This article draws on three assessment paradigms -- psychometrics, outcomes-based and curriculum-based assessment -- to discuss paradigmatic changes in senior school assessment and achievement standard-setting in Queensland, Australia, over the last 50 years. These include radical reforms in 1970 from university-controlled examinations to…

The 2014, 41st Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) presidential address is both inspired and guided by the discursive genres of presidential addresses and the role of the president in a member association such as AARE. In the address, typically the president speaks to the members on an issue or issues that are to shape or…

During period 1975 through to 1987 the Commonwealth ventured into curriculum development, hitherto an activity for states and territories. Unlike the ACARA Curriculum of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, there was nothing mandatory about the CDC's curriculum development activities. Here, the dominant influence was coordinative federalism. This…

This article takes as a starting point the career of Sir Alec Clegg, Chief Education Officer for the West Riding of Yorkshire (1945-1974), and traces his professional connections with educationists in Australia and New Zealand. In exploring the nature of global exchanges between educators, artists, architects and designers in the decades…

The New Colombo Plan and similar student mobility initiatives in Aotearoa/New Zealand have been pitched as reversing the culturally imperialist focus of the original Colombo Plan (CP) because they involve sending Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand students to the Indo-Pacific region instead of funding Asian students to study overseas. However,…

This article focuses on Inspector Lydia Longmore and 29 infant mistresses who were leading South Australian infant schools in the interwar year era. During 1926/1927 Longmore and each infant mistress in the state school system were interviewed by a journalist about her career path and current role, and profiles of their work featured week by week…

The Australian Society for Music Education's (ASME) involvement in the development of professional standards for music educators was a significant and active research time in the history of the Society. As ASME celebrates its golden jubilee, it is appropriate to revisit that history and consider the future prospects of subject-specific standards.…

Policymakers, researchers and educators around the world have acknowledged the importance of children's transition to school, both as a significant life event and as a factor in future engagement with education. As a result, much attention has been directed towards researching transition experiences, developing policies to support positive…

While some international histories of English education are inclined to characterise the 1966 Dartmouth seminar as initiating some kind of revolution, other accounts have positioned it as one important conversation amongst many. Using Raymond Williams' notion of a "long revolution", this short essay characterises Dartmouth as making a…

The introduction of a new curriculum in Indonesian schools seeks to bring about changes in Indonesian society as well as students' knowledge base. The curriculum is based on two layers of competencies: Core Competencies, and Basic Competencies. Core Competencies are applicable at all year levels and for all subjects. They include religious and…

The Personal Growth (PG) model, as outlined by John Dixon in 1967, is unquestionably still recognisable to English teachers, remaining aligned to their philosophy of teaching English. This article traces a key aspect of the history of Personal Growth and explores present continuities traceable to Dartmouth in 1966, in suggesting an invigorated…

Subjects such as Health and Physical Education (HPE) can be marginalised in schools because they are construed as less academically rigorous and less important to the primary mission of education. Teachers of all subjects face challenges, yet, teaching a marginalised subject can result in additional challenges for HPE teachers. Previous research…

In the 1990s, New Zealand and Australia rolled out new school physical education curriculums (Ministry of Education, 1999, 2007; Queensland School Curriculum Council, 1999) signaling a significant change in the purpose of physical education in both countries. These uniquely Antipodean curriculum documents were underpinned by a socially critical…

This article explores commonalities in the lives and work of women head teachers in Malawian secondary schools and women principals in Australian Lutheran schools. In both Australia and Malawi women are under-represented in school leadership and often appointed to complex schools and communities. We commence with a brief discussion of Malawi and…

Previous research has highlighted the occurrence of isomorphic tendencies--convergences in terms of formal organizational structure--in higher education systems in times of uncertainty and under external pressure to change. It has been repeatedly claimed that the Australian university system largely followed a logic of isomorphic change in the…