The teaching of white privilege in Australian tertiary settings is beset by a number of obstacles arising especially from resistance, disbelief and outright obstructionism in white students, and occasionally colleagues. The article summarises the historical and societal context regarding race relations, racism and white hegemony in Australia, then…

In this article, two autoethnographies from Australia and New Zealand provide a means of engaging students in difficult histories of colonial nations. The first looks to knowledge as a basis of understanding others, and the second focuses on concepts of empathy and vulnerability as a way of understanding difficult histories. Each of these…

In what ways can a community music education project based on historical re-enactment be a vehicle for transformational learning, empowerment and reconnection with community? In 2018, Serenading Adela was performed to celebrate and remember the 100th anniversary of a moment in history when women sang under the prison cell window of Adela…

Contributors to this special edition have agreed that we want a future of ecojustice and ecological sustainability. Our article unpacks experiences of oppression within the context of middle class academic privilege, undertaking resistances and working, in relationship, learning to live more sustainably in the Year of Living Sustainably. In this…

Drawn from an ethnographic study of spoken word poetry in Australia, this article offers case studies of two youth poets and follows their journeys with spoken word over three years as they performed in community-based slams, engaged with the New South Wales English Extension 2 curriculum, and served as mentor poets in culturally and…

This paper explores the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts for the Australian Curriculum Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) in facilitating the writing of the foundation "Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts" (2011) paper for the national curriculum, with a particular focus on the discipline area of music. The…

Australian students come from a wide range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds with each context providing unique challenges. Tensions however exist between the intentions to address diversity and the competing influence of a high-stakes context that prioritizes monolingual classroom practices and diminishes teachers' use of engaging pedagogy.…

We interrogated a students as partners (SaP), co-curricular program that focuses on supporting student learning. To center power and equity in SaP, the program was grounded in social design-based experiment methodology. We considered the manifestation of power and equity beyond higher education, to that of broader socio-political contexts.…

This article examines shifts in the meaning and relevance of institutionalised knowledge about social inequalities as it circulates globally. In so doing, it contributes to research critiquing an unequal geopolitics of knowledge that grants greatest authority to theories produced in the global north (Connell, 2007; Mignolo, 2003). I discuss the…

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser's work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework…

Background: An emerging body of Physical Education scholarship is addressing the challenge of preparing Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students to enact a socio-critically informed Health Education [Leahy, D., and L. McCuaig. 2014. "Disrupting the Field: Teacher Education in Health Education." In "Health Education:…

The affective dimension of teachers' work is a vital element in shaping inclusive, child-centred classrooms. It is particularly important for students who lack certain aspects of care and support within their personal lives. Recently, neoliberal educational paradigms of data gathering, external testing and competition have increased pressure upon…

In this paper we reflect on the challenges of engaging in social justice work within elite schools. Drawing on experiences collaborating with an elite school in a justice-oriented research project, we consider the theoretical resources that informed this work. We demonstrate how Freire's work has been critical in forming the kind of relations that…

Indigenous Australian underrepresentation in higher education remains a topical issue for social scientists, educationalists and policymakers alike, with the concept of indigenous academic success highly contested. This article is based on findings of a doctoral study investigating the drivers of indigenous Australian academic success in a large,…

In this discursive and wide-ranging paper I want to do two things: first, to interrogate the conditions that led to, and continue to wreak havoc as a result of, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), and that underpin current policy approaches to teacher education in Australia and other western countries; and second, to move in the direction of…