The more than six decades of research on school effectiveness and the two decades of research on school success demonstrates the importance of principal leadership in successful schools. However, the 30-year history of research on person-environment fit has not been robustly connected to the literature on successful school leadership. This study…

The capacity to aspire for young people is significant, as they cannot choose to be what they cannot experience or imagine becoming. Student exchange programmes that expand experiences of STEM may increase opportunities, interests, and participation for rural young people in the STEM subject field. This paper creates a cartography with data…

Attracting teachers to rural schools continues to be a problem in Australian education. Debates on how to remedy staff shortages are based on a better distribution of financial and material resources. This emphasis on distribution has sidelined the role of recognition theory in understanding the challenges of rural staffing. I draw on the social…

This study reports the findings from a survey of 201 recent teacher education graduates from a university in the north-western United States of America regarding the factors that influenced their decision to take a teaching position in a rural or urban community following graduation. Results indicate that an in-depth rural practicum experience,…

The fields of science and literacy education continue to be shaped by pervasive gender inequality. Previous research has documented how the formation of a 'science identity' is contingent on access to science capital while research in literacy education continues to highlight how boys struggle in their literacy acquisition. Despite a robust…

Staffing shortages has been a consistent problem for Australian rural schools. This paper addresses the rural staffing shortage by exploring the motivations and barriers faced by pre-service teachers in an Australian metropolitan university as they explore the prospect of teaching in a rural school. The paper examines two research ideas prevalent…

Few studies in science education have examined how place-based experiences influence students' STEM career aspirations. Rural school students' lived experiences of place and non-traditional STEM career aspirations such as farming are scarcely considered in dominant narratives around science aspirations and career pathways. Adopting a critical…

The voices of students about the early days of Indigenous-controlled adult education providers are hard to find. In historical research for Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd (Tranby) and the University of Technology Sydney, 17 former participants in Tranby courses, from 1980 to 2000, gave in-depth interviews, which were analysed alongside…

In order to supply a future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce, Australia needs to engage its most capable and gifted secondary students in quality STEM learning, either within school or through extra-curricular opportunities, so that they will continue into STEM-based tertiary degrees. High-achieving students in…

Despite being increasingly popular within broader educational discourse, place-responsive pedagogy is less apparent in science teacher education. This paper investigates the perspectives of pre-service teachers in a science education course informed by place-responsive pedagogy in a Bachelor of Education (primary) program at an Australian regional…

Parent involvement in and engagement with children's learning has been shown to strongly influence student achievement, engagement, motivation and school completion. However, parent involvement decreases once students reach middle school, as subject content gets harder, the number of teachers increases, and students are less likely to share their…

This paper reports the findings of research which focused on fourth year pre-service teachers' perceptions of the issue of their transition from pre-service university student to in-service teaching, specifically in rural and remote settings. The results of a survey which focused on students' perceived levels of readiness and comfort when…

Despite an historical recognition that research is lacking on the occurrence of school students' academic regression after a period of over-achievement, there continues to be little research conducted into the phenomenon. In particular, there is little research that examines the phenomenon from the perspective of students. The "Working Above…

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…

The aim of this study was to explore the potential of a service-learning immersion program to promote pre-service teachers' development of cultural competency in the area of Aboriginal education. That is, the research focused on ways the immersion program helped pre-service teachers (a) develop awareness of cultural implications in teaching in a…