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Intercultural education in Australia has been positioned in Statebased official curriculum and education policy as developing understanding between diverse cultural groups. However, cultivating such understanding far more complex in practice than policy and curriculum directives can capture. In Australia, eruptions of intercultural tensions has an ongoing and complex history. This paper examines the challenges for teachers' intercultural practice in one Australian public school setting. Reporting on a single-site ethnography drawing on Lefebvre's production of space. I conceptualise teachers' intercultural work as a praxis of difference, this paper problematises the way intercultural education is often taken up in tokenistic ways and advocates for reimagining intercultural education as a challenge of practice. I argue that an examination of the conditions that produce complex relations between diverse cultural groups in particular spaces is a productive starting point for developing intercultural understanding as a rational praxis of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines school management and policies in Germany and Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study, which is comparative and qualitative, explores the interrelationship between different levels of governance and the responses of teacher unions. The inquiry is informed by the perspectives of historical institutionalism and path dependency, and the document analysis is conducted by utilising the justification categories of value, collective, and formal and procedural driven arguments. We argue the contestation which occurred between different levels of school governance and the teacher unions amidst the pandemic created the potential for changes in policy settings and influence over the administration of schooling. However, there is no indication of fundamental shifts in the organisation, policy direction or control over schooling in Germany or Australia. Instead, there is a conformity to established institutional arrangements and path dependencies, which secure and protect the vested interests of the different policy actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools are critical spaces for young men from refugee backgrounds. They play an integral role in literacy development, educational attainment, and providing a sense of belonging. Inclusive education practices for this group are largely absent in Australian schools. Research shows focusing on these young men from a non-deficit position assists with inclusivity. There is a lack of research exploring the agentic practices of young men from refugee backgrounds within schools. This paper explores the symbolic value of swagger for a group of young men from refugee backgrounds at a high school in Australia. A Bourdieusian theoretical framework guided critical awareness of power in schools. This research shows how a group of young men found a meaningful way to acquire social and cultural capital. Despite the school's constraints, this group developed a group identity reflected in their clothing and embodied dispositions referred to here as swagger. Our findings demonstrate the complex power relations at work, including the opportunity for the young men to resist and be included. In the spirit of Bourdieu's concern for reflexivity our findings point to the need for schools, teachers, and education policy makers to consider the workings of power in schools in more considered ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates international and domestic peer relations in two Australian schools and how they are shaped by structural, cultural and discursive dimensions of schooling. In particular, it analyses intercultural relations between domestic and international students in the context of policies promoting "internationalisation-at-home". We argue that how international students are positioned within specific school contexts impacts their sense of inclusion in everyday social and pedagogical relations and informs their relationships with domestic students, whether viewed as a stranger or potentially as a friend raising questions as to who is responsible for intercultural relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of the government in the higher education sector in Australia. Importance of governmental support to the changes needed by the universities; Role of the government in research and teaching funding; Functionality in the development of industrial relations and other related policies; Responsibility in shaping the higher education system for national policy purposes.

Policy classifies and shapes people/subjects in particular kinds of ways. Focusing on the context of Health and Physical Education (HPE), this paper analyses policy documents from Australia, the United States of America (USA) and Wales. We pay particular attention to how learners are represented within and across the three policy documents, and we apply Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to be?' approach to guide the analysis. For us, problematization is a fruitful and positive process that enables educators to engage with a critical dialogue regarding the policies they are expected to enact. Our analysis highlighted that common across the policies were overlapping discourses of idealism, neoliberalism, healthism, and individualism, which serve to reinforce deficit language and a focus on what learners 'lack'. The problem of 'learner as lacking' is represented within the policies via at least three subject positions: 'the sedentary learner', 'the un-educated learner' and 'the naïve learner'. The findings suggest that the three policies were producing an ideal and perhaps impossible learner (subject) whilst at the same time representing the learner as a problem that the policy could 'fix'. This paper is important because it: (i) demonstrates how certain discourses and voices are amplified and silenced within curriculum policy documents and policy work more broadly; (ii) makes educational and health politics visible; and (iii) creates space for the profession to develop greater critical consciousness related to policy. In terms of future directions, we urge curriculum policy writers and other stakeholders to carefully consider how learners are categorised, represented and governed in and through policy. If curriculum policies, by their very nature, need to produce problems – in this case, the (im)possible subject - we invite educators to engage in critical conversations regarding the policies they are expected to enact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education has often acted as a social microcosm that reflects the growing levels of religious and cultural diversity in Australia, with educators facing the daily task of responding pedagogically and interculturally to the challenges this evolving context brings. This paper engages critically with intercultural initiatives and policies and their role in fostering inclusivity and cross-cultural understanding in education practice across Australia. It explores the discourses, policies, and curricula developments that attempt to address growing levels of diversity both within and beyond educational settings. The paper argues that policy statements and educational policies alone are not sufficient to ensure broader uptake of an intercultural pedagogic ethos. Rather, such initiatives need to be augmented by broader institutional leadership, adequate resourcing, and context-sensitive enabling strategies. This argument is corroborated by current evidence indicating that principled approaches to introducing intercultural perspectives in education require certain conditions before they can disrupt long-standing racist attitudes and exclusionary discourse. The implementation of systematic and transformative intercultural approaches in schools can create more inclusive pedagogic practices and respectful intercultural relations that transcend the boundaries of the schoolyard and extend into broader society. Targeted, long-term intercultural understanding trainings can also engender more constructive discourse within and beyond schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1988 Dawkins reforms were designed, at least in part, to encourage public universities to organize themselves as if they were corporate enterprises, in order to create a more efficient and competitive sector that was less reliant on government funding. This paper assesses whether successive policy changes since the 1988 Dawkins reforms have achieved these efficiency, competition, and funding objectives. It does so by examining their financial performance over time, applying the techniques employed by investment analysts in the private sector to assess the performance of market participants. It demonstrates that the policy changes have reduced efficiency and competitiveness, and weakened the financial position of a number of universities. It provides empirical support for previous research highlighting the significant structural and regulatory constraints on the creation of a competitive market in higher education. Furthermore, it demonstrates that 35 years of policy change have merely reinforced pre-existing market positions and that, even before the impact of the COVID pandemic is considered, the financial position of the sector has been weakened as a result of the changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers issues that continue to shape doctoral education in Australia in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of relevant issue, and to identify opportunities for future research. It describes examples of responses taken at an institutional level, and their implications for the norms and practices associated with postgraduate research, supervision and candidate support. Comments from discussions with a small number of Australian Deans of Graduate Research are used to illustrate the challenges faced, and the responses taken. The article provides a concise outline of the policy and historical context for these responses, and concludes by considering some of the issues that continue to shape doctoral education in Australia today. It highlights the rise of location-independent graduate research and the prospect of generational change in the higher education workforce as significant factors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as potentially fruitful avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of widening participation initiatives internationally, including those in Australia, much has been written about equity policies in education. There is a growing body of research related to the outcomes of such policies and the experiences of non-traditional students, including those from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds and students who are First Generation and/or First in Family, as well as other equity groups. This paper presents data related to a less researched effect of widening participation: the experiences of and impact on academic staff and those providing support services to students. We focus particularly on students from LSES backgrounds. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups with academic and student support staff in a large regional Australian university, with several themes emerging. In this paper, we investigate staff experiences related to diversity in student cohorts, drawing on Bourdieu's concept of capital. Results show that the academics are supportive of LSES students and sensitive to the range of student backgrounds in their courses, including differences in cultural capital and students experiencing extreme hardship, but the support provided is affected by staff gender. It is evident that staff endeavour pedagogically and pastorally to support students, often at personal cost. There are workload and welfare implications evident for staff, institutions and funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the place of plurilingualism in Language and Literacy Education. The article problematises English-only, monolingual-centric assumptions upon which much of Australia's current literacy education policy discourse has been based, to instead advance pluriliteracies as an alternate, more generative lens through which to view literacy learners, literacy learning, and literacy capabilities. The paper begins with tensions inherent in how policy "imagines" learners in Australian schools, and the problem of imposing English-only, monolingual-centric notions of literacy when multilingualism is increasingly more the norm than the exception in many mainstream Australian classrooms. We consider how a pluriliteracy perspective on literacy education offers a more appropriate approach to addressing learners' developmental literacy needs, with particular attention to students' identity and agency. Finally, we consider effective implementation of plurilingual approaches to language and learning, with a focus on the intersection of ideology, practice, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migration is attaining new records, diversifying nations' cultural–social landscapes. The number of international migrants is estimated to be about 272 million globally, with nearly two‐thirds being labour migrants, surpassing historic projections. Concomitantly, migrant teachers are becoming more prevalent in educational markets; spaces that may serve as institutional vehicles promoting social cohesion and tolerance. Acknowledging that such spaces have an increasing share of faith‐based schools—settings that foreground particular groups' cultural and social values—this critical analysis seeks to identify how migrant teachers' aspirations are shaped and ethically negotiated in seemingly exclusive educational sites. Drawing upon migrant teacher interviews from American and Australian faith‐based schools, and utilising concepts of motility and institutional viscosity, this paper captures the schools' 'viscous' conditions and complex facilitation through which educators professionally move and ethically navigate their practice. Bourdieu's thinking tools of field, habitus, capital and symbolic violence provided a supplementary theoretical framework that draws attention to the evolving discourse of the subordinate 'invisible foreign educator' in the faith‐based educational setting. The paper portrays strategies of initial institutional welcoming; enabling migrant educators a smooth spatial mobility into the field but challenging them to work against their social mobility aspirations. It illustrates the educators' failed attempts to negotiate intra‐institutional transitions; experiencing feelings of trepidation about future professional moves and ethical conflicts between their obligation to adhere to institutional procedures and commitment to operate from an ethic of care. The paper argues for education policies that enable motility over time and empower ethical skilled migration. [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]

Refugee-background youth in the Australian context have long been confronted with a series of challenges surrounding their living and educational conditions. However, limited research has been conducted to examine the underlying factors of such problems. This paper critically explores possible factors that contribute to or intensify the challenges that refugee-background children and youth face in Australia by scrutinising related legal documents and education policies (e.g. inclusive and language transition policies). It is argued that the living and learning crisis among refugee-background youth in Australia is a result of: (a) restrictive refugee law; (b) incomplete education policy; and (c) deep-rooted political and historical views on refugees. [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]

Given the intense politicisation of education, many teacher educators are caught in the cross-hairs of government's reform agendas, university expectations and student teacher needs. This paper reports on a study of 28 literacy teacher educators in four countries (Canada, US, Australia and England). This paper reports on the broad question: How is politics affecting literacy teacher educators? Three specific aspects are considered: their pedagogies, identity and well-being. It describes how their pedagogy (goals and teaching strategies) has narrowed because of mandated curriculum and exit exams. It shows how their identity as academics is being complicated because they often do not have time for their research. And their well-being is compromised because of excessive external inspections and as their community in the university splinters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of contemporary education policy levers that seek to standardise and measure teaching quality through the deployment of professional standards and increased surveillance of teachers' work. These policy frameworks—with a focus in this paper on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers—are contrasted against the experiences of five Australian primary school teachers, using interpretative case study analysis to demonstrate the contradictions, tensions and fragile discursive construction of the idealised 'good' teacher. Implications for teacher agency and autonomy are considered, and propositions are generated for policy frameworks that support and enhance quality teaching, rather than reducing the complexities of teaching to a set of standardised metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is incumbent upon universities to deliver quality degree programs that produce employable graduates with discipline-specific knowledge and a well-developed set of generic skills known as graduate attributes. To safeguard the achievement of these outcomes, this paper argues for a holistic, longitudinal approach to degree planning known as programmatic assessment. The status of this relatively new phenomenon in the Australian university landscape is examined through an analysis of assessment-related policies from twenty-two of Australia's top-performing universities. Discourse analysis was employed to determine how programmatic assessment is depicted in policy, how key players are positioned in this space, and the discursive practices used to imbue policy with hortatory intent. The results of this analysis are outlined and indicate that policy constructions of a program-level approach to assessment are inconsistent across different universities and very few policies have specific guidelines about how programmatic assessment should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on Bourdieu's theorising (particularly habitus and field) to think about position‐making of teachers in respect of the early enactment of the Australian Curriculum. Position‐making, a concept developed from the analysis proffered, can be contrasted with the more common practice of position‐taking endemic in a relatively stable field. Position‐making is an ongoing phenomenon in a changing field when the habitus is out of place, here the field of the new Australian Curriculum, creating the effect of what Bourdieu sees as hysteresis. This paper explores the positioning and re‐positioning of agents (teachers and school leaders) due to an external change (the Australian curriculum) in the schooling field. Data for this study were collected from a middle‐class state high school in Brisbane Australia, which was an early adopter of the new Australian Curriculum. The initial enactment phase of curriculum change was an unsettling one that (re)positioned agents—hence, the concept of position‐making, which is a contribution to Bourdieu's theoretical resources and which complements the idea of policy enactment as opposed to policy implementation. Both allow some agency in mediation of mandated changes in the specific contexts of schools and teacher/leader habitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper furthers the understanding of literacy being developed through this Special Issue by bringing a pluralistic, complex account of literacy into conversation with assessment. The rise of neoliberalism in education--and its related focus on standards, accountability, and efficiency--has seen literacy positioned as the "core business" of contemporary education systems and, accordingly, a construct that must be rendered readily measurable, benchmarked, and accounted for. Through a critique of current literacy assessment practices in Australia relying on standardized testing to achieve such accountability using National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy and Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education as examples, we argue that the resulting dominant account of literacy is both reductive and deficient. On the one hand, we show how standardized literacy testing fails to recognize students' actual potential, in terms of the diverse and varied plurilingual and cultural meaning-making resources that many students now bring to literacy, beyond using Standard Australian English alone (and as a monolingual speaker would use SAE as an isolated language system). On the other, we show how standardized tests can render the assessment of literacy as effectively meaningless, given difficulties discriminating between test-takers' full range of literacy skills in meaningful ways. We conclude by considering alternative practices with potential to more accurately assess learners' literacy capabilities from a plurilingual perspective, and implications for education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposition that international students are not only sojourners but future immigrants has become well established in public policy. While education and immigration policy have become more intertwined, they continue to be analysed as separate spheres of influence. This paper compares Australia, Canada, and Germany, which between them host nearly 20% of all globally mobile students and where a nexus between international student and immigration policy has emerged. Using critical discourse analysis, a comparative case study design and based on a systematic literature review of over 300 studies published from 1990 to 2018, the findings revealed three ostensibly paradoxical discourses, which are discussed using the new term 'discursive pairings'. First, international students are selected for success but remain vulnerable to policy shifts that may exclude them and cause them to 'fail'. Second, international students are retained to fill economic shortages, but face difficulties being accepted on the labour market. Third, international students help build national reputation yet have been known to be exploited and subject to discrimination. The contradictions that emerge in the discourses bring into question the 'ideal immigrant' framing of international students, demonstrating that their role, acceptance, and ability to integrate into host countries is far from assured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Australian mass schooling has seen contestations over school and curriculum purposes, zig-zagging across conservative and progressive directions. In this paper, we examine how possibilities for students to have 'voice', 'participation' and 'leadership' in their learning are currently limited in Australia. Policy framings, we argue, dampen potentials for connecting young people's democratic and activist impulses – manifest, in our example, in the Schools Strike for Climate movement – with curriculum activity that responds to local-global challenges such as the viral-ecological crisis. We propose an activist curriculum praxis wherein young people undertake action-research – in collaboration with diverse community actors, teachers and academics – on problems that matter for local-global future life with others. Since local-global emergencies are emergent, curriculum must build citizen-capacities to work together, apprenticing to problems that matter for social futures, creating emergently needed knowledge-in-action. This participatory-democratic curriculum approach challenges schools to become more socially just and proactive institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it is at the local school-level that reform agendas can and should be directed by the pedagogical and innovative work of educators. We focus on 'relational pedagogy' because it offers opportunities to enact school-wide reform and enhance the professional capacities of educators as pedagogical innovators. Contemporary education reform agendas are best situated and registered within school sites and relational pedagogy stands as a deeply contextualised provocation for enacting school renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the field of language teaching has been increasingly recognised as having an important role in developing not only linguistic proficiency, but also a kind of 'interculturality' among students. Despite this 'intercultural turn' being evident in academic and policy documents, language teachers are at varying stages in their adaptation to such an approach. This paper draws on empirical data from a small-scale study conducted with teachers of Indonesian in Australian schools, to elucidate teachers' understandings of their role as 'intercultural' educators. In particular, the notion of 'culture' is examined, and the ways it is deployed around ideas of 'intercultural understanding' and language teaching pedagogy. This paper argues that despite the prevalence of 'interculturality' in educational policy, and a prevailing 'intercultural ethos' amongst teachers, confusion persists around the foundational idea of 'culture', which may affect teaching philosophy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the intensely competitive international higher education sector, universities can still play a role in providing public good through building social solidarity and mobility in volatile and increasingly divided societies. This paper draws on a longitudinal narrative enquiry that follows 22 students from asylum-seeking backgrounds in Australian universities—a distinct group within the category of forced migration whose university experiences have rarely been studied. It explores the students' visceral realities and tensions as they attempt to navigate government and institutional policies and practices which fail to recognise the unique category and needs of this distinct group. The paper develops a conceptual frame comprising a critical theory of recognition (Axel Honneth) and the feminist developments of recognition (Nancy Fraser). It explores how competing discourses are being played out in Australian universities about the educational needs of students from asylum-seeking backgrounds. Finally, it critically reflects on the role of universities' policies and practices in enabling and/or constraining public good through recognising the unique needs of students of asylum-seeking backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research in Health and Physical Education has repeatedly highlighted that curriculum development is an ongoing, complex and contested process, and that the realisation of progressive intentions embedded in official curriculum texts is far from assured. Drawing on concepts from education policy sociology this paper positions teacher educators as key policy actors in the interpretation and enactment of new official curriculum texts. More specifically, it reports research that has explored four teacher educators' engagement with a specific feature of the new Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE); five interrelated propositions or 'key ideas' that underpinned the new curriculum and openly sought to provide direction for progressive pedagogy in Health and Physical Education. The paper provides conceptual and empirical insight into teacher educators consciously positioning themselves as policy actors, motivated to play a role in shaping policy directions and future curriculum practices. As such, the teacher educators in this project are identified as policy entrepreneurs and provocateurs. The paper details a dialogic research process between the researchers that was designed to make curriculum interpretation a more transparent, collaborative and generative process. The data reported illustrates the research process supporting teacher educators to engage in productive debate about the possible meanings and enactment of the five propositions. Analysis reveals differing perspectives on the propositions and a shared investment in efforts to support their progressive intent. Empirically, the paper highlights the critical role that teacher educators will play in the ongoing enactment of a new curriculum that is overtly identified as 'futures oriented'. Conceptually, the paper adds depth and sophistication to understandings of teacher educators as policy actors. Methodologically, we propose that the research process described can be usefully adopted by other teacher educators and teachers engaged in similar processes of curriculum development, interpretation and enactment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to be an important part of education governance. It is already being built into everything from business intelligence platforms to real-time online testing. In this paper, we aim to understand how AI becomes, and forms, a legitimate part of authority in contemporary education governance in what we call the automated education governance assemblage, that incorporates technology companies and AI-supported products used in education. We focus on EduTech Australia – an education technology trade show in Sydney – as a way to look at: (i) how the different aspects of automated governance are connected at EduTech, including the relations between different participants, companies and products; and (ii) how the automated governance assemblage works to legitimise and constitute EduTech as a policy space and site of new authorities in education governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a rhetorical analysis of policy texts illustrating the emergence of the mandatory Educational Leader role in early childhood services in Australia. We argue that policy texts before 2012 constructed a 'problem' of workforce quality in early childhood education and offered a new leadership configuration as a policy solution. We identify and critically address how this social architecture was constructed and made persuasive through key rhetorical devices, particularly the combined pathos of the vulnerable child and a logos of quality improvement. Initial analysis indicated an apparent contradiction between the economic rationalism of earlier (policy advice) texts and an emphasis on professional dispositions in the later (policy implementation) texts, when describing the Educational Leader. We argue, however, that these policy implementation documents reinforce, rather than contradict, a neoliberal economistic logos, because they attempt to form Educational Leaders as autonomous moral agents of neoliberal responsibilization. We conclude by considering some potential implications of our analysis for the early childhood field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, a new system of collecting data on school-aged students with disability is in the early phases of implementation. The nationally consistent collection of data on school-age students with disability (NCCD) establishes a mandatory data collection process in which teachers categorise and report on individual students' level of additional educational needs. This data is used to determine funding allocations for students with disability. Under this policy, teachers are responsible for assessing students' needs, and for documenting their own teaching practice. This paper reports on the early phases of policy implementation. It presents data from teachers at two schools to make visible the new work teachers must undertake. Drawing on Dorothy E. Smith's sociological contributions, we show how the NCCD reorients teachers' work towards documentation and the production of evidence. After exploring teachers' work, we analyse how the NCCD is being taken up in ways that do not contribute to policy aims of ensuring teachers are better able to understand and meet student requirements. Our aim is to understand how the everyday realities of how teachers' work intersects with NCCD goals, and whether this new national policy is likely to make sustained inroads into achieving broader inclusive education ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, school leadership is influenced by neoliberal discourses of accountability and performativity. Many schools seek to balance systemic pressures that narrow outcome expectations with a desire to deliver schooling in the broad interests of the students and communities that they serve. In this case, the principal was appointed to a school under threat of closure. To re-establish he purposefully disrupted traditional arrangements using approaches that disregarded many standard school improvement paradigms. The school improved in enrolments, reputation and student learning. This paper examines how this principal found and created spaces for disruptive change within the local context and the broader policy environment. While the value or ethics of the leadership are not the focus of the paper, it is noted that the autocratic position he assumed was problematic. Despite this, the case provides insight into leadership that resisted the confines of normative pressures to support radical school improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has witnessed a significant growth of private higher education around the world. The growth included the number of private education providers, and also the growing number of students. While some countries are experiencing trend growth, others are witnessing decline. Some of the reasons for the decline include increased regulation and stringent accreditation and reaccreditation of higher education institutions and courses, government policies to encourage the growth of public universities, and acquisition of small providers by large private education institutions. The growth of private higher education has increased competition, and it has also established collaboration with public institutions. The growth of private higher education has also raised concerns about ethical governance, maintenance of academic standards, and mechanisms to plan, review, and improve educational outcomes. This paper focuses on Australia where despite growth, there is limited research about private higher education. This paper reviews literature on the global growth and decline of private higher education. It then analyses the trends in Australia and possible scenarios for the future of private higher education in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artefacts are an important part of policy work, and a means of representation, translation, re-negotiation, and resistance of policy. While research has established their integral role in policy enactment, little research has examined the production and/or dissemination of artefacts by teacher educators. This paper reports and analyses the production and re-production of a specific set of artefacts, arising from the policy work of four teacher educators seeking to influence the interpretation and enactment of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE). Analysis and discussion pursue: the rationale for producing a set of artefacts focusing on a particular feature of the AC HPE; the processes of artefact production; actions designed to activate and re-present the artefacts; and emerging evidence of uptake and impact. The relationship of artefacts to policy work is shown to be strategically significant for teacher educators, teachers and others invested in new curriculum developments, and is characterised as both fluid and generative. We argue that artefacts have important performative policy potential and play a key role in supporting and shaping curriculum policy enactment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses of 'teacher quality' have been on the rise in Australia since at least the standards-focused policy reforms of the 1990s. This paper uses a corpus-assisted analysis to explore recent deployments of 'teacher quality' and 'teaching quality' in the Australian print media, drawing on 432 articles collected from the 12 Australian national and capital city daily newspapers over the four-year period from January 2014 to December 2017. The analysis highlights that 'teacher quality' and 'teaching quality' are deployed differently in respect to school teachers and teachers in higher/vocational education contexts, and examines the nature of these differences. It demonstrates that the print media plays a key role in shaping and/or reflecting the links between discourses of teacher quality and notions of standards and accountability in education; and also in reflecting the highly politicised and political nature of teacher quality discussions and debates in Australia at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents lesser known accounts from policy makers whose experiences as elite informants span 40 or so years in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy history between 1972 and 2009. Drawing on a post-structuralist theoretical frame, this paper employs a Foucauldian-influenced approach to discourse analysis. Given the complexity of policy-making contexts, an adaptation of Bradley’s categories was utilised to categorise the elite informants as policy insiders according to their roles and positions within organisations. Bacchi’s approach to policy analysis was drawn upon to critically analyse the effects of policy insider categories on meanings of quality in the formation of ECEC policy. The findings raise questions about what could be known and spoken about meanings of quality in past policy-making processes. They suggest the innermost categories of policy insiders struggle to retain complex meanings of quality in final ECEC policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the construction of teachers within one New South Wales education policy, querying this construction in relation to both local and international processes and factors. As such, it also looks to contribute to a growing body of international literature which grapples with the role and nature of neoliberal policy development in education more broadly. To accomplish this, the paper analyses Great Teaching, Inspired Learning (GTIL), a policy with wide-ranging and potentially significant ramifications for teachers. Ultimately it is argued that although aspects of neoliberal thinking are evident in the policy, particularities of context have mediated this push. It is suggested that this has led to a particular neoliberalisation of policy that variously targets and supports individual teachers and the systems and structures surrounding them, while the place of GTIL within both local state politics and the global imaginary is questioned. [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]

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]

Graduate employment rates and self‐reported employability are increasingly a feature of higher education funding measures. However, graduate outcomes do not denote the whole learning experience of the student nor is the student experience reducible to a single statistic. This paper discusses a design‐centric approach to employability development which was enacted within a hybrid learning space. The study engaged 52 final‐year speech pathology students, their lecturer, the lead researcher and a career practitioner (advisor) at an Australian university. Students first created personalized employability profiles using an established online self‐reflection tool. The online tool produced a personalized report and enabled students to access developmental resources relating to employability and student success. The project team used anonymized student data to transform a previously generic "careers" workshop into a targeted workshop in which students explored individual and cohort findings and participated in developmental activities informed by the data. The initiative's contribution to learning space research is in its composition as a hybrid learning space in which educators and students engaged as learners and developers of their online learning spaces, and educators collaborated to analyze student data and inform learning and teaching enhancements within the same study period. It is anticipated that the data from subsequent years will inform the curricular review, particularly if subsequent student cohorts express similar concerns. Implications for higher education policy and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious damage to teacher professionalism is being triggered by the current performance dominated culture caused by neoliberal global conditions (performativity) in Australian schools. Many teachers are feeling severely compromised in their ability to offer quality teaching to their students. It is imperative that education policy makers and school leaders are informed on the latest research and literature around this topic. This will help to instigate plans to move forward in a more positive way. This paper explores the relationships between the qualities of a professional teacher and the negative effects of performativity and proposes a rebalancing framework. Three significant elements of teachers' professionalism are identified as essential components of a professional teacher: knowledge, autonomy and responsibility. The negative effects of performance culture on these three aspects are discussed and three compromising factors are identified: lack of autonomy, stifled creativity and breach of trust. Finally, evolving from the analysis of relevant research and literature, a conceptual framework is proposed. With a recurring theme of establishing a balance between control and collaboration, this rebalancing framework focuses on the interconnecting elements of leadership, professional learning and responsible, informed accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the changing modes of governance of education policy in the European Union (EU) and Australia through a lens of 'soft governance'. It considers the increa sed use of 'policy instruments' such as benchmarking, targets, monitoring, data-generation in policy-making in recent decades. It considers the roles these policy instruments play in coordinating education policy in the EU and Australia as well as their intended and unintended consequences. It shows that in the EU, these instruments played a role in strengthening the coordination through the links between individuals and programs, and networking, which is seen as resulting in enhanced creativity in policy solutions, development of new norms and new means for achieving policy goals. While in Australia it seems that the role of these instruments is focused on consolidating the role of the Commonwealth's oversight and control over what constitutionally is a responsibility of States which adds to several policy tensions already existing in the federal coordination of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a Deweyian analysis of Australia's Ethical Understanding General Capability curriculum documents, which outline a promising moral education curriculum for students aged 4–17 years. The moral development of students has long been identified as a key aim of schooling. However, schools seldom have time for dedicated moral education classes. Furthermore, the two most prevalent approaches to moral education have been subject to considerable criticism: 1) 'traditional' character education, which has been criticised for indoctrinating students; and 2) 'progressive' inquiry based approaches that are often criticised for promoting moral subjectivism. Australia's national curriculum offers a promising alternative, named the Ethical Understanding General Capability. It integrates moral education into existing school subjects. Drawing on the ideas of John Dewey, I argue that Australia's Ethical Understanding curriculum avoids both indoctrination and subjectivism and aims to foster the three key elements of moral education: 1) understanding of moral issues and concepts; 2) moral inquiry skills; and 3) moral habits and values (e.g. being honest and caring). The Philosophy for Children program (P4C), which is heavily influenced by Dewey's ideas, provides practical methods for implementing the Ethical Understanding curriculum in diverse subject areas at both the primary and secondary levels of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the changing terrain of disability support policy in Australia. Drawing on a critical disability framework of policy sociology, the paper considers the policy problem of access to education for people with disabilities under recent reform by means of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which commenced full roll-out across the country from July 2016. The paper reviews NDIS reports, legislation and associated literature to consider how eligibility to scheme participation and education services are shaped, and how education is positioned in the development and implementation of the NDIS. The analysis highlights tensions that exist for people with disabilities and their families who both access the scheme and who might draw on its provision to support their education, because of the way the policy is oriented towards pathological categorisation, standardised outcomes and service delineation rather than integrated support and informed involvement. The paper concludes by arguing that despite the policy priority across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries of increasing lifelong learning opportunities, fragmented NDIS policy in Australia prevents people with disabilities from achieving this ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically documents media portrayals of Australia’s performance on the Program for the International Student Assessment (PISA), 2000–2014. We analyse newspaper articles from two national and eight metropolitan newspapers. This analysis demonstrates increased media coverage of PISA over the period in question. Our research data were analysed using ‘framing theory’, documenting how the media frames stories about Australia’s performance on PISA. Three frames were identified: counts and comparisons; criticisms; and contexts. Most of the media coverage (41%) was concerned with the first frame, counts and comparisons, which analysed PISA data to provide ‘evidence’ that was then used to comparatively position Australia against other countries, reference societies, which do better, with particular emphasis on Finland and also Shanghai after the 2009 PISA. The other two frames dealt with criticisms and contextual issues. This paper only focuses on the first frame. The analysis demonstrates the ways in which media coverage of Australia’s PISA performance has had policy impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:This paper approaches evidence-informed practice from the perspective of evidence-informed policy-making. Using the findings of a recent study of evidence-use by educational policy-makers to raise questions about evidence-use by educational practitioners, it seeks to explore what such a study might tell us about how to understand and improve evidence-use by educational practitioners. Purpose:The paper aims, therefore, to identify potential connections, shared insights and common issues between evidence-use in policy and evidence-use in practice. It does this by focusing on two specific areas: the nature of the evidence (i.e.whatevidence is used) and the nature of the use (i.e.howevidence is used). The paper outlines what was found about each of these aspects of evidence-use in policy, and then considers what questions and issues these findings might raise for evidence-use in educational practice. Sample:The empirical study on which this paper is based was an in-depth study of the use of evidence within educational policy development in Australia. It focused on the development of three specific education policies within one Australian state education department and involved interviews with 25 policy-makers who were actively involved in the development of these policies. Design and methods:The policy-based study involved the following data collection processes: (i) in-depth semi-structured interviews with 25 policy-makers who were involved in the development of the selected policies; (ii) documentary analysis of policy documents, background research reports and other relevant papers relating to the selected policies; (iii) unstructured observation (where possible) of meetings and events connected with the development of the selected policies; and (iv) feedback from 40 wider policy staff who took part in a verification workshop to discuss the project’s emerging findings. Findings:Drawing on the findings from the original policy study, two areas of potential connection to evidence-use in practice are explored. First, in relation to ‘varieties of evidence and uses’, the negotiation of diverse evidence types and the potential for using evidence in multiple and varied ways appear to be features of evidence-use that are common to educational policy-makers as well as educational practitioners. Secondly, in relation to ‘narrowness of evidence sources’, there is potential for both policy-makers and practitioners to use a narrow (rather than broad) selection of evidence, due to a tendency to work with certain evidence types as a starting point (e.g. performance data) and a tendency to draw on certain evidence sources more frequently (e.g. well-known, familiar research sources). Conclusions:This paper emphasises: (i) the need for more integrated (or joined-up) understandings of evidence-use across contexts of practice and contexts of policy; (ii) the importance of continued efforts to understand and represent evidence-use more effectively within educational practices; and (iii) the value of paying careful attention to the quality and qualities of evidence-use within and across the different settings of educational practice and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of data infrastructure in Australian schooling with a specific focus on interoperability standards that help to make new markets for education data. The conceptual framework combines insights from studies of infrastructure, economic markets and digital data. The case of the Australian National Schools Interoperability Program is analysed, drawing on a corpus of web-based technical and promotional documents and supporting interviews. The paper shows that Australia has well-developed data infrastructure in schooling that is creating new relations between schools, school systems and commercial vendors within network markets for data-driven educational technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A century on from the height of John Dewey’s educational writings and the reputation of the Gary Schools Plan as a model of progressive education, the paper reappraises two key matters: the relationship between John Dewey and William Wirt, the first superintendent of the Gary Schools in Gary Indiana, and the coherence between John Dewey’s progressive pedagogies and the early years of the Gary Schools Plan. Through drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources of information, the paper analyses the connections between John Dewey, William Wirt and the Gary Schools Plan in their shared quest to extend progressive education into new urban and industrial schooling contexts. The paper highlights areas where existing assumptions require review and the extent to which the relationship and connections between Dewey and Wirt’s work were mutually beneficial. The paper ends by calling for further related research based on the archival material available. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines school principal responses to the policy discourse of widening participation in higher education. As a critical analysis of how policy is produced, read and responded to by principals [Bacchi, C., 2009.Analysing policy: what's the problem represented to be?New York: Pearson], the paper questions the assumptions underpinning policies aiming to widen participation of young people in schools where families have traditionally not viewed higher education as a possible or desirable option [e.g. Bok, J., 2010. The capacity to aspire to higher education: ‘It's like making them do a play without a script’.Critical studies in education, 51 (2), 163–178]. Policy is adopted, adapted, ignored or countered by principals and teachers due to ‘situated necessity’ resulting from the history, location, pupil and parental social mix, staffing, material and economic conditions of the school and community infrastructure [Braun, A.,et al., 2011. Taking context seriously: towards explaining policy enactments in the secondary school.Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 32 (4), 585–596]. The data are drawn from principal interviews undertaken when researching a Year 8 Mentoring and Tutoring programme, one component of a three-year Access Express programme, a federally funded Higher Education and Partnership and Participation Programme, developed by a collaboration between a Victorian university and 7 secondary schools. Access Express’ focus on university-school partnerships captured the trend in Australia, the UK and USA during the 2000s to facilitate transitioning out-of-school through long-term university-school partnerships [Armstrong, D. and Cairnduff, A., 2011. Building university-school partnerships.In:D. Bottrell and S. Goodwin, eds.Schools, communities and social inclusion. South Yarra: Palgrave Macmillan, 268–279]. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which universities’ strategic plans affect the level of incorporation of sustainability within the curriculum design and property portfolio.Design/methodology/approach This research adopted a case study approach. The case study institution was Deakin University in Australia. This paper used a qualitative research method. Desk-top study included the review of the University’s Strategic Plan, policy agenda on sustainability and the documents on sustainability courses and units. Semi-structured interviews were held with academics who have course development and management responsibility within the university, colleagues who have a sustainability-focused role on estate management and colleagues whose roles are to manage sustainability initiatives at the institution level. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. Content analysis was used to analyse the interview data.Findings Despite the University having clear strategic aims and initiatives on the incorporation of sustainability within the curriculum design and property portfolio, there is disconnection between policy development and policy implementation. As a result, the incorporation of sustainability varies largely between curricula within the institution. The incorporation of sustainability within the property portfolio is clear and effective. However, within the curriculum, it is polarised. The level of incorporation depends on the nature of the course or unit and is largely driven by the initiatives of the individual academic. Good practice identified in the incorporation of sustainability within the curriculum is to use a problem-based approach supported by real life projects to enhance the students’ authentic learning experience. A good practice for successfully incorporating sustainability into the property portfolio is to have clear vision of what it has planned to achieve and to ensure that there is a balance between sustainability and value for money.Originality/value This is pioneering research to investigate the incorporation of sustainability into higher education in a more comprehensive way. This paper considered the impact of strategic planning on the incorporation of sustainability within a higher education, on both curriculum design and property portfolio management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of vocational education and training (VET) and, in particular, the quality of VET teaching, is a prominent topic of discussion in Australia's post-compulsory education sector. VET teachers are described as 'dual professionals', and expected to maintain current vocational competencies (industry currency) as well as pedagogical skills for effective VET teaching practice. This paper examines issues associated with industry currency activities for Australian VET teachers. It reports on findings from a qualitative study which employed a multiple case study methodology to examine advanced skills for VET teachers. Emergent findings suggest that while legislation requires VET teachers to maintain current vocational competencies as well as knowledge and skills for effective VET teaching, interpretation of policy into practice has led to an unbalanced approach which emphasises industry currency activities over pedagogical skills development. Further, teachers reported difficulty completing currency requirements due to competing pressures of time and teaching commitments, and some industry currency activities regarded as legitimate by VET managers and auditors appear to offer limited developmental opportunities for VET teachers while other activities were overlooked. This is a significant issue which requires further investigation due to its potential impact on VET teacher development and the quality of VET teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues neoliberal programs of government in education are equipping parents for calculativeness. Regimes of testing and the publication of these results and other organizational data are contributing to a public economy of numbers that increasingly oblige citizens to calculate. Using the notions of calculative and market devices, this paper examines the Australian Government’sMy Schoolwebsite, which publishes academic and organizational information about schools, including national test results. While it is often assumed that such performance technologies contribute to neoliberal reform of education through school choice, the paper argues the website is technically limited in its capacity to facilitate the economic calculations and calculated action of parents resulting in school choice. The paper instead opensMy Schoolto analysis as a technique of governmental self-formation. Using the theoretical resources of actor-network theory and Foucauldian scholarship, this paper complicates assumptions in the literature about the extent to whichMy Schoolactually operates as a ‘market mechanism’. It arguesMy Schoolattempts to cultivate a calculated form of parental educational agency, irreducible to economic market agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]