This paper examines the openings for educational change enabled by framing inequality through the concept of rights, considering how variations of this framing have emerged historically and in current debates. Taking as our starting point the 1970 publication Rights and Inequality in Australian Education, we suggest that it is important to pay…

This essay considers the usefulness of history of education, first, through the history of Australian university-based teacher education and then through the history of how, in the postwar period of schooling expansion, the provision of public schooling was transformed discursively from a policy solution into a policy problem--with opposing…

Curricular justice, achieved through a counter-hegemonic curriculum that serves the needs of the least rather than most advantaged members of society, plays a central role in providing more equitable access to meaningful education for all young people. We contend that the defining features of the contemporary schooling context in many parts of the…

We draw upon Appadurai's 'scapes' and Latour's Actor Network Theory (ANT) to interrogate historical and spatial flows in relation to specific testing technologies. We reveal how testing systems, conceptualised as actor-networks, rearticulate colonial legacies of inequality which are intensified by new and emerging technologies. ANT helps trace…

This paper employs critical policy historiography of South Australian public education as a contextual backdrop that speaks to a hermeneutic phenomenological study of the lived experiences of two former public-school principals, who describe how their ongoing social justice schooling agendas in public education met with considerable departmental…

This paper examines how government approaches to education were contested by Aboriginal communities in the late 1930s, through organised political actions designed in part to ensure access to the same standard of education and schooling available to non-Aboriginal people. It explores some of the ways that Aboriginal campaigns for education were…

There is clear evidence that Indigenous education has changed considerably over time. Indigenous Australians' early experiences of 'colonialised education' included missionary schools, segregated and mixed public schooling, total exclusion and 'modified curriculum' specifically for Indigenous students which focused on teaching manual labour skills…

The International Mathematical Modeling Challenge takes place towards the end of Term 1 each year in Australia. Students use their research, mathematical and creative abilities to develop a mathematical model to address a real world problem. Ross Turner describes some aspects of the competition.

Inclusive education is a global priority and binding obligation for Australia to meet as a signatory to international human rights treaties. It is also supported by evidence as an effective model of schooling for all students and supporting those with disability. Yet segregation remains deeply embedded within the education systems of all states…

This article provides a critical analysis of policies from two education systems that support the education of students from migrant backgrounds. This analysis examines the highly political policy context of multiculturalism to reveal how education systems acquiesce to or resist social and political forces. In making this case, the article…

This paper explores the continued cultural consecration of narrow forms of knowledge and literate practice in senior Australian English curricula. Despite the prevalence of Personal Growth approaches to English throughout Australia in the latter decades of the Twentieth century, the analysis of curricula reveals a contradiction between stated…

In the context of the equity/widening participation policy landscape in Australia, scholarly exploration of alternative pathways into higher education is becoming increasingly important to inform innovative pedagogies, answer complex questions, and improve outcomes and experiences for students. This article focuses on one alternative pathway,…

This work attempts a comparative description and analysis, focusing on the US, the UK, and Australia on the topic of the Right, educational policy, and schooling. It adopts as its underlying theme the burning fuse in tracing the topic back to Joseph de Maistre a Rightist who fled revolutionary France to seek safety in the company of Tsar Alexander…

Research to date has criticised the policy on education that evolved under a federal Labor government during the period 2007-2013. These analyses suggest that a global neoliberal agenda dominates, with the effect of constructing limited and damaging concepts of equity and social justice. The research presented here offers an alternative…

The first recorded Aboriginal person to graduate with an undergraduate qualification from any Australian university was Aboriginal woman Margaret Williams-Weir in 1959 (Melbourne University, 2018). Williams-Weir graduated with a Diploma in Education. There have now been six decades of graduating Indigenous Australian women in the discipline of…