Australian schooling is one of the most segregated systems in the OECD, with much focus on the inequality between schools from poorer areas compared with those from wealthier suburbs. These inequalities have been explored in terms of infrastructure and funding, as well as their relative academic achievement. Previous research has also found that…

Purpose: Vocational education and training (VET) in Australia has for some time been driven by an agenda of "reasonable adjustment", in which practices are modified to ensure equitable access and participation by disadvantaged students. However, the growing marketization of VET has instead encouraged the use of more flexible approaches…

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become an important tool for school systems as they seek to enhance education and make it more efficient. This has become all the more apparent and urgent with the COVID-19 pandemic. But what degree of access do students from different socio-economic backgrounds have to ICT-based quality…

While the importance of academic language and literacies in students' meaningful participation in higher education has been well-explored, studies have focused on writing rather than reading. There has been a significant silence in the literature around what constitutes reading in higher education, the sociocultural complexities of reader…

In times of growing economic inequality, improving equity in education becomes more urgent. While some countries and economies that participate in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have managed to build education systems where socio-economic status makes less of a difference to students' learning and well-being, every…

Educational research often portrays culturally, linguistically and economically disenfranchised (CLED) children's disengagement from school learning as individual behaviour, ignoring the contribution of race, gender, socio-cultural, ethnic and social class factors. This paper analyses a specific community engagement programme in Australia which…

This occasional paper is the seventh in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). It explores the quality of children's education and care services based on the socio-economic status of the area in which they are situated. The Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) is…

In developed economies, such as Australia, schooling is heavily impacted by neo-liberal and neo-conservative agendas. Policies suggest a homogeneity in students that fails to reflect regional contexts of inequality. For the new Australian Curriculum, which includes Health and Physical Education (AC: HPE), this logic prioritises consistency in…

Early childhood education has long been connected with objectives related to social justice. Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) has its roots in philanthropic and educational reform movements prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century. More recently, with the introduction of the National Early Childhood Reform Agenda, early…

While much is known about the factors related to student performance beyond Grade 3 less is known about the factors that are related to student performance in early childhood education and the early years in primary school. As part of the 'I go to school' project in South Australia, this study tracked children attending integrated…

This paper presents data from an interview-based case study of a secondary school located in a suburban area of Queensland (Australia). The school is a non-traditional education site designed to support disadvantaged girls, many of whom are Indigenous, and is highly regarded for its holistic approach to gender and cultural inclusion and equity.…

This paper explores the often-touted incompatibility between "intellectual rigour" and "relevance" as this has manifested in Australian debates over Queensland's New Basics and "productive pedagogies", and associated initiatives such as the New South Wales Quality Teaching Framework. This debate can be located in…

Economic inequality is high and rising in a number of developed countries, including in the United Kingdom and the United States. There are growing concerns that this may have negative implications for equality of opportunity, and the extent to which social disadvantage is transmitted across generations. It is widely believed that providing…

The authors draw on some powerful practitioner research they have been associated with recently to envision ways in which a national curriculum might redress the inequities experienced by Australia's most disadvantaged young people.

This paper reports on the "Fair Go Project", research into student engagement among primary school students living in poor communities in South-Western Sydney, Australia. Taking as a starting point recent work into classroom pedagogies ("Productive Pedagogies") and drawing on Bernstein's concept of classrooms as message…