This book explores the social justice implications of school autonomy reform within the context of public education in Australia. It is situated within and framed by global concerns about how public schools are navigating their ‘autonomy’ within increasingly marketised education systems.Drawing on extensive interviews with stakeholders and five in-depth case study schools, the book calls attention to the ways in which the intentions of school autonomy reform to offer schools more f...

Based on the commonly held assumption that we now live in a world that is ‘on the move’, with growing opportunities for both real and virtual travel and the blurring of boundaries between previously defined places, societies and cultures, the theme of this book is firmly grounded in the interdisciplinary field of ‘Mobilities’. ‘Mobilities’ deals with the movement of people, objects, capital, information, ideas and cultures on varying scales, and across a variety of borders, from the local ...

Recognition of disadvantage is seen as crucial in preparing socially just teachers who can recognize and address inequities, and this engaging guide provides innovative strategies to reflect on disadvantage. Coupled with its discursive partners, inclusion and diversity, trainee teachers are asked to engage with theories of disadvantage, and advised to recognize, support and lead change for students who historically experience high levels of exclusion and marginalization. But what does disa...

Researching Practices Across and Within Diverse Educational Sites explores the role of educational research in uncertain, risky times. Researching practices and their consequences transpire unpredictably, depending on how we set about to understand these practices. The authors consider the unknowns in research action, and what promises researchers can keep to their communities as they embark on research action together.The authors examine how researching practices come to ...

This book provides the theoretical and analytical resources for an urgent rethinking of the social project of educating and educational leading. It examines what educational leadership is, namely the politics and power of leadership as a practice, and what it can and should be, offering a pedagogical and praxis-informed approach to educational practice.Drawing on research conducted at various Australian schools and education districts, it argues for a reframing of educational leade...

This book brings critical perspectives towards questions of how precarity and precariousness affect the work of leaders and educators in schools and universities around the world. It theorises the effects of precarity, and the experiences of educators working in precarious environments.The work of school improvement takes time. Developing a highly-skilled and confident teaching workforce requires a long-term investment and commitment. Schools in vulnerable communities face higher r...

Neoliberalism and Education Systems in Conflict: Exploring Challenges Across the Globe explores how neoliberal values are imprinted onto educational spaces and practices, and by consequence, fundamentally reshape how we come to understand the educational experience at the school or system level. Countries across the globe struggle with the residual effects of increased accountability, choice/voucher systems, and privatization.The first section of the book discusses the dir...

This book aims to help teachers and those who support them to re-imagine the work of teaching, learning and leading. In particular, it shows how transformations of educational practice depend on complementary transformations in classroom-school- and system-level organisational cultures, resourcing and politics. It argues that transforming education requires more than professional development to transform teachers; it also calls for fundamental changes in learning and leading practices, whi...

This book is one of the first of its kind to examine the aspirations of refugee background students and accompanies them as they journey through the on-shore stage of settlement, enrolment and participation in the Australian education system. It begins with students’ experiences of on-shore settlement, followed by the move into schooling and finally, the subsequent transition into Australian higher education.Transitioning into higher education is a challenge for many students, part...

An accelerating pattern in Australia and internationally is the dismantling of public education systems as part of a long-standing trend towards the modernisation, marketisation and privatisation of educational provision. Responsibility for direct delivery of education services has been shifted to contracting and monitoring under the clarion call of school and leadership autonomy and parental choice. Part of this pattern is an increasing blurring of boundaries between the state and private...

This book is a Festschrift for Emeritus Professor Stephen Kemmis, who has a long and eminent career as an educational researcher and academic spanning over 40 years. His work in curriculum, evaluation, critical practice, action research and practice theory has been influential across all continents of the world.The book examines critical perspectives on educational practice and the participatory nature of action research, including practitioner research particularly as undertaken b...

This edited book collection disrupts received notions of educational leadership, culture and diversity as currently portrayed in practice and theory. It draws on compelling studies of educational leadership from the global north and south, as well as from a range of ethnic, religious and gendered perspectives and critical research approaches. In so doing, the book powerfully challenges contemporary leadership discourses of diversity that reproduce essentialising leadership practices, binar...