Australian Education Research Articles

Patterns of educational performance among Indigenous students in Australia, 2010–2019: Within-cohort, peer matching analysis for data-led decision-making

Data reporting in the Australian education system produces deficit-based comparisons of academic achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Since 2009, data from the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) have been used by the Australian government to allow it to report on ‘Closing the Gap’ policy. These data are used to justify government-funded initiatives designed to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous students. While the logic of this approach has political cachet, the ‘gaps’ have persisted. Instead, we propose using ‘within-cohort, peer matching’ quantitative methods to achieve such aspirational goals. Using publicly available NAPLAN data, we examined patterns of relative performance within the cohort of Indigenous students. We assessed trends in Indigenous students’ performance in NAPLAN relative to their Indigenous peers across grades (3, 5, 7, and 9), states and territories, remoteness categories, and calendar years from 2010 to 2019 inclusive. Key insights available through this approach include detailed patterns of higher and lower relative performance for Indigenous students within matched remoteness categories, across states and territories, and over time, laying the groundwork for further analyses of the local, systemic, and school-level factors associated with these differing outcomes. Our methods provide novel findings that justify changing the deficit assumption, supporting the use of within-cohort peer matching instead.

Creativity in early childhood: how educators from Australia and Italy are documenting the creative thought processes of young children

Creative and critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making have attracted increasing interest over the last decade as key twenty-first century skills for education. While the Australian Curriculum implies that creativity should be applied to all learning domains, the Early Years Learning Framework for birth to 5 years (EYLF) largely relegates creativity to children’s expression through the creative arts. The world-renowned Reggio Emilia approach places creativity at the centre of its curriculum not as a creative product, but as a cognitive process. This paper draws upon recent research with early childhood teachers from NSW, Australia and Northern Italy who formed sister-centre relationships to share their perspectives on children’s creative thinking. Through email exchange, educators from each country sent three examples of centre documentation they believed demonstrated children’s creative thinking, with an invitation for a response from the sister centre. Vygotsky’s creative imagination theory, Malaguzzi and Rodari’s philosophies of creativity, imagination and education, provide theoretical frameworks to explain the creative processes of children. Findings suggest that the Australian educators in this study demonstrated the practice of responsiveness to children in co-constructing factual knowledge, while the Italian educators focused more on the processes of children’s thinking, with a view of the child as an imaginative and creative being. This paper argues that if creative thinking is an essential skill for lifelong learning, then more attention for how educators in early childhood education contexts are incorporating this into practice is needed.

Reimagining democratic education by positioning Aboriginal Country-centred learning as foundational to curriculum and pedagogy

In settler colonial societies such as Australia, democracy has its origins in colonisation and so this influences educational structures, policies and what is taught every day in classrooms. The current national education vision, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council Secretariat, 2019) states that a purpose of education is to create “a socially cohesive society that values respects and appreciates different points of view and cultural, social linguistic, and religious diversity” (p. 5), framing key democratic principles as central to this work. Paradoxically, as the corporate-style education agenda continues to narrow and limit an already Eurocentric, monocultural curriculum, and performance-manage teachers, democratic approaches such as critical thinking, problem-solving and experiential learning are at risk. In October 2023, the Australian people were asked to vote on altering the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander “Voice” to parliament. The Voice to Parliament would have provided greater representation in parliamentary processes and political decision making on matters impacting Indigenous peoples interests and rights (Fredericks, 2023, p. 125). The divisive debate and vilification of Indigenous Australians that preceded the referendum and resulted in a resounding “No” vote, reflects the historical failure of the education system to prepare students for active and informed citizenship. Learning from Country (LFC), where knowledges shared by Aboriginal peoples and Country are positioned as central to understanding this country, suggests a way in which we might decolonise Australian education and address the social, cultural and environmental issues facing all citizens. This paper discusses Country-centred learning where teacher educators and preservice teachers learn from Country through walking with and listen to Aboriginal community-based educators to develop the pedagogical skills needed to implement a participatory democratic approach in their classrooms. LFC supports opportunities to story Aboriginal ways of being, knowing and doing into curriculum and pedagogy using a framework to guide teachers in ways that respect multiple local community perspectives to build cohesive school communities.

Neither this nor that: the challenge of social justice for non-indigenous English teachers in First Nations Australian education contexts

ABSTRACT This article examines and critiques gap-based education policies that are based on statistical and reductive conceptualisations of success for First Nations students in Australia. The policy desire to achieve social justice underpinned by parity of outcomes across a range of life indicators (including standardised English literacy) between First Nations Australians and non-Indigenous Australians is embedded in programmatic approaches to pedagogy such as Accelerated Literacy (AL). We examine the experiences of Bruce, a teacher teaching English in the middle years of school in a school that mandated AL as a whole-of-school approach to English and literacy instruction. We show how intersecting notions of social justice can collide in the English classroom and how teachers in these contexts are in danger of re-colonising through English teaching practices that neither produce statistical improvement nor advance culturally responsive teaching based on giving primacy to Indigenous-authored texts in subject English.

Critical Translanguaging Capability as an Intercultural Pedagogy for Localizing Chinese Language Education

The native teachers of Chinese are often perceived as lacking in critical thinking and creativity when it comes to employing culturally appropriate and relatable learning content in their lesson delivery to foreign Chinese language learners. However, there is little research pertaining to the methods that native teachers of Chinese can use to critically and creatively transform their instructional materials, strategies, and beliefs towards localizing the Chinese language curriculum to better suit students coming from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. In an attempt to address this issue, a case study methodology, combined with photo-elicitation interviews, was adopted for data collection. It investigated a bilingual Chinese teacher-researcher who critically and flexibly utilized his cultural and linguistic repertoires in enacting translanguaging pedagogy practices in the Australian education context. This study reveals that the native Chinese teacher-researcher, was able to use his critical thinking and creative abilities backed by his indigenous Chinese linguistic and cultural concepts and metaphors to source and select appropriate localized content that facilitates student learning. Such translanguaging practices demonstrated that the native Chinese teacher-researcher’s critical thinking capability helped shape up intercultural pedagogy giving rise to a localized Chinese language curriculum in the Australian education context.

The Equity of Class Ability Grouping Practices in Australian Education: Findings from a Survey in Western Australia and Queensland

Grouping students into separate classes according to their ‘ability’ is an inequitable practice that does not, overall, improve academic outcomes. Research has continued to show that class ability grouping widens the educational gap between students from disadvantaged and privileged backgrounds. PISA data analysis suggests that class ability grouping continues to be used in Australian schools, at least in Year 10. However, no research has characterized the existing class ability grouping practices being used in secondary schools from Years 7 to 9. The findings reported in this paper add quantitative evidence to the literature, showing that students are experiencing different class ability grouping practices according to their year group, subjects, and locations. An across-state survey about class ability grouping was conducted with respondents from 143 schools providing data about the schools’ class ability grouping practices. The findings reveal variations in how class grouping practices are used by schools in Australia that have been not captured in other research: Class ability grouping was activated differently in different schools, increased as students’ year levels increased, was most prevalent in Maths and English, and was used more extensively in Western Australia than in Queensland. The findings use descriptive statistics to show that students in Australia are experiencing different grouping practices, with discussion of how some practices are more inequitable than others. This raises questions about how the varied forms of class ability grouping that are being employed are contributing to educational inequalities in Australia and how future research can address this problem.

Leveraging international education to advance women’s leadership: reflections of Indonesian alumnae of their Australian education experiences

ABSTRACT The link between international education and the extent to which it enhances women’s leadership aspirations calls for a more situated and nuanced approach to internationalisation theory and practice. Although international education is a significant capacity-building investment and is typically assumed to advance individual and collective leadership, there is scant attention to modalities of leadership aspirations and experiences of women post-international study. The paper draws on our research exploring post-study experiences of a cohort of Indonesian women to highlight the complexities and challenges of navigating leadership post-study in Australia. The study design incorporated a mixed-method approach of individual semi-structured interviews, focused group discussions and an online survey of a diverse cohort of alumnae. The findings show that international education has the potential for advancing women’s leadership aspirations where culture and individual women’s characteristics and circumstances are considered. Indeed, alumnae report that consolidating and advancing leadership calls for successfully navigating between societal norms, family pressures and institutional contexts whilst also tapping into their international education experience.

Supporting the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity in schools: Auditing Australian education departmental policies

While school policies are not a panacea, gender and sexuality diversity-inclusive policies have the potential to relieve educators’ concerns about what they are ‘allowed’ to engage with in respect to GSD inclusivity and to guide their proactive efforts to support gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) students. Unfortunately, policies enabling educators’ proactive, positive support for GSD students are far from systematised in schools across Australia’s eight states and territories. This paper presents an audit of publicly available policy guidance for educators in Australia’s government schools, analysing these against an original evaluative set of best-practice criteria developed from research recommendations from the field of GSD-inclusivity in K-12 schools. Analyses for each state/territory are provided. Results from this audit highlight the unevenness in articulated policy support available to Australian educators and illustrate the criticality of developing Australian federal policy mandates with respect to GSD inclusivity and professional development for educators, including both articulated expectations for the creation/maintenance of a safe and affirming environment as well as pragmatic support for how to create school cultural change.

The need for First Nations pedagogical narratives: epistemic inertia and complicity in (re)creating settler-colonial education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this conceptual paper is to posit a possible reason why non-Indigenous educators are seen to be ‘cautious’ in their pedagogic engagement with First Nations perspectives in curriculum, why interventions and programmess around reconciliation and truth-telling have limited traction in affecting change in school culture, and why the Australian education system is constructed to be, and remains, largely hostile to First Nations Peoples and perspectives. Despite several decades of studies exploring these phenomena and concerted efforts to ‘fix the problem’, there has been a systemic failure to shift discourses and practice beyond the completely absent, tokenistic, or superficial inclusion of First Nations narratives in Australian education. We argue that power-knowledge relations of settler-colonial discourses are fundamentally at play and that by examining how disciplinarity and settler-colonial frameworks of knowledge control operate in education, we conceptualize a possible reason to the pedagogical challenges faced in the decision-making and integration of First Nations narratives in curriculum.

Generative AI in the Australian education system: An open data set of stakeholder recommendations and emerging analysis from a public inquiry

The launch of new tools in late 2022 heralded significant growth in attention to the impacts of generative AI (GenAI) in education. Claims of the potential impact on education are contested, but there are clear risks of inappropriate use particularly where GenAI aligns poorly with learning aims. In response, in mid-2023, the Australian Federal Government held an inquiry, calling for public submissions. This inquiry offers a lens onto the policy framing of GenAI in education and provides the object of investigation for this paper. We use the inquiry submissions, extracting structured claims from each. This extraction is provided as an open data set for further research, while this paper focuses on our analysis of the policy recommendations made. Implications for practice or policy For practitioners, policymakers, and researchers. the paper provides an overview and synthesis of submission recommendations and their themes, by source type. For respondents to the inquiry (sources), the paper supports reflection regarding synergies and gaps in recommendations, pointing to opportunity for collaboration and policy development. For stakeholders with responsibility for aspects of policy delivery and/or those applying a critical lens to the inquiry and recommendation framing(s), the paper offers actionable insight.

‘Those moments are ineffable’. How creativity experienced through the Arts promotes empathy and compassion

ABSTRACTHow do teachers prepare their students for living in an increasingly fractured and inward-looking world? With the rise of populism and authoritarianism, one might argue that the ability to consider others’ needs and feel into their experiences might be more necessary now than ever. This article explores how empathy and compassion as moral attributes are experienced and developed through the creative and performing Arts. Rich examples provided by Australian educators of preservice teachers detail how the Arts promote embodied engagement with empathy and compassion which assist them to develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capabilities to make informed moral judgments. In this way, the Arts provide social, emotional, physical, and aesthetic connections that may counteract a decline in pro-social behaviour and play a significant role in shaping how the next generation responds to challenges both personal and global.

The Intersection of Cross-Border Migration and the Reconciliation of Work and Family: Chinese-Speaking Immigrant Women in Australia

The Intersection of Cross-Border Migration and the Reconciliation of Work and Family: Chinese-Speaking Immigrant Women in Australia

Social media in undergraduate teaching and learning: A scoping review protocol.

To conduct a scoping review that systematically examines the body of research on social media in undergraduate teaching and learning in order to identify key issues, trends, gaps, and needs. Our objectives include determining what methods have been commonly used to study social media in undergraduate teaching and learning, and to synthesise insights from published research findings within the fields of higher education, educational technology, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. The use of social media technologies in post-secondary environments has been increasing over time, and especially following the shift to remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this growth has continued. This review addresses a need to analyse and understand the body of research on the use of social media across undergraduate contexts for teaching and learning. This scoping review includes peer-reviewed journal articles on social media in an undergraduate teaching or learning context published at any time, in English. In addition to including concepts and terms related to social media broadly, based on global social media usage, we include within our search the most commonly used social media platforms. We excluded items from the grey literature (such as reports, dissertations, and theses), and studies that focus on groups outside of the undergraduate population of interest (e.g., in elementary, secondary, or graduate settings, etc.). Systematic searching will be conducted in relevant subject and multidisciplinary databases: Education Database, Education Research Complete, ERIC, British Education Index, Australian Education Index, Academic Search Complete, and Scopus. Records will be deduplicated and screened using Covidence software, with each record independently reviewed by two researchers in both rounds, screening titles and abstracts in the first round, and full-text of articles in the second. Researchers will meet to discuss discrepancies and make decisions using a consensus model, and a third researcher will be independently tasked with resolving any conflicts. Data extraction will also use two independent researchers to review each article.

Between the Lines: Integrating the Science of Reading and the Science of Behavior to Improve Reading Outcomes for Australian Children

Many Australian students fail to meet an acceptable standard of reading proficiency. This can negatively impact their academic progress, social, and emotional well-being, and increase their risk of developing challenging behaviors. These risks and challenges have been found to compound over the lifetime of the learner. Unfortunately, the proportion of Australian students who fail to meet reading proficiency standards increases as they move through their years of schooling, and reading difficulties disproportionately affect historically marginalized groups. This has raised concerns about the effectiveness of instructional approaches used within the Australian education system, particularly in reading, and prompted discussions of reform. The purpose of this review paper was to examine the contributions of the science of reading and science of behavior to our collective knowledge regarding reading development and effective reading instruction, and how this knowledge is currently being used in the Australian context. We provide a discussion on the current state of reading instruction and achievement in Australia by considering national trends, inequities, and systemic challenges. Implications and recommendations to address inequities in reading outcomes, using both the science of reading and science of behavior, are discussed.

Increasing access to screening for blood-borne viruses and sexually transmissible infections for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: evaluation of the Deadly Liver Mob program’s ‘cascade of care’ across nine sites in New South Wales, Australia

BackgroundAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are disproportionately impacted by blood-borne viruses (BBVs) and sexually transmissible infections (STIs). Stigma remains one of the key barriers to testing and treatment for BBVs and STIs, particularly among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The Deadly Liver Mob (DLM) is a peer-delivered incentivised health promotion program by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The program aims to increase access to BBV and STI education, screening, treatment, and vaccination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in recognition of the systemic barriers for First Nations people to primary care, including BBV- and STI-related stigma, and institutional racism. This paper presents routinely collected data across nine sites on the ‘cascade of care’ progression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients through the DLM program: hepatitis C education, screening, returning for results, and recruitment of peers.MethodsRoutinely collected data were collated from each of the DLM sites, including date of attendance, basic demographic characteristics, eligibility for the program, recruitment of others, and engagement in the cascade of care.ResultsBetween 2013 and 2020, a total of 1787 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients were educated as part of DLM, of which 74% went on to be screened and 42% (or 57% of those screened) returned to receive their results. The total monetary investment of the cascade of care progression was approximately $56,220. Data highlight the positive impacts of the DLM program for engagement in screening, highlighting the need for culturally sensitive, and safe programs led by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. However, the data also indicate the points at which clients ‘fall off’ the cascade, underscoring the need to address any remaining barriers to care.ConclusionsThe DLM program shows promise in acting as a ‘one stop shop’ in addressing the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in relation to BBVs and STIs. Future implementation could focus on addressing any potential barriers to participation in the program, such as co-location of services and transportation.

Caregivers of Children With Disabilities in the Northern Territory, Australia: Experiences of Educational Non-Inclusion

AbstractInclusive education is enshrined in law and supported by the literature as best practice in education. Inclusive education has been shown to provide better academic, social and behavioural outcomes for children with disabilities than segregated learning environments. In the Northern Territory, Australia, however, the dual system of mainstream and special education persists and so too does segregation and exclusion. The Northern Territory education strategy commits to strengthening inclusion and empowering families in educational decision-making by listening to their voices. In this paper, we highlight some of these voices, examining the experiences and perspectives of caregivers of children with disabilities as they participate in education in the Northern Territory. Caregivers’ experiences were coded into categories of inclusion and exclusion. Those that were not clearly inclusion nor exclusion were identified and the theme of non-inclusion was created. Non-inclusion was analysed thematically and is discussed as a nebulous space that exists for caregivers, presenting significant challenges that threaten their child’s inclusion at school as they navigate this dual system. If Australian education systems are to provide genuine inclusive education, we need to understand the experiences of caregivers better so we can remediate the issues creating non-inclusion for children with disabilities and caregivers.

Being responsive to Muslim learners: Australian educator perspectives

Research is emerging on Muslim learners in Australia. However, less is known about the preparedness of educators to be ‘responsive’ to Muslim learners. Inspired by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers that states teachers should be ‘responsive’ to the diverse identities of learners, this article examines educator perspectives of being responsive to the religious identities of Muslim learners in one public high school in Sydney. Data reveals that despite challenging arrangements of the school community, the school leaders and educators exemplified a strong commitment to being responsive but dismissed opportunities to avail from religious ways of knowing.

Allied Health Professions Accreditation Standards for Work Integrated Learning: A Document Analysis.

A key role of allied health (AH) professional regulatory and professional bodies is to ensure that AH education programs provide work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities for students. The requirements are outlined via the respective profession's educational accreditation standards. Although a significant component of the AH professional degrees, researchers have not explored how standards specific to WIL are developed, nor how WIL might be conceptualised through the standards. This study explored how WIL is conceptualised through comparing the WIL education standards across Australian AH professions. Using a non-experimental explanatory mixed-methods research design, a document analysis of Australian education program accreditation standards (and associated documents) for 15 AH professions was undertaken. Data analysis included inductive textual and thematic analyses to compare AH professionals' conceptualisation of WIL. This study found a high degree of variation in how AH professions describe WIL. While there was a common requirement for students to demonstrate competency in WIL, requirements for WIL quantity, assessment and supervision varied. Four key themes were identified regarding the contribution of WIL to curriculum and student learning: (1) the relationship between WIL and the program curriculum; (2) WIL as a learning process; (3) learning from diverse WIL contexts; and (4) developing competence through WIL. Overall, the diversity in the standards reflected differing understandings of what WIL is. Thus, in the absence of frameworks for designing accreditation standards, the risk is that some AH professions will continue to perpetuate the myth that the primary purpose of WIL is to provide a bridge between theory and practice.

Professionalization and Professionalism: Quality Improvement in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

AbstractInternationally, professionalization has become a key policy strategy targeting quality improvement in early childhood education and care (ECEC), utilizing top-down managerial strategies including implementation of quality standards and increased workforce qualifications. Set against this backdrop, this study explored educators’ accounts of their professional status and professionalism in their work. Data were collected from a representative sample of Australian educators (n = 98) participating in a national ECEC workforce study. Educator accounts were inductively and deductively coded, while statistical analysis examined association of codes with educator personal and professional characteristics. Educators overwhelmingly named their work as a profession, with three categories of explanation: purpose (educating children), qualification, and public opinions. However, analysis of educator accounts of their work practices, drawing on Moss’s (2006) understandings of the ECEC workforce, found that less than half of the educators presented their roles as other than technical or nurturing/laboring. Degree qualified teachers were more likely than less qualified educators to define professionalization in terms of purpose and professionalism in terms of autonomous decisions based on expert knowledge. Policy or practice: The study provides grassroots perspectives on professionalization and professionalism in ECEC and draws attention to three areas of misalignment between current policy and educators’ views and practices that require attention.

Formation of leadership style of Generation Z

The struggle to find and keep good employees in European companies is in full swing, and it poses a big problem on the desks of HR departments and leaders at all levels. Aside from a general shortage due to demographic developments, a new generation of future employees (Generation Z or ‘Gen Z’) is growing and will join the labor markets soon. A new generation, Gen Z, is entering the workforce, and companies must provide their future employees with a fitting employer value proposition. This study attempts to shed light on the features of leadership style for Gen Z. European companies have already started engaging in research to understand generational differences regarding company expectations better. The motivation of this study is to identify and categorize criteria that help to distinguish a ‘perfect from an average leader’ in the eyes of a Gen Z candidate. The central question of this empirical study was: ‘What does Generation Z expect from its future leaders, and which leadership style fits best to these requirements to unfold the full potential of this generation?’ The results show that Gen Z representatives are motivated and willing to perform. However, social and convenience factors play an essential role. The study comprises 550 pupils and students from Austrian education institutions entering the labor market in a few years. The study’s findings show a shift from ‘doing to being’ and from ‘managing to understanding’. Gen Z emphasizes social aspects like team spirit, working environment, work-life balance, and job security. Density, variety, and flexibility in the job are essential to Gen Z. Gen Z is accustomed to fast changes, which also determines their media-dominated private lives. Cross-functional jobs include job rotation, interdisciplinary tasks, tasks in groups with changing team members, etc., are exciting for Gen Z. Keywords: Generation Z, leadership style, transformational leadership, coaching leadership, servant leadership, employer marketing.