Joel Windle

school inequality

We know Australia has a private/public divide. But there’s even more inequality

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A major driver of inequality in contemporary education systems internationally is the segregation of students from different social backgrounds into separate schools. Australian education separates students from different backgrounds to a greater extent than many other countries. Research we will present at the forthcoming AARE Conference reveals competition between unequally resourced schools makes many parents feel they must choose an alternative to their local school. Although a major contributor to this separation is the existence of a large fee-paying private school sector that is over-resourced through public subsidies, there are also major divisions within public education. We note in particular the rise of specialist curriculum programs in otherwise comprehensive public secondary schools. These present major risks to equity.

More inequality: The new selectivity in public schooling 

There are over 366 specialist curriculum programs in otherwise comprehensive public secondary schools in Australia. Each has its own admission criteria. Specialist or special interest programs are educational initiatives that focus on specific subject areas, such as sports, language, arts and STEM, delivered through dedicated classes and providing advanced learning and enrichment opportunities not available to other students. 

One avenue for improving equity in education is to support the broadening of curriculum options and programs that can appeal to a diverse range of students and interests and strengthen demand for public education. However, when specialist programs are used by schools to cherry-pick students rather than prioritising the needs of local communities, this generates new problems. Instead of broadening options, this use of specialist programs creates a new hierarchy that further segregates students between and within schools. Some parents have more time, resources and knowledge than others to compete for places for their children in select-entry specialist programs.

A two-speed public system

The reality of high-demand public schools in middle-class neighbourhoods is in stark contrast to that of schools without capacity constraints and located in working-class neighbourhoods. Public schools with established reputations often leverage high demand to grant selective access to those who live beyond their enrolment zone, with specialist and accelerated learning programs providing mechanisms to do so. Those who travel from further afield are also more likely to be middle-class and high-achieving. The ‘choice’ to attend high-demand schools is also available to those who are able to buy or rent within the zone specifically for the purpose of gaining access to a desired school.

Schools face threats to enrolment numbers from private schools. To combat that, public schools make use of specialist programs to shore-up local demand and to build student engagement. In working-class neighbourhoods, vocational and alternative curriculum offerings are particularly popular. Under such conditions, specialist programs do not present such a threat to the model of comprehensive public schooling where education is viewed as an entitlement. In Victoria, where close to one in two students enrol in a government school outside their catchment area, the Education Department has made clear its attachment to this local comprehensive model. That prevents schools from using curriculum grounds to enrol students from beyond their catchment zones.

Learning from the past on the drivers of inequality

For specialist programs to broaden appeal rather than contribute to segregation, it is important to learn from the mistakes of the past. The first lesson is that demand for, and success at, gaining access to selective schools is extremely uneven. Greater efforts are needed to ensure that access to specialist programs is democratic and inclusive so that all benefit. Fees should not be charged for entrance examinations, and enrolment procedures need to be carefully re-examined. The efforts made by many universities to improve equity in access can serve as an example here. That includes the move away from examination results as measures of student potential. 

The second lesson is that competition between schools does not necessarily increase innovation and diversity in curriculum offerings for all. Competition drives schools to attract students who will perform highest on traditional measures and are least taxing on scarce resources. That increases inequality.

Many public school principals are keen to retain high-achieving students and to appeal to middle-class families. Instead, schools should be encouraged to collaborate with each other. That includes the provision of specialist programs at local schools. For example, including participating in programs beyond the school in which they are enrolled. Further, interest in specialist programs should be used to drive offerings available to all students, with no access barriers.

Looking forward towards genuine choice in education

For families and students, availability of specialist curriculum programs across diverse curriculum areas, including sports and vocational courses, is appealing. They demonstrate that public education is doing more than providing a bare minimum, as some parents perceive it to be.

We need to be vigilant against the re-emergence of streaming and academic selectivity as a defining characteristic of public education and a byproduct of the existence of specialist programs. In much of the country, streaming and separate high and technical schools were abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s, as Year 12 completion through a common qualification became the default setting in all jurisdictions.

What’s the best way forward? Reduce market pressure in a system with a large private sector pushing public schools to reintroduce forms of internal differentiation. More equitable resourcing would be a good starting point.

The broadening of curriculum options and choice to appeal to students from all backgrounds is to be welcomed. There is a role for specialist programs and for vocational learning in engaging students who struggle with or are less interested in some traditional curriculum options. Transforming traditional areas, such as STEM and humanities, is also worthwhile and school-level innovation can contribute in important ways to improving the quality of social and learning experiences at school. The proviso is that such benefits must be broadly available, rather than placed within discretionary selection procedures and fee-charging testing regimes. 

Not the only division

Public versus private is not the only division in Australian schooling. But it is one that ends up distorting public schooling through the pressure to attract particular types of students, keeping out others. The big losers are working-class schools and students. They are located in sites that are by-passed by peers being driven to high-demand middle-class schools. Ultimately students, families and societies lose in a system that divides students, rather than bringing them together.

We need policies that broaden options without re-creating the hierarchies of a by-gone era.

Left to right: Joel Windle is associate professor of education at UniSA. He researches educational inequalities and curriculum differentiation in Australia and Brazil. Laura Perry is a professor of education at Murdoch University. She is a specialist in comparative research on educational marketisation and equity.

Quentin Maire is a senior research fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on social inequalities in school systems internationally. 

Palestine teachers

Palestine: is it possible for teachers to be neutral?

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Interest in Palestine amongst students and the wider public raises an age-old question regarding the teaching profession: can educators be neutral and objective? Is it possible for teachers to discuss what is happening right now across the Gaza Strip in ways that maintain an ‘unbiased’ position? 

State governments and conservative commentators have attacked teachers who have shown solidarity with Palestine or have dared to discuss the current genocide in Gaza within schools. The NSW Minister for Education, Pru Carr, has taken issue with teachers who wear Palestinian scarves in schools. She has said, “We rely on them [teachers] to be impartial in the classroom.” Similarly, Victorian Education Minister, Ben Carroll, warned educators about participating in any organised activity in support of Palestine. Carroll stated that ‘teachers in government schools must be unbiased and not have political agendas’. 

Students in Australian schools want to talk about Palestine

For over a year, we have seen school students assemble and actively rally in support of school students in Gaza. Not since the student climate protests have we seen such enthusiasm amongst Australian students. In almost every capital city, and some regional areas, students have participated in strikes in solidarity with Palestinians. In the course of mobilising, we are witnessing students become ‘active and informed’ on Palestine. Yet, school students participating in these strikes have been scolded by politicians and conservative commentators. They have told students to stay in class and ‘educate’ themselves. 

Take the NSW Premier, Chris Minns. He condemned the student strikes, stating: “If you [students] want to change the world, get an education.” A student protesting in Wollongong responded, ‘Because I am educated I am here, because I am informed I am here at this rally … I would love to be at school, I would love for the children of Gaza to be at school’. 

Similarly, hundreds of school students in Melbourne defied the Victorian Education Minister’s condemnation of their strike. The Minister Ben Carroll said students should be in school. A parent of a student protestor responded, “Young people are often presented as being naïve or ignorant and shouldn’t have an opinion when it comes to politics – I disagree.” Another student stated, “They’re not really teaching it in class. So the only way you’re going to find out is if you come to the rallies; educate yourself because you’re not learning any of it at school. It’s not even getting mentioned at school.”

Educators are told to be ‘impartial’ and ‘unbiased’ about Palestine

Similar to students, educators themselves have organised ‘Teachers for Palestine’ groups across NSW and Victoria. These groups have led rallies and held Zoom sessions to discuss incorporating content about Palestine in the curriculum. They have also discussed how to support students currently striking for Palestine. Two major groups include Teachers and School Staff for Palestine – NSW and Teachers/Staff for Palestine in Victoria. In some cases, educators have shown solidarity by openly supporting student strikes and wearing Palestinian Keffiyehs (scarves) or watermelon badges. 

Teacher unions have supported these initiatives and even passed motions that acknowledge the rights of teachers to discuss the current genocide with their students. For example, the NSW Teachers Federation Vice-President pointed out educators have a long history of publicly supporting anti-war and social justice causes. Similarly, the Australian Education Union sent its members a bulletin about the right to respectfully discuss Palestine in classrooms.

Recently, on the eve of ‘R U Ok Day’, the NSW Teachers for Palestine group posted the following:

Teaching is a political act

A common argument for teacher neutrality is that it avoids students being brainwashed. But the purpose of critical approaches to citizenship education is not to tell students what to think. It is to support them to ask questions. When the questions are curtailed, we all lose as a democracy, and we lose the opportunity to challenge injustice.

A second argument for neutrality, or more precisely, silence, is that there is no room for politics in the curriculum. However the Australian Curriculum encourages engagement with the world and with the interests that students bring across multiple subject areas. Recognising what students bring with them to school should include recognising that they are developing an understanding of conflict and politics before they enter the classroom door. There is no point pretending that politics does not exist.

All education is political

We commonly engage initial teacher education students with theories of critical pedagogies. For example, Paulo Freire argued in his landmark book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed that ‘all education is political; teaching is never a neutral act’. Similar words were echoed by bell hooks, who wrote in Teaching to Transgress that ‘no education is politically neutral’. More recently, a pioneer of critical pedagogy Henry Giroux wrote: “Those arguing that education should be neutral are really arguing for a version of education in which no one is accountable.”

Teachers are citizens and workers. They have political opinions and many are members of labour organisations. They are also responsible for helping their students to become informed, questioning and critical citizens. Pressure from educational authorities for teachers to hide their beliefs and opinions is damaging for both students and teachers.

Governments are keen to avoid political or politicised topics. Their eyes are more firmly on  negative media attention than on ethical considerations. A slippery standard is therefore applied. Almost any topic can become politicised or attract media attention, which makes schools increasingly timid. And attempts to silence discussion are applied unevenly even with similar issues. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have been treated very differently by governments and inside schools, despite the fact that both have similarities in raising sensitive issues of conflict and trauma.

The teaching profession cannot be neutral, unbiased nor objective

As citizens, teachers and students take on multiple roles. They constantly give off signals about their beliefs, even if in subtle or unrecognised ways. As long as these support the status quo, they are unquestioned. But when they go against the status quo, there is a need to make claims on the rights that all students and teachers have to express themselves. A long tradition in critical scholarship shows that ‘apolitical education’ is a myth. What is often framed as ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ within education systems stems from Eurocentric white supremacy. 

Palestine presents us with a reminder that education can never be neutral. As outlined previously, many teachers and students wish to engage in discussions about Palestine. The Australian curriculum presents many opportunities despite the condemnation that various Education Ministers have offered. It is this contradiction that affirms how neutrality in the context of an on-going genocide, live streamed to the social media devices of our students can be one that supports it, as Paulo Freire himself once said, ‘Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral’. 

From left to right: Ryan Al-Natour works as a lecturer in teacher education at Charles Sturt University on Wiradjuri Country. He is written widely about antiracist teaching, social justice pedagogies and Indigenous education. Joel Windle is an associate professor of education at the University of South Australia. He has undertaken research on educational inequalities and community activism in Australia and Brazil. Sarah McDonald is a lecturer based at the Centre for Research in Education & Social Inclusion at the University of South Australia where she conducts research in the areas of gendered subjectivities, social mobility, social barriers, and inequalities in education.

Possibly the last blog of the conference . . .

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Still happy to take contributions inspired by the AARE Conference but we will be returning to regular programming next week so please follow these guidelines. Please write to jenna@aare.edu.au

Thank you very much to everyone who contributed posts and photos over the past week.

Meghan Stacey, senior lecturer in the UNSW School of Education, writes, Symposium: What’s the “new sociology of education”, then and now? Looking back to the 1970s and ahead to today

In 1971, Michael F.D. Young published the edited collection ‘Knowledge and control: new directions for the sociology of education’. This among other signature texts of the 1970s constituted work characterised as ‘the new sociology of education’, which saw the field shift from, as symposium convenor Julie McLeod put it, ‘taking problems’ to ‘making problems’. In this shift, aspects of schooling which had previously been taken for granted, such as what and whose ‘knowledge’ constitutes the curriculum, were opened up for scrutiny. 

The symposium asked contributors to consider what this ‘new sociology of education’ did and did not notice; its legacies; and what might or should constitute a ‘new’ sociology of education for today.

The first response to this remit came from Bob Lingard, who pointed to large scale assessments, datafication and globalisation as examples of forces which have shifted studies in the sociology of education and which demand a move beyond methodological nationalism. Lingard’s talk resonated with points made by the third speaker in the session, Joel Windle, who argued for ‘rescaling’ in a ‘new’ sociology of education for today, in which thinking about knowledge and control is shifted to a global level. 

Lingard and Windle’s arguments were given a useful counterweight by the fourth speaker in the session, Eve Mayes, who brought discussion of the new sociology of education to the level of classroom-based research and practice through the example of the ‘Teachers for a Fair Go’ project, highlighting the ongoing need to question ‘what schools can be’.

Yet questions of the future, and in particular a future for the sociology of education, were seen by some speakers to be under threat. Lingard noted that while in the 1970s, sociology of education would be taught in the first, second, third and fourth years of initial teacher education, this presence has since dwindled significantly. A similar point was made by the second speaker in the session, Parlo Singh, who noted an (over?) emphasis on Bourdieuian theory in the sociology of education today, despite Pierre Bourdieu having only a relatively fleeting engagement with education (unlike, for example, his contemporary Basil Bernstein). Singh argued that the lack of sociological training in today’s initial teacher education may explain this trend.

According to Jessica Gerrard and Helen Proctor, who presented the final paper in this session, “declarations of the new” always bring with them “whispers” of the old. For Gerrard and Proctor, this raises questions about just what is sought to be ‘conserved’ in ‘conservative’ views and politics. 

Yet in the context of this symposium, where the future of the sociology of education itself appears to be in danger, perhaps an important question is what needs to be ‘conserved’ from the legacy of the developments of the 1970s. In particular, there may be a need to emphasise the central role of the sociology of education in supporting, as Mayes highlighted, the ‘fair go’ that classrooms can but often do not provide for students. As such, the sociology of education is not separate from but in fact central to initial teacher education. As the discussion that followed the papers highlighted, the sociology of education supports an understanding of teachers as navigators and negotiators of a curriculum which is not taken for granted, but instead, understood as culturally contingent and power-laden. This means we should be enhancing, rather than further marginalising and denigrating, the sociological education of the pre-service teachers we teach.

As convenor of a large, sociologically-informed undergraduate education course, I am sometimes questioned as to the ‘practicality’ of my course for students of teaching. It is too ‘theoretical’, some students (and sometimes colleagues) say. And while the theory is essential, it may be that the links between this theory and the actual work of teachers in classrooms needs to be made more explicit for the next generation of teachers. As such, and as session convenor Julie McLeod suggested as the symposium concluded, foregrounding the importance of the sociology of education in schools and initial teacher education classrooms may need to be a first priority of any ‘new’ sociology of education moving forward.

Photos below are just some of the images from the conference

Louisa Field, PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, writes on Teachers’ Work and Lives

Philip Poulton

The University of Sydney

Primary Teachers as Classroom Curriculum-Makers: Emerging Findings From a Longitudinal Study Exploring Teachers’ Experiences in Curriculum-Making With a Standardised Curriculum 

“I just have to make the thing with the outcomes, in the way that others want me to make, and then I have to teach the thing in the way it says” and “I think what guides the programming is really driven by our questioning of how we do we equip these students for a world that we can’t anticipate or envision yet?” These are two examples of the very different experiences of curriculum-making for teachers in Phillip Poulton’s doctoral study. In this longitudinal study, Phillip has followed preservice teachers from their final year of initial teacher education into their first year of classroom teaching, exploring the realities of early career teachers’ reported curriculum-making experiences. This study has found that whilst these teachers reported varied curriculum-making experiences, these were not always characteristic of more knowledge-led forms of curriculum-making. Rather, these were characterised more by instances of curriculum delivery.

During this presentation, Phillip drew on two individual teachers, both alike in terms of their valuing of education and conceptions of curriculum-making. However, in their first year of teaching, these two teachers found themselves in classroom fields with very different agendas and orientations towards curriculum. One teacher reported greater agency in working with curriculum in a flexible and collaborative environment, guided rather than restricted by the syllabus. The other teacher reporting a contrasting experience, finding herself in a non-collaborative environment and ticking off ‘outcomes’ prioritised above all else. Phillip’s study provides fascinating insight into the lived experiences of early career teachers who, while all aspiring to be knowledge-led curriculum-makers, were either enabled or constrained by the conditions of their individual classroom fields. Understanding more about these experiences is particularly pertinent today, especially with current discussions centred on ‘ending the lesson lottery’ and centralising lesson planning for teachers. Phillip’s doctoral study offer impetus for us to challenge such delivery agendas placed on classrooms which often narrow teachers’ curriculum-making practices. Rather, teachers’ curriculum-making needs to be reinforced as a key tenet of teacher professionalism – practices that are dependent on teachers’ professional knowledge of their students, pedagogy, and content.

Dr Claire Golledge The University of Sydney

No Capacity, No Equity: Schools, Universities, and New Challenges for Teacher Professional Learning  

Dr Claire Golledge’s paper focussed on how teacher professional learning (PL) mandates can exacerbate inequity across schools and systems. All Australian teachers are required to meet mandatory professional learning expectations in line with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Dr Golledge’s presentation drew on her own experience as a former leader of professional learning, and from her doctoral case study research to illustrate that not all teachers are positioned equally to meet these mandatory PL requirements. To highlight this point, Dr Golledge presented two case studies of teachers in vastly different learning contexts, one in an inner city, elite, independent school and another in a regional, government school where the bulk of students come from low socio-economic backgrounds. Despite vastly different PL needs and differing capacities of these teachers to access professional learning opportunities, both of these teachers are subject to the same PL standards and requirements.  While the teacher in the independent school was supported with their PL with a healthy budget, covered classes, and access to a range of accredited PL, the teacher in the regional school faced additional challenges of funding, finding casuals to cover classes, and access to accredited professional learning within her school. Dr Golledge’s study raises a key point that we often talk about educational inequity amongst students, but what about the impact on teachers? This is something which is all too often overlooked. This presentation sparked lively conversations about the ethics and equity of for-profit professional learning providers as well as asking what role universities should play in helping to support teacher professional learning and access to research in schools.