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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]

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]

Recent reforms in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Australia have called for primary pre-service teachers to graduate with a specialisation in a priority learning area. This represents a significant change to the way that primary teachers are prepared. In this paper, we use Carol Bacchi's What's the Problem Represented to be? approach (WPR) to analyse the discourses present in four policy documents that have led to the introduction of primary specialisations in Australian education. The policy analysis reveals that the introduction of primary specialisations does not have a strong evidence base. Moreover, slippage in definitions causes confusion about what the role entails, with certain people marginalised by this policy direction. Recommendations are given for how teachers and teacher educators can work effectively within this new policy context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social inclusion in Australian higher education was high on the agenda of the recent Rudd/Gillard Australian Government. This paper offers an assessment of that agenda, particularly the extent to which it worked in favour of under-represented groups. It argues that the Government's widening and expansion policies and its equity and aspiration strategies lacked sociological imagination, projecting deficits onto individuals who refused to be taken in by its ambitions for higher education participation. The paper concludes that in the absence of a sociological imagination in government policy, the freedoms of disadvantaged groups continued to be curtailed: not just to choose futures in keeping with their goals but also the freedom to formulate choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises think tanks and edu-businesses in relation to education policy work in the Australian polity. It situates the enhanced influence of both in relation to the restructured state, which has lost some key capacities in relation to the generation of research and ideas for policy. This restructuring has been strongly influenced by the techniques of new public management, the auditing of education through national and international testing and new forms of network governance, which have opened up spaces for the increased influence of think tanks and edu-businesses across the policy cycle in education. We see here the workings of a 'polycentric state'. The paper also considers changing concepts of 'evidence', 'expertise' and 'influence' in respect of the involvement of think tanks and edu-businesses in circulating policy ideas and affecting policy development in Australian education. This introduction to this special issue of The Australian Educational Researcher serves as a provocation to further research on this new policy scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although international definitions of early childhood repeatedly refer to a birth-8 age span, there are complex, institutional divides within this age range. This paper explores the divide between pre-compulsory and compulsory early childhood institutions. In countries such as Finland this divide is not such an issue because children do not begin formal schooling until age seven or eight. However, in Australia these 8 years include both pre-compulsory programs (often birth-5) and compulsory schooling. We argue that in situations where the early years of compulsory school are included in a country's definitions of early childhood, they often occupy a tenuous place in research, policy and practice. Drawing from the history of early childhood education in South Australia, we explore the place that the early years of school have occupied in early childhood discourse, policy and practice and then consider some contemporary state-based and national reforms. Our hope is that by considering the South Australian past, the paper may provide a space from which to advocate for policies and structures that uphold specialist expertise and leadership in the early years of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalent knowledge economy discourse has direct implications for higher education policies and practices. It is expected that the higher education sector supports national economic competitiveness mainly through promoting scientific research, supporting technological transfer and innovation, and producing 'knowledge workers' such as higher degree by research graduates. However in the context of changing work requirements and fast paced technological progress, the 'skills gap' between the labour market needs and the actual attributes of graduates has emerged as a tangible concern. This paper explores the issue of research graduate employability in Australia. Drawing on critical frame analysis, the paper particularly problematises the way research graduate employability has been framed in relevant policy texts, and shows what issues are excluded from the policy agenda and why. By way of demonstrating exclusions from the current debate on doctoral graduates' skills and employability, we briefly report on new data on the level of industry-engagement of research students at one large Australian university to argue that assumptions about the need to 'fix' the skills deficit of graduates have excluded from view high levels of industry engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early career teachers often feel overwhelmed by the complex, intense and unpredictable nature of their work. Recently, policy initiatives have been introduced to provide new teachers with extra release-time from face-to-face classroom teaching duties to assist them in their transition to the workforce. This paper reports on a critical policy study that investigated the enactment of this policy initiative. A data set was created from a larger qualitative study which investigated early career teacher resilience. Drawing on a policy enactment theoretical 'toolbox', the findings indicate that school leaders can empower early career teachers to move beyond being 'receivers' of policy to assume a more active policy role. This paper argues that school leaders are very powerful in their capacity to enact policy to ensure strategic access to appropriate on-going learning opportunities to support early career teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of Australia's first national research assessment, excellence for research in Australia, provoked considerable discussion about the state of educational research in Australia. Understanding the nature of this field of research became the focus for empirical research and analysis that was intended to inform strategic planning. This paper provides an overview of the articles in this special issue, bringing together research on Australian educational research and insights from international researchers who research the effects of research assessment in educational research in their own countries. These sources inform a commentary on Australian educational research and suggest an agenda for further action on strategic capacity building for Australian educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research assessment exercises aim to identify research quantity and quality and provide insights into research capacity building strategies for the future. Yet with limited knowledge of the ecology of Australian educational research, there is little chance of understanding what research audits might contribute towards a capacity building agenda for such a complex field. This paper draws on secondary data analysis of research outputs submitted by 13 Australian higher education institutions to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010 and 2012 national research assessment exercises, to show where Australian educational research is conducted. Findings offer a profile of education researchers by location in academic organisational units within universities. By analyzing data not accessible through reported ERA data we were also able to present information about appointment profiles, specifically levels and type of appointment within universities, as well as data on institutional and geographic region, and patterns associated with type of outputs (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and other outputs) and field of research. Analysis of the data reveals definitive shifts in the nature of the published outputs and in employment profiles of researchers and their location across university and regional groupings. Research audits are administrative processes that reshape institutional and disciplinary governance structures, policies, individual outputs, work practices and careers, but they are not the sum total of the field per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child's family, culture, language and values is increasingly articulated in educational policy. Diversity and inclusion are central themes of the guiding principles of early childhood education and care in Australia. Children's literature can be a powerful tool for extending children's knowledge and understandings of themselves and others who may be different culturally, socially or historically. However, evidence suggests many settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children's literature to support principles of cultural diversity in the kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. The study was conducted within an ontological perspective of constructivism and an epistemological perspective of interpretivism informed by sociocultural theory. A mixed methods approach was adopted and convergent design was employed to interpret significant relationships and their meanings. Twenty-four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. This study identified that current book collections in these four kindergarten rooms of long day care centres promote monocultural viewpoints and 'othering' of minority groups through limited access to books portraying inclusive and authentic cultural diversity. These findings have important social justice implications. The outcomes of this study have implications for educators, policy makers, early childhood organisations and those providing higher education and training for early childhood educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 the Rudd Labor government in Australia introduced significant changes to education policy for the nation. The Skilling Australia's Future (Rudd et al. Skilling Australia for the future. Election policy document, 2007) policy was meant to redress a perceived failure by the previous Howard federal Liberal-National Coalition governments to fund and manage vocational skills training adequately. The Skilling Australia's Future policy established a number of areas for immediate action. This paper looks at one of these areas from the policy document, namely, the Rudd government's plan for addressing skills shortages (Rudd et al. , pp. 4-9) through the establishment of Trade Training Centres in schools. The policy is analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis, featuring the semiotic concept of intertextuality. Findings from the application of this method suggest that Skilling Australia's Future (2007) belongs within a history of like-minded policy and, although a new direction is provided by the allocation of Trade Training Centres to selected high schools, the policy is not clearly separable from the market-driven discourse that has pervaded education policy since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account and a critique of the rise of the contemporary policy as numbers phenomenon and considers its effects on policy and for educational research. Policy as numbers is located within the literatures on numbers in politics and the statistics/state relationship and, while recognising the longevity of the latter relationship, it is argued that the governance turn and neo-liberalism have strengthened the role of numbers in contemporary education policy. This phenomenon is situated in the contemporary 'structure of feeling', which sees politics reduced to managing the everyday and the evisceration of a progressive imaginary. The paper then documents the impact within education, focusing both on the emergent global education policy field and on the national agenda in Australian schooling and the related rise of 'gap talk', both globally and nationally. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications for educational research, suggesting that we as educational researchers are also being positioned by policy as numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proportion of students enrolled at university from the lowest quartile of socio-economic position has remained static at around 15% for at least the past 15 years (DEEWR, Transforming Australia's higher education system, ). This paper argues that the apparent lack of progress towards equity of access has been exacerbated due to how socio-economic position (SEP) is measured within higher education. Three major methodological issues are identified: (a) the use of socio-economic indicator for areas (SEIFA) at an inappropriate unit of geographic area (postcode), (b) an inappropriate choice of index (education and occupation), and (c) using the index of education and occupation as the sole indicator of SEP thereby increasing the risk of misclassification of individuals through the operation of ecological fallacy. This paper argues that to address these methodological deficiencies, alternative methods of determining SEP are required at both the aggregate and individual level. Possible options are proposed for use as replacements for the geographic area (postcode) and index (education and occupation) as well as additional measures at the individual or household level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of Australian higher education has changed, is changing and is about to change, repositioned in relation to other 'fields of power'. It is a sector now well defined by its institutional groupings and by their relative claims to selectivity and exclusivity, with every suggestion of their differentiation growing. The potential of a 'joined-up' tertiary education system, of vocational education and training (VET) and universities, has the potential to further rework these relations within Australian higher education, as will lifting the volume caps on university student enrolments. Moreover, Australian universities now compete within an international higher education marketplace, ranked by THES and Shanghai Jiao Tiong league tables. 'Catchment areas' and knowledge production have become global. In sum, Australian universities (and agents within them) are positioned differently in the field. And being so variously and variably placed, institutions and agents have different stances available to them, including the positions they can take on student equity. In this paper I begin from the premise that our current stance on equity has been out-positioned, as much by a changing higher education field as by entrenched representations of social groups across regions, institutions, disciplines and degrees. In taking a new stance on equity, the paper is also concerned with the positioning in the field of a new national research centre with a focus on student equity in higher education. In particular, the paper asks what stance this new centre can take on student equity that will resonate on a national and even international scale. And, given a global field of higher education, what definitions of equity and propositions for policy and practice can it offer? What will work in the pursuit of equity? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disproportionate focus on classroom teachers and their instruction-teacher effectiveness-in order to confront and address under-achievement and disadvantage appears as a contemporary education policy theme in Australia. Phrases such as 'high performing schooling systems', 'the best teachers', 'high performing countries', 'quality teaching', 'under-performing schools', 'the right change', 'operationally feasible', 'targeting of reforms', 'degrees of under-performance', 'educational drivers', 'teacher quality and improved teaching' and 'external standards and governance' are constantly mentioned and given continual attention and prominence by policy-makers. The paper questions and critiques a policy-making direction that uses teacher effectiveness research to force and steer reform in education. The distinctive and narrow concern with teacher effectiveness works to the specific exclusion of breadth and scope concerning debate about broader education related issues and questions, for example, matters of student achievement, exclusion and disadvantage. This article uses a qualitative research approach informed by critical theory to examine three influential private sector reports on education and schooling: The McKinsey Report ( )- How the world's best- performing school systems come out on top, The Nous Group ( )- Schooling Challenges and Opportunities and The Grattan Institute ( )- Catching up: Learning from the best school systems in East Asia. The article subjects the reports to close critical scrutiny and examination and finds that classroom teachers are positioned so that their specific and explicit instruction becomes the differentiating 'variable' in matters of student achievement and success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the outcome of research conducted between June 2010 and January 2011 as part of understanding the building the education revolution (BER) a major policy initiative of the Australian Federal Government which commenced when Julia Gillard, now PM, was the Federal Minister of Education. The BER policy initiative was part of an economic stimulus package delivered in response to the global economic crisis. It saw funding distributed through State governments to schools to develop new learning spaces and facilities. In the Victorian context the timing of the BER came after years of research and development in learning space design and policy under the Victorian Schools Plan and the Building Schools for the Future policies. It outlines both the scope of the research projects undertaken by Deakin University’s Centre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria and the approach to using visual methodologies within these projects. The notion of the research as educational tourist is introduced in a discussion of using photographs as ethnographic field notes. As is often the case in such projects, timelines for research and delivery of research products is not always ideal for first wave rigorous analysis intended in the initial research proposals. In light of this the research team had generated, through researcher and participant photography, more data than could be reasonably dealt with. This paper explains the process and usefulness of photography as field notes to expedite research conversations and analysis in the writing of the case studies and construction of the portal. The construct of researchers as educational tourists is also theorised as a way of understanding how images mediate the ethnographically-informed research experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational research has long been the subject of lively and agitated debate, not least because of its diversity. Ranging in scope from academic development and broad-scale policy research through to student engagement and discipline-specific research, it includes methods of traditional academic inquiry and investigations and also less traditional modes of research. However, the topography of Australian educational research and the characteristics of the people who undertake this complex body of work are currently unclear. This paper explores some of the complexities of the Australian research community, drawing on the findings of a national online survey of academics who identified as researching in the field of education from within and outside education schools and faculties. The survey attracted 504 responses from 38 of Australia's 39 universities, and just over two-thirds of respondents were located in a school or faculty of education. We draw on the results to answer the questions of who is undertaking educational research and who how they might be supported. We utilise a conceptual model that 'segments' the educational research workforce represented by the survey respondents, and we conclude by indicating strategies that might be utilised to address research barriers indicated by educational researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some background information about the Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research initiative: a joint program of work sponsored by the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. In addition, it offers some broader analysis of the contexts within which Australian Educational Research is being framed and judged, and argues that leaders of educational research need to become more adept at finding and creating spaces in which important policy battles can be won. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the Australian Federal Government attempted to de-regulate higher education fees so as to allow universities to set their own tuition fees. The associated public debate offer critical insights into how the identity of a student as a 'customer' of higher education is understood and deployed when developing higher education policy. This paper uses the 2014 Australian higher education reforms as a lens through which to further scholarly research into the student-as-customer metaphor and to see how it is influenced by the perceptions and understandings of policy actors external to the higher education sector. These include politicians, special interest groups, the students and their parents and prospective employers. This study reveals that the public/private nexus-both of funding and benefit-problematizes traditional conceptualisations of students and others as higher education customers. In turn, this restricts the ability or desire of policy actors to describe how the student functions as a customer as a consequence of market reform. This inability compromises the development of effective and sustainable higher education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-government actors such as think-tanks are playing an important role in Australian policy work. As governments increasingly outsource policy work previously done by education departments and academics to these new policy actors, more think-tanks have emerged that represent a wide range of political views and ideological positions. This paper looks at the emergence of the Grattan Institute as one significant player in Australian education policy with a particular emphasis on Grattan's report 'Turning around low-performing schools'. Grattan exemplifies many of the facets of Barber's 'deliverology', as they produce reports designed to be easily digested, simply actioned and provide reassurance that there is an answer, often through focusing on 'what works' recipes. 'Turning around low-performing schools' is a perfect example of this deliverology. However, a close analysis of the Report suggests that it contains four major problems which seriously impact its usefulness for schools and policymakers: it ignores data that may be more important in explaining the turn-around of schools, the Report is overly reliant on NAPLAN data, there are reasons to be suspicious about the evidence assembled, and finally the Report falls into a classic trap of logic-the post hoc fallacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical analysis of the edu-businesses currently working in partnership with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to deliver the Commonwealth government policy initiative of the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). These emerging public-private partnerships (PPPs) exemplify new heterarchical governance structures in Australia, where a network of public and private agents now contribute to education policy processes. In analysing the NAPLAN policy network, this account seeks to proffer a critical analysis on the evolving PPPs in Australia and ascertains in whose interests and with what outcomes these PPPs operate. The NAPLAN policy network is analysed in relation to the contemporary state and its changing modus operandi, in which I draw on the notions of heterarchies, networks and new governance structures in education to understand these developments. Network ethnography is employed to document the network of PPPs that are associated with NAPLAN and other government initiatives in Australia, and in particular, I reflect on the activities of Pearson and the Australian Council for Educational Research to problematise what these policy networks mean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Australian government targets for higher education participation have produced a flurry of activity focused on raising the aspirations of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. In this paper we test two key assumptions underpinning much of this activity: that students from low-SES backgrounds hold lower career aspirations; and that outreach activities appropriately target secondary school students, given that younger students' aspirations are relatively under-developed. Drawing on a sample of 3,504 students, we map the intersection of the career aspirations of students in Years 4, 6, 8, and 10 with SES and other demographic variables in order to contribute to the evidence base for academic, educational, and political work on access to higher education and the policies, practices, and outcomes that might ensue. Aspirations are assessed in terms of occupational certainty, occupational choice, occupational prestige, and occupational justification. We found fewer differences by year level and by SES than expected. Our analyses demonstrate both the complexity of students' career aspirations and some of the challenges associated with undertaking this kind of research, thus signalling the need for caution in the development of policy and interventions in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the geography of Australian educational research in the context of the ERA 2010 and 2012 assessments results. These results reflect significant changes to the nature of educational research over the past decades, where this research is conducted and by whom. We recap the historical changes to the formation of educational institutions and their impact on research outputs to demonstrate that interdisciplinary work is growing in a context where there has been a shift in research outputs away from the traditional area of school education. The ERA results demonstrate a high level of research activity in the intersections between previously distinct discipline areas, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The future of ERA itself is addressed in order to propose interventions that might make a difference to an ecology that is anchored in traditions and tends towards inertia. Finally, we argue that efforts by universities to build research capacity are likely to continue to be competitive, to focus on the individual rather than on departments and schools, and to be subject to an increasingly pervasive culture of accountability. Against this discourse of accountability, and an accompanying loss in autonomy and creative 'think-time', we propose that academics in education actively engage in a community of research. We conclude with interventions designed to build a high-quality, analytical and theoretically intensive research culture to underscore educational research in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of national research assessment, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) are a type of audit technology that confronts and steers established institutional identities and traditions. This nexus between policy and practice drives boundary work that diffracts prevailing policy logics, organisational practices, and habits of mind. We use this notion of 'boundary work' as an analytical lens for understanding the nature and effects of ERA in the Australian educational research space. This paper explains the methodology that informed the AARE-ACDE research reported in Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research. It documents the policy logic of ERA and the way it cuts across the established ecology of educational research, revealing social and symbolic work that is remaking the boundaries of educational research. We report on the historical trajectory of Australian educational research, the way ERA codes research outputs, and how educational researchers are repositioning in this shifting research space. We argue that there are specific loci of boundary work where capacity building in Australian educational research can make a difference to future educational knowledge building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, eligible long day care services may apply for support at the state level to assist with the transition of children from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds into childcare settings. For staff in childcare services, this support comes in the form of a cultural support worker (CSW). The primary role of a CSW is to build capacity in childcare staff to support children and families as they enter the childcare program. This paper draws on interview data and documentation from multiple sources to report the perspectives of key stakeholders affiliated with a cultural support program in an Australian childcare setting. It concludes that a more flexible approach to policy that directs the work of CSWs is needed, as well as further research into ways to build capacity for cultural competence for both CSWs and childcare staff who work collaboratively to support young children as they transition to childcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a critical policy study on refugee education in two states of Australia, which involved an analysis of policy documents and interviews with policy developers. The findings show that policy development for students from refugee backgrounds is affected by structures including ways of knowing refugees, desires to measure their linguistic 'performance' and the internal structures of the organisations in which policies are developed. These structures shape and are shaped by the actions of individual policy makers as agents. Without awareness of these structures in policy making, they can inadvertently reinforce deficit framings of student groups such as refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author focuses on the role of critical education research in Australian education relative to cultural and gender politics in the country as edu-capitalism rises around the world. Topics include how policy changes shape the cultural and gender politics of the research, the impact of the global higher education reforms in educational research, and the importance of critical educational research in making distinct educational research and in making difference in a democratic society.

Current federal government policy initiatives in Aboriginal education and social welfare reform are based on assumptions about the relationship between increased attendance and increased student performance on standardized tests. There are empirical assumptions underlying these policy interventions and their accompanying public debates. Our aim here is to empirically explore the relationships between patterns of student attendance and patterns of student achievement in schools with significant cohorts of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students at the school level. Based on an analysis of the publicly available data reported on the 'MySchool' website, we find that reforms and policies around attendance have not and are unlikely to generate patterns of improved achievement. Questions about the rationale and rhetoric of government policy focused at the school level as opposed to the need to focus on pedagogy and curriculum are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Government's policy to transform higher education by 2020 includes plans to significantly raise the levels of undergraduate enrolment by people of low socio-economic status. In light of this policy direction, this article examines how a group of undergraduate students of low socio-economic status work to maintain their desire for learning and to remain included in the university system despite experiencing cultural processes of exclusion. As the students reflect on the cultural and pedagogical conditions that promote, support and enhance their participation and engagement in higher education, a picture emerges of the importance of students' relationships with academics. Whilst positive relationships help students to remain engaged, negative experiences work against continuing participation and engagement. Given the desire of the Australian government to increase participation in higher education by students from under-represented groups, this research identifies some challenges and possibilities for both universities and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]