This study investigated the perception of role model attributes of women and men sport professors, how these attributes influence the choice of academic role models, and how such role models affect career objectives. The study draws on social cognitive (career) theory. Data were collected with a quantitative online survey (N = 792) targeted at…

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) feature prominently in higher education and can impact an academic's career. As a result, they have attracted considerable research attention in order to identify evidence of bias and the influence of factors beyond an educator's control. This study investigates the influence of seven factors on a large…

In the Australian Higher Education sector, the gendered, racialised, and heteronormative culture of neoliberalism means that for minoritised teachers the university classroom is always a contested, and often hostile, space. Our gendered and racialised bodies become objects under the gaze of our students and the deafening headwinds of post-truth…

Purpose: This study identifies gendered disparities among women students participating in work-integrated learning and explores the effects of the disparities on their perceptions on perceived opportunities, competencies, sense of belonging, and professional identity. Design/methodology/approach: A series of semi-structured focus groups were run…

Threats or harassment related to the enforcement of gender norms remain largely unchallenged in many schools. Possibilities for meaningful interventions have been undermined by an over-reliance on individual, psycho-pathologised understandings of 'bullying' and a reluctance to examine contextual and socio-cultural mechanisms of power.…

This article offers new insight into students' responses to Womens' and Gender Studies (WGS) classes by overcoming the self-selection bias hitherto inherent in the field. Exploring the experiences of 1406 students (770 women, 636 men) of a university with a WGS requirement across all study programmes, we examine the prevailing discourses on WGS,…

This article explores the use of critical and post-critical pedagogies in a rural Australian high school for the purposes of unsettling life-limiting gender beliefs and practices. The paper problematises two examples whereby site-specific knowledges, curriculum dictates, media texts and critical pedagogies were enmeshed to create politically…

This article complicates dominant instrumentalist understandings of international student motivation by focusing on Chinese female tertiary students in Australia. Based on longitudinal fieldwork with 56 such students, it analyses motivations described by students and their parents in interviews, showing that these far exceed instrumentalism and…

Computer science, like technology in general, is seen as a masculine field and the under-representation of women an intransigent problem. In this paper, we argue that the cultural belief in Australia that computer science is a domain for men results in many girls and women being chased away from that field as part of a border protection campaign…

Declining participation rates in advanced mathematics courses and STEM-related occupations has been an issue in Australia for some time, particularly for females. As students continue to disengage with mathematics and complain about its usefulness, it is important to explore what we can do to stem the tide of departing students. One area worthy of…

This paper gives a nuanced analysis of participation rates in secondary chemistry by developing the "story" behind national trends and subject selection patterns within an independent school located in a large Australian city. It supplements the documented quantitative data by presenting a case-study where 30 Year 12 chemistry students…

In this study of an Indonesian language class in Australia, I propose that students are agentive in adopting, rejecting and deploying discursive positions within the classroom. There are a range of identities made available in the classroom, only some of which are taken up and privileged within specific moments in the classroom. I apply the…

The under-representation and poor retention of women in computing courses at Victoria University is a concern that has continued to defy all attempts to resolve it. Despite a range of initiatives created to encourage participation and improve retention of females in the courses, the percentage of female enrolments has declined significantly in…

The prevalent use of student ratings in teaching evaluations, particularly the reliability of such data, has been debated for many years. Reports in the literature indicate that there are many factors influencing student perceptions of teaching. Three of these factors were investigated at the University of Western Australia, namely the broad…