, teachers generally consider criteria as a marking tool, for Assessment of Learning (AoL), rather than a learning instrument. Consequently, they use criteria exclusively as a framework for assigning grades. This paper argues that teachers need to consider the use of criteria from a learning perspective in addition to its other multipurpose functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideas and practices associated with inclusive education have featured prominently in the policies and reforms of successive Australian federal governments since the 1990s, yet there are limited historical analyses of these developments. This paper analyses federal and national inclusive education policies in Australia spanning from 1992 to the present. Drawing upon the concept of 'political rationality', the paper examines how the modes of reason underpinning inclusive education policies have evolved over time. Three distinct phases of policy development are identified, which we suggest are characterised by three dominant rationalities: (1) standardisation, (2) the neo-social and (3) personalisation. We argue that examining these rationalities reveals fundamental shifts in ways of thinking about and reasoning inclusive education in policy. We conclude by considering the implications of the different rationalities and single out the potential tensions emerging between rationalities of standardisation and personalisation as an area for future investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are often the first point of contact for young refugees resettling in Australia and play a significant role in establishing meaningful connections to Australian society and a sense of belonging in Australia (Olliff in Settling in: How do refugee young people fair within Australia's settlement system? Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, Melbourne. http//:. Accessed 21 June 2010, ; Gifford et al. in: Good Starts for recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds: Promoting wellbeing in the first three years of settlement in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne: La Trobe Refugee Research Centre. . Accessed 4 June 2011, ; Sidhu and Taylor in: Educational provision for refugee youth in Australia: Left to chance? Journal of Sociology, 43(3), 283-300, ). However, too little is known of how refugee youth encounter school in their new country. This article draws upon individual narratives of young former refugee's experiences of high schools. It explores the stories told by the young people of being identified as different and of negotiating ways of belonging in schools both academically and socially. It argues that it is how the school positions the newly arrived refugee students within mainstream school culture that opens up or restricts opportunities for inclusion in all aspects of school (in culture and pedagogy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about subject English in Australia are often conducted through the senior years curriculum. In light of the anticipated interest in the new Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) English study design released in 2022 to be implemented in 2023, this paper outlines the current state of research on the VCE English subject by mapping areas of interest, types of evidence and gaps in research. The authors utilise a hybrid approach of narrative scoping review to identify methodological and thematic trends in the scholarly literature, and intersecting professional and media discourse on VCE English from 1990 to 2021. Finding that the student experience and the enacted curriculum have been largely elided, the paper identifies fresh lines of inquiry into VCE English and advocates for new discussions around scholarly interest and approaches to senior secondary English in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to live in a superdiverse world might be heralded as one of the great social challenges of our time. In the last decade, intercultural education has been posed as one way to foster intercultural capabilities in young people that can contribute towards learning to live well with cultural difference. As the diaspora in Australia—and elsewhere—expands, developing intercultural understanding is seen as a priority. Despite the directives of official policy and curriculum, enacting intercultural education in meaningful ways is complex and fraught. This paper reports on an Australian ethnography at a predominantly 'white' school that examined the way productions of cultural difference across school spaces complicate teachers' intercultural work. This paper considers how intercultural understanding might move beyond celebrations of multiculturalism, arguing that 'coming-to-terms with our routes' necessarily prefigures intercultural understanding and provides opportunity for an intercultural education beyond a celebration of multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to higher education remains elusive for many young people despite substantial investment in outreach interventions, most of which target students in underrepresented equity groups. This paper explores an alternative approach to widening participation in Australia that focuses on teacher professional development to support student aspirations. We examine school teachers' responses to a course designed to develop their conceptual understanding of aspirations and provide a framework for developing aspirations-related initiatives with their students and colleagues. The course pilot was evaluated drawing on surveys (N = 49) and interviews (N = 21). Teachers reported that they gained the following: (1) access to robust evidence of factors affecting aspirations; (2) relevant theoretical perspectives to conceptualise aspirations in new ways; and (3) insights on practical strategies with which they might nurture student pathways to higher education. To support widening participation in higher education, we argue that the scope of current outreach initiatives offered by universities must broaden to capitalise on the untapped potential of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the university student body becomes more diversified and students' lives less linear, student retention carries increased importance for universities, including the conversion of deferrers and the re-enrolment of leave-taking students. This paper is based on a broader research project which explored national patterns of deferral and leave of absence in Australia and the policies and strategies for re-engaging the students who defer or take leave. Through a mixed research design, the study explores the extent to which students are positioned at the centre of deferral and leave of absence policy, informed by relationship marketing concepts. This study suggests that many universities have moved towards greater consideration of student perspectives and individualised approaches to building a trustworthy and supportive relationship with deferral and leave-taking students, based on data analytics of individual students' information and circumstances. Despite such efforts, there remain both limitations and tensions within these approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vocational experiences and skills of young adolescents could be infused into formal education by identifying career competencies to be taught within the academic curriculum. Such curriculum practices that embed educational and career pathways must also include the perspectives of students and the community, particularly those from marginalised groups. Drawing on data from 111 teachers, principals, carers and students, this paper presents research undertaken to co-design career education lesson plans within an infused model of the curriculum for early Middle Year students from regional, rural, and remote Australia. The lesson plans and activities were designed to allow for meaningful self-reflection and goal-setting that could be seamlessly infused into the formal curriculum and help embed early-stage career education. The paper concludes by projecting opportunities and challenges for seamless curriculum integration, while pertinent to the Australian context, can also be read with broader relevance to other educational systems and schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a snapshot of Indigenous Early Career Researchers in Australia derived from demographic information collected in the first stage of the 'Developing Indigenous Early Career Researchers' project. Analysis of the data to date has evidenced much diversity across this cohort. However, one commonality across all Indigenous Early Career Researchers was a commitment to the value and validity of Indigenous Ways of Knowing in the higher education sector. With the use of Tribal Critical Race Theory this paper explores the ways in which Indigenous Early Career Researchers disrupt Western-based academies and schools of thought and proposes that Indigenous Early Carer Researchers grow 'pearls' of experience and knowledge within the higher education sector that are essential to the development of a richer academy and stronger Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote Education Tutors (RETs) are central to the delivery of distance schooling in Australia and are accountable for the face-to face supervision and educational support of students. They act as the government mandated adult supervisors of Australian primary and secondary school students enrolled in distance education, including geographically isolated learners. This paper draws on statistical data from a national survey (N = 575) that was designed to map the perceptions of Australian RETs. These data confirmed that RETs act as a conduit between the distance schooling teacher and student, and that their role requires complex capabilities to be performed within a structured framework. Time restrictions with competing demands present a constant challenge to the RETs' work satisfaction. Constraining this occupation is the reality that there is no formal qualification available for RETs. Without specific credentialling, it appears that the RETs' (in)visible role risks being overlooked as a substantive educational occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates the context of the Aboriginal Voices: The state of Aboriginal student experiences in Australian secondary school project special issue of The Australian Educational Researcher in the wider context of First Nations educational research. It outlines the contribution to scholarship that each of the papers within the special issue makes towards developing a more nuanced, research-informed, and deeper understanding about the current state of Aboriginal education in Australia from the voices of those at the coalface. In doing so, this editorial overview highlights that while racism is still rampant across the education sector, and Aboriginal Peoples continue to face deficit discourses about their being and academic capabilities, a new era of sovereign activism is being mobilised by Aboriginal Peoples, and their allies, to drive educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, technology is now a vital element of the school curriculum. Technology has changed the way children learn, and when teachers integrate technology into pedagogical practices, resources, and assessment it expands the way teachers teach. This paper explores how initial teacher education (ITE) programs across Australia position the Technologies Curriculum. It uses data provided at a symposium of teacher educators who deliver ITE in the use of technologies. The paper maps data from 32 universities, including primary, secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate programs. It also investigates the naming conventions of courses in these programs and exemplifies the student experience by providing three vignettes from three programs in three different states. The findings suggest that Technologies education in Australia is offered in many ways to pre-service teachers, thus the landscape of this teaching area is diverse. This paper contributes to the field in being the first research to explore how Australian universities teach Technologies within their ITE programs. It offers a snapshot of how technologies are positioned in Australian ITE programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, a range of financial services, including education bonds, high interest personal loans and credit card debt, have long been used to help families pay for the cost of schooling. However, innovative financial technology (fintech) solutions are emerging which align with the growth of a lower risk 'buy now, pay later' phenomenon. Fintechs claim to expand financial inclusion to more people, particularly when their lending activities are compared to traditional banking services. This paper focuses on Edstart, a fintech edu-business that provides low-risk lending for families managing the cost of school fees. In conducting qualitative content analysis of Edstart's website and blog, I catalogue its market-making activities and how it is leveraging logics of school choice to create a new education service market in Australia that normalises school privatisation and the payment of school fees. I end this paper with a discussion of how school choice—as a key policy reform of governments—is associated with the rollback of the welfare state and increased levels of individual financialisation. I argue that parent consumers have become increasingly invested in choosing the 'best' school for their children, and that this often increases their level of private debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Force majeure circumstances, such as those witnessed in the COVID-19 pandemic, have been used to justify new technologies of governance as policy-makers around the world began to realise the magnitude of the problem and its political implications. In Australia, the coronavirus crisis focussed attention on the vital role education plays in society and was used as an opportunity by policy-makers to reinforce an agenda that, over the past two decades, has tied education policy-making to the economy and 'national interest'. Indeed, Australia's growing federal involvement, with respect to schooling policy was continued in the pandemic as the Australian Prime Minister (PM) created a national cabinet to deal with the crisis, consisting of the PM and state and territory leaders. However, despite the ongoing ambition of a national policy agenda pursued by federal policy-makers, fault lines appeared. Informed by Foucauldian notions of discourse, governmentality and biopolitics, this paper explores how Australia's federal Coalition government endeavoured to manage the population at the outset of the pandemic and subjectified teachers as responsible in the service of the economy. While COVID-19 was a crisis in search of a narrative, federal policy-makers experienced pushback as state and territory leaders assumed control and teachers refused subject positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practice and pedagogy, influenced and informed by the approaches used in the preschool programs of Reggio Emilia is widespread across many early childhood settings in Australia, however, is less commonly used in Australian primary and secondary schools. Little research exists which focuses on the experiences of students in schools where this pedagogical approach is adopted. This paper draws from the findings of a 2019 study undertaken across three Australian schools implementing a pedagogical approach inspired by Reggio Emilia. The voices of students from one of these schools will be used to shed light on their perceived learner identity. The study found that the expressed learner identities were multifaceted. On one hand the students considered themselves to be informed, confident and passionate learners, shaping their world as democratic citizens. However, they also positioned themselves as citizens of the future, sharing perceptions regarding their capacity to compete as successful productive members of an economic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the third-largest export industry, international education occupies an important place in the Australian economy and society. Employing Bacchi's "What is the Problem Represented to be" (WPR) approach, this paper critically analyses four key policies pertaining to international students in Australia since the 1990s. Drawing upon theorising of the globalisation of international education policy, we uncover contestation and problem representation in discourses around the economisation of education and of international students' experiences. The findings reveal multiple discourses of the problematisation of diversity at play, including a "pivot" towards protection of international students' rights as consumers and as potential future citizens, and increased attention to the intrinsic value of international students as people, and not simply as economic agents. The findings have implications for other national contexts, in which international students contribute to the economic viability of education, and in which internationalisation of education in universities has the capacity to foster enhanced cross-cultural understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disadvantage in schooling is often constructed as a crisis in need of fixing. Global policy reforms tend to emphasise that solutions for disadvantage often lie beyond the capacity of the state, necessitating private/philanthropic intervention. This paper seeks to contribute to this line of analysis by investigating the rise of philanthropy in Australian public schooling. Our analysis focuses on the intermediary organisation, Schools Plus, which works to connect donors to disadvantaged public schools. Through qualitative content analysis and stakeholder interviews we demonstrate how philanthropy has come to be seen as a solution to the complex problem of disadvantage, or more specifically in this case, the perceived inadequacies of public education provision. The consequence of this, we suggest, is the changing of responsibility for addressing disadvantage from government to individual schools that have been able to establish an entrepreneurial culture to market their disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A higher proportion of students are privately educated in Australia, compared with many other nations. In this paper, we tested the assumption that private schools offer better quality education than public schools. We examined differences in student achievement on the National Assessment Programme: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) between public, independent, and catholic schools. Cross-sectional regressions using large samples of students (n = 1583–1810) at Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 showed few sector differences in NAPLAN scores in any domain. No differences were evident after controlling for socioeconomic status and prior NAPLAN achievement. Using longitudinal modelling, we also found no sector differences in the rate of growth for reading and numeracy between Year 3 and Year 9. Results indicate that already higher achieving students are more likely to attend private schools, but private school attendance does not alter academic trajectories, thus undermining conceptions of private schools adding value to student outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International students in the secondary school sector are a particularly vulnerable group due to their age and status as unaccompanied minors. The establishment of friendships is an important component of the adjustment for these students as they transition into their new school environments. This paper presents issues related to friendships, investigated as part of a larger study examining the motivations, expectations and experiences of international students from the People's Republic of China studying in Australian secondary schools. Data were collected in two phases from 116 international students and 10 teachers using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, and descriptive analyses employed. Because there is a paucity of information about the experiences of international secondary school students, this was an exploratory study that has contributed understanding of the lived experiences of a small group of international students from mainland China. The study identified that expectations regarding the establishment of friendships are not being met, and that international students from China are seeking more opportunities to form relationships with Australian peers. To reduce dissonance between expectations and experiences of studying in Australia, it is recommended that Australian schools work with both international and domestic students to provide authentic opportunities to build peer relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses an Aboriginal cultural mentoring project for non-Aboriginal teachers that positions Aboriginal people front and centre as cultural and educational experts. In so doing it sets out to contribute to work in Australia that challenges 'common' understandings about mentoring in educational contexts where the expert is usually a western-educated non-Aboriginal teacher. In this project, non-Aboriginal teachers are supported in implementing culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogies into their classroom through building relationships with Aboriginal mentors and students. Analysis of thirteen pre and post surveys, four mentee interviews and one mentee focus group, illuminated the emergence of collaborative cultural mentoring processes, where teachers developed trusting, reciprocal and respectful relationships with Aboriginal people. We argue that a systematic, well-supported Aboriginal cultural mentoring program can be used to create and convert new knowledge into practice, and that this can have a positive impact on teachers' understanding of teaching/learning processes thereby contributing to Aboriginal student engagement in their learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's picture books contribute to children's development of gender identity and can impact aspirations and expectations of roles in families and society. However, the world represented in children's books reflects predominantly middle class, heterosexual, male heroes and characters. This paper reports on a cross-cultural study investigating gender representation in frequently read picture books across eight early learning centres in the United States and Australia. Forty-four educators working with 271 children participated. Data were collected from book audits and observations. Unique to this study is the presentation of a new data analysis instrument, Harper's Framework of Gender Stereotypes Contained in Children's Literature. The majority of the books shared by educators in this study promoted traditional, binary and stereotypical viewpoints of gender and gender roles. These findings are concerning as the evidence shows that gender development is a critical part of the earliest and most important learning experience of young children and a requirement of educational policies rooted in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-qualified, well-paid, stable workforce with high psychological and emotional wellbeing is critical to the provision of quality early childhood education and care, yet workforce shortages and high turnover persist in Australia and internationally. This paper uses ecological theory to conceptualise and make sense of findings from research that has investigated the recruitment, retention and wellbeing of early childhood teachers in Australia. The theoretical framing of early childhood teacher workforce issues proffered in the paper highlights the utility of considering these issues from a holistic ecological perspective. Analysis of Australian early childhood workforce studies draws attention to the need for large-scale, longitudinal research that holistically investigates influences on the attracting, retaining and sustaining of early childhood teachers, and the impact of these influences on teacher quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the final piece of scholarship in the special issue, this paper pulls together data from the Aboriginal Voices project to analyse how Aboriginal students in Australia today experience schooling, particularly in relation to the futurity of their identity as sovereign First Nations Peoples. Using Decolonising Race Theory as a key methodological framework in this special issue enabled an assessment of the purpose and effects of coloniality to acknowledge the survival and innovation of First Nations Peoples in resisting and imagining a future otherwise. In doing so, the empirical data, and provocations, presented throughout this collection, opens up possibilities for exploring how the centrality of sovereignty impacts young Aboriginal students' interactions with and experienced success within the Australian schooling system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes evidence-based scholarship to how teachers understand the value of Aboriginal student-focussed programmes and how discourses of Indigeneity appear to influence those views. Interviews with n = 22 teachers across n = 3 secondary school sites in New South Wales highlighted teachers' understanding of Aboriginal programmes as primarily contributing to students' behavioural and academic improvement. The interviewed teachers spoke positively about Aboriginal students' current academic achievements and prospects for their bright futures as graduates, albeit from within deficit and colour-blind discourses. Utilising Moodie's Decolonising Race Theory framework, teachers' juxtaposing beliefs resonate with existing decolonising education research which indicates a performativity of cultural inclusion through adherence to settler-colonial practices, while at the same time, an intellectual desire to move away from the legacy of Australia's contentious colonial past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abundance of research in Indigenous education has not resulted in significant systemic change in relation to Indigenous education in Australia. In this paper we examine convergence and divergence across the policy, practice and research realms with the aim of identifying key sites of opportunity for innovation and change. Through analysing how research and evidence is produced and included/excluded in Indigenous education policy settings, the complexities of how different types of evidence are considered rigorous and relevant were found to be clearly implicated with broader social and political discourses with relation to Indigenous peoples and interests. Whilst we argue for an Indigenous based evidence approach that centres Indigenous agency and solutions, we propose that deeper conversations about Indigenous voice and diversity is needed in implementing such an approach. We re-visit some key policy cycles that resembles the new co-design approach announced by the Australian Government in 2019 and consider the implications based on published literature to date for Indigenous education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students from regional and remote areas remain significantly under-represented in higher education despite decades of equity policy designed to encourage participation. One explanation is that policy initiatives often overlook the realities in local rural contexts that can make higher education less desirable. Applying the theoretical lens of 'doxic' and 'habituated' aspirations, this paper analyzes interviews with 13 students, 10 parents/carers, and 4 teachers from one regional and one remote community in NSW, Australia. We document the emotional and material realities shaping young people's imagined futures in these communities, highlighting the commitment to a rural lifestyle in one, and the desire to escape the other community in decline. We argue that developing successful initiatives to address equitable participation in higher education requires a departure from hegemonic discourses of 'rurality' and greater recognition of and respect for the diverse needs and desires of regional and remote students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women remains a serious and widespread problem in Australia with enormous impacts and social costs. Recently, there have been renewed government efforts to address gender-based violence in schools through a whole school approach. This approach has come to be known as Respectful Relationships Education (RRE) and supports schools to build cultures and practices of gender respect. Recognition of the need for RRE is well established in Australia with states and territories implementing a range of policy and programme initiatives. This paper presents data generated from a mixed methods evaluation of the implementation and impact of RRE in eighteen Australian primary schools. Our focus is on case study data gathered from two of these schools to illustrate the significance of context in shaping the capacity of schools to take up RRE in the ways it is intended. We identify and analyse the specific situated, professional, material and external factors at these schools that enabled and constrained the implementation of this reform. In light of the continued tendency within policy for schools to be dematerialised (i.e. not seen in relation to the complexities of context), the paper argues for greater attention to matters of context in understanding the differential impact of reforms such as RRE in schools. In particular, we draw attention to the urgency and imperative of differential support to schools in relation to such matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) Certification process introduced in Australia in 2012 was designed to recognise expert teachers, to encourage them to continue to influence and impact their students and colleagues through their exemplary classroom practice. Expert teachers prepare evidence of their impactful practices, and have this evidence evaluated through a National Certifying Authority. HALTs are a relatively new role in Australian education, and little is known about their impact in schools, or the potential for their ongoing role as middle leaders in schools. This paper analyses the experiences of HALT teachers who had been certified by Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) in 2018, and what impact they recognised they were having in the schools who supported them through their certification process. Impact is theorised as a temporal, reflexive narrative. Data were gathered in a cascading evaluative process through portfolio analysis, interviews with nationally certified teachers, school-based mentors and school leaders and a survey about their teacher and middle leader efficacy. The process of applying for HALT Certification had significant positive personal impact for the teachers, their students, their colleagues in their school and for some, beyond their school. The recognition of impact as a temporal narrative with distinct genres, and the concept of HALT teachers as middle leaders may point to new avenues of supporting applicants and to potential benefits for schools to encourage teachers to consider national certification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories and literature play an important and necessary role in understanding the past and in creating the future. Yet, in colonised countries such as Australia, the status of contemporary national texts, particularly those reflecting the diverse voices of Indigenous writers, women, and other marginalised groups, continue to be underrepresented in schools. In this article, we explore the reasons why Australian texts continue to be marginalised in education, when there is a clear desire for diverse Australian voices amongst the reading public. We also consider the kinds of national identities that current text selection and teaching policies are creating and maintaining in schools. In order to develop these ideas, we draw on data collected via a survey of secondary English teachers for a pilot research project called Teaching Australia. In this project, we explored the Australian texts being selected and championed by teachers in secondary schools, the perceptions of nation and national identity these convey, and teachers' approaches to including diverse Australian texts in their classrooms. In the final section of the paper, we consider some future opportunities for engagement with diverse Australian literature for teachers and students of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the visual and verbal representation of diversity in Australian early childhood picture books, focusing on those that have been shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Early Childhood Book of the Year award (2001–2020). Educators at all levels draw on award lists to help create their reading lists and build their library collections. For early childhood to kindergarten educators, these selections are principally picture books. Picture books are significant for the cultural messages and values they convey about society, and for helping children learn about their world. How diverse that world is impacts on a child's sense of belonging and inclusion. Using content analysis, this study demonstrates the extent to which the story worlds in the CBCA award winning early childhood picture books may be considered a source of diversity for young Australian readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainstreaming of English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) education necessitates collaboration between EAL teachers and content teachers to support EAL students' learning in content areas. A question left open is how EAL and content teachers exercise relational agency through professional dialogue and collaborative practices. The current paper examined this question through the concept of relational agency grounded in sociocultural theory. Data include group interviews with and self-recorded collaborative conversations between an EAL teacher and a science teacher in planning and delivering science content in an Australian secondary school. Findings reveal professional dialogue and collaborative practices created mediational spaces for them to exercise relational agency. They actively worked together on a complex problem and shared motive, built and utilised common knowledge, and drew on relational expertise in responding to the demands of enhancing EAL students' learning of language and content in the science classroom. Findings have implications for promoting teacher agency and quality collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples in the country now known as Australia have had a very successful education system in place, from place. Currently, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students experience systemic harm in Australia's public and private schooling systems at unacceptable levels and are consistently positioned as deficient in both the practices and outcomes of formal schooling in Australia. Under the pretense of 'getting a good education', many Indigenous students feel coerced into compliance, with schools used as vehicles of institutionalisation, indoctrination and assimilation. As a Gamilaroi woman, I find issue with this and am concerned about the intergenerational consequences if Indigenous students remain in this system. Yet, there are few education options available outside the dominant Western, compulsory schooling model. This paper proposes an envisioning of Indigenous education sovereignty, grounded in Aboriginal axiologies, ontologies and epistemologies as an education option for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era where higher education institutions appear increasingly committed to what Sara Ahmed calls 'speech acts' whereby declared goodwill, through stated commitments to diversity, equity, and increasing Indigenous student enrolment and completion have been made; it is undeniable that Indigenous academics are in high demand. With fewer than 430 Indigenous academics currently employed here on the continent now commonly referred to as 'Australia', and 69% of that cohort identifying as female, what does it look like to experience this demand as an Indigenous academic woman? Drawing on data collected from a Nation-wide study in 2019 of 17 one-on-one, face-to-face interviews with Indigenous academic women, using Indigenous research methodologies and poetic transcription, this paper explores the experiences and relational aspects of Indigenous academic women's roles in Australian higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many remote places in Queensland, Australia have access to schools, very few have provision for preschool education. Recent efforts to change this have included the development of a kindergarten program delivered through the local school. An impact assessment undertaken in 2017 involved visiting 30 remote sites offering the program. Analysis of interview data indicated the importance of sense of place in the delivery of this program. Educators and family members were overwhelmingly supportive of the option of a kindergarten program in their sites, regarding it as an equity and social justice imperative to provide access to programs that seem to be taken-for-granted for children and families in urban and regional locations. The potential for the program to enhance social interactions and educational outcomes was highlighted, even when educators noted a range of challenges in the implementation of the program. Sense of place and the positioning of educators and families are explored in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are increasing calls within Australia and internationally for schools to be research-engaged, for teaching to be research-rich and for researchers to engage with end-users. Such aspirations raise important questions about whether and how Australian schools are engaging in and with research. This paper reports on an empirical study, Catholic Education Melbourne's Understanding School Engagement in Research project, which sought to better understand research engagement amongst 67 Catholic schools in Melbourne. Drawing on the findings of this project, coupled with a subsequent analysis of wider international literature, this paper shows how schools are selective about their research involvement; are discerning about what the research is on and how it is conducted; access research in indirect and informal ways; value research more than they use it; and need much more than research access. The paper concludes by synthesising these five themes into a conceptual framework for understanding and improving school research engagement, and outlining the implications for research organisations, schools and jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the English literacy outcomes of Aboriginal children are constantly measured and debated, attention falls away once they leave school, leading to limited data on English literacy rates among Australia's Aboriginal adults. This paper reports on an investigation into the prevalence of low literacy in adults in eight Aboriginal communities in NSW, Australia, drawing on both self-report data from household surveys and objective professional assessments using the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF). The research was conducted in partnership with a national Aboriginal organisation as part of a longitudinal study of the impact of improved adult literacy on the social determinants of health and social wellbeing. Of the participants who were measured to have low or very low English-language literacy level using ACSF, 51% had completed Year 10 or higher. This casts serious doubt on the value of school completion data which is used, for example, in Close the Gap reporting, as an accurate predictor of adult literacy rates. Results further show that while self-reported low literacy was prevalent in the population studied, there was also a significant overestimation, with adults who have completed years 10–11 nearly 30 times more likely to overestimate compared to people who only complete primary school. Given the well-known associations between adult literacy and a range of other outcomes including income, employment and health, national adult literacy surveys such as the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies should aim to produce more comprehensive national, regional and local data on Aboriginal adult English literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]