Differentiated instruction (DI) is an educational praxis that is built on the premise that all students can be engaged in learning and achieve positive academic outcomes. Previous research in secondary schools has shown promise in the success of DI practices and outlines the importance of sustained professional development (PD) for teachers. There…

Research suggests young people generally do not perceive History to be a subject that is relevant to their lives and futures. Across the world, history curriculum policy regularly attracts public debate but, as it is usually dominated by political rhetoric, the students who experience it remain overlooked as policy actors with valuable…

Research on policy enactment has explored tensions created by accountability approaches associated with new forms of management under neoliberalism. These approaches generate particular discursive constructs of the 'good teacher' -- constructs that often negate the rich, unmeasurable, and ethical practices associated with teacher professionalism.…

This research investigated the experiences, training, and support needs of school leaders regarding students who have experienced trauma. There is a paucity of research exploring the perspectives and experiences of school leaders regarding student trauma. Leadership staff in Australian primary and secondary schools participated in interviews…

Background: This paper presents a counter-narrative to the long-held belief that Physical Education (PE) is impermeable to change. Transforming and enacting curriculum is incredibly challenging and sometimes impossible but if teachers have particular resources available to them over time, this makes 'radical reform more, rather than less likely'…

We explore the impact of language education policy on language enrolments and provision in primary and secondary government schools In Australia, specifically in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria, which have strikingly different policy settings. NSW adopts a 'weak but flexible' policy, mandating a very limited minimum time allocation for language…

Coverage of reading and reading instruction in initial teacher education is highly contested, with the "reading wars" representing decades of debate concerning approaches that should be promoted to teachers-in-training. Empirical evidence strongly endorses explicit and systematic teaching of code-based skills as a starting point,…

Intercultural education in Australia has been positioned in State-based 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…

In this article we explore Australian policymaker perspectives on the quality assurance of career development (CD) programmes in schools. We found that Australian policymakers are concerned about the quality of CD provision in schools and have a wide range of approaches that they deploy to ensure and assure quality at the school level. Quality…

New data is presented from two studies involving thirteen practising secondary teachers and twelve pre-service early childhood, primary and secondary teachers in Australia. The first study explored how non-Indigenous practising teacher identities, shaped by external and policy discourse, create obstacles to teachers' willingness and confidence in…

Discussions about computers and media technologies have long been infused with optimistic and future-focused rhetoric about their educational potential. Australian schools have the highest proportion of students using digital media in the OECD, and have implemented a range of ed-tech policies and programmes. Not everyone is satisfied with…

The study examines attitudes, concerns, self-efficacy, and intentions of secondary school teachers from Australia (n = 140) and Switzerland (n = 221) to teach in inclusive classrooms. Australian educators had more positive attitudes towards inclusion, fewer concerns and higher self-efficacy to teach inclusively when compared to their Swiss…

Ability grouping of students into separate classes within a school can be called 'between-class ability grouping'. This practice has persisted in Australia despite evidence that it is socially inequitable and does not improve academic outcomes. A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature about between-class ability grouping in Australia from…

Since the introduction of Indonesian in the 1950s, the nature and extent of programs for studying the language in Australian schools has varied significantly. A decade on from the national report on the state of Indonesian language education in Australian schools that indicated a substantial decline in provision (Kohler & Mahnken, 2010), it is…

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…