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This paper provides an overview of the policies of school autonomy in Australian public education from the Karmel report in 1973 to the present day. The key focus is on the social justice implications of this reform. It tracks the tensions between policy moves to both grant schools greater autonomy and rein in this autonomy with the increasing instatement of external forms of regulation. Utilising Nancy Fraser's concepts of dis-embedding and re-embedding markets, we track key policy moments in three Australian states (Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales) along with federal interventions. We draw attention to the redistributive and representative justice implications arising from these policy moments as occurring within a consistent trajectory towards a market agenda and argue that future policy needs to consider the effect of past policy.

This paper examines principals' perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research.

A persuasive solution for governments and systemic authorities seeking to improve the quality and equity of outcomes for students has been the localized management of schools. Believed to provide opportunities for context-sensitive decision-making, what remains unclear is how does shifting increasing management to the school-level generate the type of leadership necessary to improve outcomes? Drawing from a subset from an Australian study of school autonomy, we argue that reforms simply cannot improve outcomes as they generate work that takes leaders and educators away from teaching and learning activities and sustain if not advance enduring inequities in the system.

Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakeholders in public education across four Australian states of how the latest school autonomy reform policies, including Independent Public Schools, supports corporatized and seemingly depoliticised repositioning of school councils. This data indicates there is a shift from elected parental representation to principal selection of 'skill-based' community members, with the greatest implications for those schools in disadvantaged communities experiencing difficulties gaining voluntary parental participation. We offer new theoretical insights into the links between school autonomy, governance, the role and composition of school boards and social justice informed by Nancy Fraser's theorising of social justice. We identify an emerging tension between first, parent movements as counter publics claiming participatory parity in decision-making in school councils; and secondly, principal selection of self-interested and politically influential actors onto school councils, potentially politicising school councils.

Onrushing ecological precarity and collapse disproportionately affects particular humans and their common worlds. This article proposes that in the face of the myriad crises the Earth is experiencing, and the uneven distribution of their effects, extending conceptions of justice in education beyond the human is crucial. This, however, requires honing the ability to notice and attune to the common worlds we inhabit. Drawing on research which deployed a "walking with" methodology with young children in a national park, this article considers the potential of listening in multiple registers as a move toward common worlds justice in post-anthropocentric education. Possibilities for thinking with the registers of sound and smell are put forward for researchers and educators working with young children. The article concludes with a speculative vignette that offers pedagogical openings which make room for common worlds justice.

School autonomy policies have circulated through various modes of educational governance internationally, endorsing the view that more autonomy will improve schools and their systems. When subject to the discourses and practices of marketization, however, school 'autonomy' has been mobilized in ways that generate injustice. These injustices are the focus of this paper. We draw on preliminary findings from a three-year study that is exploring the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across four Australian states. Drawing on interviews with 42 stakeholders, the paper identifies four key areas of paradox for social justice currently confronting public schools and school systems. The language of paradox is drawn on to narrate the oppositional politics between the discourses and practices constituting school autonomy and the pursuit of social justice. Such narration raises important questions for Australian public education. It highlights how these discourses are changing what is meant by the public in public education. Engaging with the language of paradox in thinking about school autonomy reform, we argue, is important given the broader landscape where public schooling is being reconstituted and where traditional links to social justice and the common good are under threat.

Teacher professional autonomy is important to teachers' work satisfaction, efficiency, well-being, and empowerment. However, it cannot simply be defined as freedom from control because it is relational and contextual. In this paper, we examine the relationality and contextual sensitivity of teacher professional autonomy at 'Newstall' College, a senior secondary government school in Australia. The paper draws on a larger study that examined the social justice implications of school autonomy reform in four Australian state education systems. Newstall College was one of the five case study schools included in this study. Findings generated through in-depth interviews with eighteen staff members (including teachers, professional staff, the deputy principal and the principal) are presented that examine teacher professional autonomy. Conceptualising teacher autonomy as relational and contextual, the paper provides insight into the ways in which teacher autonomy was enabled at this school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdictions; and the economic maldistribution within state public systems, including the ability of their school communities to contribute funds. Spatial injustice is uncovered in economic maldistribution within and across these policy layers, adding nuance to existing school funding debates. The Australian case is relevant to international explorations of school funding as an example of 'unjust practice' in the hierarchies between schools across sectors, between jurisdictions, and within systems of public [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher wellbeing is a growing international concern. Despite teachers' experiences being deleteriously impacted by education policies and organisational conditions, dominant discourses of wellbeing focus on strategies that enhance individual self-management of wellbeing. This paper critically examines teacher wellbeing and the counter-discourses of wellbeing mobilised by teachers on an online platform, Reddit. Contributors criticise the wellbeing approaches taken in their schools and education systems. They react to the erasure of how work conditions impact their wellbeing. These forums speak back to the assumption that teachers are deficient and that teachers must be positive in self-managing their wellbeing. We coin the term 'cruel wellbeing' to critique wellbeing programs that neglect teachers' challenging work conditions. We question the practices of training teachers to assume responsibility for their wellbeing using strategies of positivity. We suggest that social media is an important political tool for creating and circulating counter-discourses of teachers' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines principals' perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakeholders in public education across four Australian states of how the latest school autonomy reform policies, including Independent Public Schools, supports corporatized and seemingly depoliticised repositioning of school councils. This data indicates there is a shift from elected parental representation to principal selection of 'skill-based' community members, with the greatest implications for those schools in disadvantaged communities experiencing difficulties gaining voluntary parental participation. We offer new theoretical insights into the links between school autonomy, governance, the role and composition of school boards and social justice informed by Nancy Fraser's theorising of social justice. We identify an emerging tension between first, parent movements as counterpublics claiming participatory parity in decision-making in school councils; and secondly, principal selection of self-interested and politically influential actors onto school councils, potentially politicising school councils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A persuasive solution for governments and systemic authorities seeking to improve the quality and equity of outcomes for students has been the localized management of schools. Believed to provide opportunities for context-sensitive decision-making, what remains unclear is how does shifting increasing management to the school-level generate the type of leadership necessary to improve outcomes? Drawing from a subset from an Australian study of school autonomy, we argue that reforms simply cannot improve outcomes as they generate work that takes leaders and educators away from teaching and learning activities and sustain if not advance enduring inequities in the system.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Onrushing ecological precarity and collapse disproportionately affects particular humans and their common worlds. This article proposes that in the face of the myriad crises the Earth is experiencing, and the uneven distribution of their effects, extending conceptions of justice in education beyond the human is crucial. This, however, requires honing the ability to notice and attune to the common worlds we inhabit. Drawing on research which deployed a "walking with" methodology with young children in a national park, this article considers the potential of listening in multiple registers as a move toward common worlds justice in post-anthropocentric education. Possibilities for thinking with the registers of sound and smell are put forward for researchers and educators working with young children. The article concludes with a speculative vignette that offers pedagogical openings which make room for common worlds justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School autonomy policies have circulated through various modes of educational governance internationally, endorsing the view that more autonomy will improve schools and their systems. When subject to the discourses and practices of marketization, however, school 'autonomy' has been mobilized in ways that generate injustice. These injustices are the focus of this paper. We draw on preliminary findings from a three-year study that is exploring the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across four Australian states. Drawing on interviews with 42 stakeholders, the paper identifies four key areas of paradox for social justice currently confronting public schools and school systems. The language of paradox is drawn on to narrate the oppositional politics between the discourses and practices constituting school autonomy and the pursuit of social justice. Such narration raises important questions for Australian public education. It highlights how these discourses are changing what is meant by the public in public education. Engaging with the language of paradox in thinking about school autonomy reform, we argue, is important given the broader landscape where public schooling is being reconstituted and where traditional links to social justice and the common good are under threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]