For decades, teaching has been framed as a “family-friendly” profession, appealing to women with caregiving responsibilities due to school-hour alignment and perceived flexibility. This framing is out of step with reality. In Australia, where women make up 78% of the teaching workforce, the profession is facing a major retention crisis. Typically, this issue is explored as an ungendered problem. But, in order to get a complete understanding of how teaching labour, domestic labour and caring responsibilities contribute to teacher attrition, it’s time we connected the dots between gender, care, and teacher shortages.
We need to confront whether the emotional labour required to teach, compounded by women’s overrepresentation in domestic responsibilities at home iscontributing to the departure of women teachers from the profession? We must stop pretending that teaching is an ungendered workforce with uniform demands on teachers’ time and emotional resources.
At the Intersection of Care and Work
Women teachers often find themselves at the crossroads of three intersecting spheres:
The expectation to provide unpaid or under-recognised care at home
A profession that is feminised and care-based, yet increasingly pressured by performance metrics
Caregiving demands from children, male partners in heterosexual partnerships and ageing parents
At this intersection lies a truth many women teachers live daily: their dual roles at home and in their workplaces are not just exhausting, they are unsustainable. It is here that emotional labour accumulates, time poverty intensifies, and burnout takes hold.
What the Data Tell Us
Recent AITSL data (2025) and union reports (2024) identify escalating workloads, lack of flexibility, and declining morale as key drivers of attrition. Yet the gendered dimension of this crisis remains obscured and invisibilised.
This is not a story of individual burnout. It is a structural issue that is deeply embedded in how we value (or fail to value) care work and how gender roles in schools and home make the working lives of women teachers untenable.
While we often hear generous platitudes from politicians about how valued teachers are and how important they are, these are empty words without the recognition that largely, it is a highly flawed system built on women’s time and labour.
We cannot meaningfully reckon with workforce and workload issues until we confront this fact and make appropriate structural changes to teachers’ work arrangements.
The Double Shift Is Real- And Growing
Despite the narrative that teaching work aligns well with the demands of parenting roles; the reality is far more complex.
Women teachers report working up to 50 hours per week, including nights, weekends, and during school holidays. Add to that the “second shift” of parenting, elder care, and household management, often performed without institutional support or flexibility, and it’s little wonder that many are choosing to reduce hours, take career breaks, or exit the profession altogether.
Many of these decisions are made quietly. There is rarely a dramatic resignation. More often, it’s a slow retreat from full-time teaching: a move to part-time, casual roles, or early retirement. This gradual exit contributes to the “leaking pipeline” of skilled, experienced educators, particularly women in mid-career.
Our research is grounded in care-focused feminism and devaluation theory, approaches that shine a light on the political and economic undervaluing of care work. Teaching, long considered a “natural” extension of women’s nurturing roles, is not just underpaid; it is under-respected, especially when compared to male-dominated professions with similar qualifications.
Where to From Here?
If we are serious about addressing the teacher shortage, we must ask harder questions about the gendered realities of the profession. That means:
Acknowledging caregiving as a structural factor in workforce planning
Designing policies that support, not penalise teachers with family responsibilities
Valuing care work as legitimate, skilled labour in both public and private life
This is not just about keeping teachers in classrooms. It’s about retaining the experience, insight, and leadership of women educators whose labour has long been taken for granted. To create a sustainable future for education, we must reimagine schools as places that support, rather than strain, the lives of those who teach in them.
Adriana Bonifacio is a PhD candidate and sessional academic in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her doctoral research investigates the relationship between women teachers’ work–family responsibilities and pervasive teacher shortages in Australia. She’s on LinkedIn. Jo Lampert is the Professor of Teacher Education for Social Transformation at Monash University. She has led alternative pathways into teaching in hard-to-staff schools for over 15 years, most recently as Director of the Commonwealth and State supported Nexus M. Teach in Victoria, a social justice, employment-based pathway whereby preservice teachers work as Education Support Staff prior to gaining employment as paraprofessionals (Nexus). She’s on LinkedIn. Stephanie Wescott is a lecturer in humanities in Social Sciences in the School of Education, Culture and Society, Monash University. Her research explores socio-political phenomena and their intersections with education policy and practice. She’s on LinkedIn.
In her plan to battle antisemitism, Jillian Segal, the federal government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, has delivered a recipe for racial discord in schools and universities. It will stifle free speech and undermine superior attempts to combat racism. Segal will have the right to define the offences of antisemitism, the offenders and the punishments and will also shape the re-education of the various parties.
These commentators have identified the plan’s partisan definitions and arguments, untrustworthy evidence base and unreasonable and unwarranted policy recommendations. Segal’s claims are seen as excessive, and her proposals as repressive— potentially threatening democracy. If implemented, they believe her plan will undermine free speech, academic freedom and the right to protest.
The Minister for Education, Jason Clare will not be bullied into ‘immediate action’. He is waiting for the report from the Islamophobia envoy (August) and the Australian Human Rights Commission’s review into racism in universities (November).
Bad education, bad youth and a redemptive definition
Teachers, schools, universities and young people are in Segal’s sights. Her focus on education, Segal says, stems from the generational differences between the over and under 35s as to their ‘media consumption’, ‘perceptions of the Middle East and the Jewish community’ and the ‘Holocaust and its impacts on society’.
To Segal, the under 35s are uninformed and misguided. They must be re-educated. Their universities and schools cannot be trusted to do this job because within them, antisemitism is ‘ingrained and normalised’. So, despite her lack of educational expertise, Segal must step into the breach.
She will start by insisting that all educational institutions and systems adopt a particular definition of antisemitism. In its examples, this definition conflates anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiments with antisemitism. It has been persuasively discredited because of this dangerous conflation and because of its weaponisation.
But Segal wants to stick with it anyway. Afterall, it allows her to see examples of antisemitism whenever, wherever and however critical views about Israel and Zionism are expressed. It thus stretches her influence, multiplies her opportunities for denouncement and helps deflect wider attention away from Israel’s ever-more appalling treatment of the Palestinian people.
Rescuing universities?
This overzealous envoy expects universities to bow to as suspect definition She wants to
· develop and launch a university report card, assessing each university’s implementation of effective practices and standards to combat antisemitism, including complaints systems and best practice policies, as well as consideration of whether the campus/online environment is conducive to Jewish students and staff participating actively and equally in university life.
· work with government to enable government funding to be withheld, where possible, from universities, programs or individuals within universities that facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism. …
We argue there are shades of authoritarianism here. Segal wants surveillance over university courses, teachers and researchers. She wants to repress speech and protest. She wants to intensify the current persecution of pro-Palestinian staff and students— those already silenced by many universities. In short, she seeks to purge the university of voices and activities that she regards as illegitimate.
We think Segal also exhibits moral blindness. and fails to acknowledge that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people, currently and over time, provides a fertile context for anti-Israel sentiments.
In our view, her compassion appears to be reserved exclusively for those experiencing antisemitism— as defined above. We have seen no ovidence that she shows pity for the fear and pain of others — certainly not for the anguish of the people in Gaza experiencing genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation. Is she blind to this increasingly recognised ‘moral emergency of our time’?
Saving schools?
The envoy’s proposed Key Actions for schools include working with appropriate authorities to
embed Holocaust and antisemitism education, with appropriate lesson plans, in national and state school curricula
provide guidance to government on antisemitism education for educators and public officials
provide recommendations to government on enhancing education about Jewish history, identity, culture and antisemitism in high school curricula ..
Segal has no expertise in curriculum and pedagogy or in the philosophies and practices of anti-racist education. Those with such expertise are unlikely to welcome her ‘lesson plans’, ‘guidance’ and curriculum ‘enhancement’. They are more likely to see her approach as counter to the best available programmes and practices and as unaware of the composition of current classrooms.
Many classrooms include students from all sorts of cultures, religions and circumstances — some very difficult. Under Segal’s racially hierarchical regime these students would be entitled to ask, ‘What about my family’s and community’s struggles with racism? What about our ‘history, identity, culture’? What about other experiences of genocide?’
Alternative and superior approaches are available and necessary—including critical racial literacy alongside anti-racist, decolonial methods. These recognise that racism may be experienced differently by different groups. But they do not prioritise one racially subjugated group over another or pit racially subjugated groups against each other. Rather they adopt ‘systemic, intersectional, strengths-based, and coordinated action’ as the National Anti-Racism Framework explains.
Jane Kenway is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise is in educational sociology.
Main image: Student encampment at Adelaide University – Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles. There is no evidence to say that any of these patterns of censorship occurred during this encampment.
Last year I was critical of how I thought the Commonwealth Prac Payments were going to work. These were to provide Austudy level payments, currently equivalent to $331.65 a week, for nursing, midwifery, social work and teacher education students while undertaking compulsory work placements. The payment starts on 1 July 2025 for students on income support and some working students.
Rather late in the day, the legal paperwork for its higher education version was completed last week. The vocational education diploma of nursing version paperwork was already available. The higher education version is administered by universities and funded through the ‘other grants’ provisions of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. The VET Prac Payment is administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, although thefunding is authorised under the Social Security Act 1991.
Things I was concerned about that have not happened
Some of my Prac Payment concerns from last year were not realised in the policy as enacted. The Prac Payment has a means test but it is based solely on the student’s income, not family income. However family income has an indirect effect through eligibility for income support.
A policy goal is reduce the number of students who defer or withdraw from their course due to placement obligations, but students won’t need to prove that they are considering either of those things.
But in the Australian way of public policy, the Prac Payment is an underwhelming half-measure. The payment is low and will be further reduced by tax and by social security income tests. Many students won’t be eligible at all.
Who is eligible for the Prac Payment?
Aside from undertaking one of the compulsory placements, to be eligible students need to be a) on an eligible Commonwealth income support benefit or b) working with hours and income parameters defined by the guidelines. If working, a two-part test applies:
In either a) the 4 study weeks immediately prior to the mandatory placement starting or b) in the 4 study weeks immediately prior to applying for the Prac Payment (whichever is earlier) the student worked on average more than 15 hours a week (i.e. more than 60 hours over 4 weeks) AND
Earned from all sources less than $1500 a week on average (i.e. less than $6000 over 4 weeks).
Students on income support
All the eligible Commonwealth benefits – the plain-language list of which benefits are covered is in the vocational payment guidelines – are means tested. The ever-vigilant Services Australia is already warning students that they must declare Prac Payment income, which can reduce their income support payment. The government gives with one hand and takes with the other.
For students on Austudy the income test is fortnightly. Students can earn up to $528 a fortnight without affecting their Austudy payment. As the Prac Payment will pay $663.30 fortnightly it means the student’s Austudy payment will be reduced.
For a single student with no children the Prac Payment would reduce their Austudy by $52.50 plus 60c cents per dollar over $633, so another $18.18 for a total of $70.68. The net value of the Prac Payment after the income test is $260.97.
Some students could use their income bank (credit for other fortnights in which they have earned less than $528) to reduce this impact. But if students earn other income from part-time work during their placement the income test would take more of their Prac Payment.
A better Prac Payment policy for students on income support might be to pay them exactly the income test amount – $528 a fortnight or $264 a week. The student would be $3 a week better off and the Department of Education would save $67.65 a week on each student.
For students on other income support payments the income test is less generous. For example, a student with one child on a Parenting Payment can earn $220.60 a fortnightbefore their payment starts decreasing by 40 cents in the dollar. Partial loss of the student’s parenting payment would make the Prac Payment worth $243.11 a week.
Policy purpose – income support
The policy purpose for income support recipients seems slightly different from students facing the work test. Income support recipients won’t lose any benefits income by doing their placement. But they are likely to incur additional expenses, such as travel to the placement location. This can include accommodation if the placement is too far from the student’s home.
As described in the next section, for many working students the Prac Payment won’t cover their income loss, let alone additional placement costs.
Students without income support – eligibility
The two-part test for working students without income support means that it only applies in a range of incomes. From 1 July 2025, when the new minimum wage of $24.95 an hour applies, 15.5 hours work (so more than 15 hours) = $386.72. So the Prac Payment is for students earning between $386.72 and $1499.99 a week. As the weekly Prac Payment is $331.65 students must lose at least $55 if they can’t work their normal hours at all.
Using the ABS Education and Work TableBuilder product I can analyse the relevant fields of education, although this includes some courses that won’t get the Prac Payment. The working hours options offered by TableBuilder don’t exactly match the payment criteria, but based on Education and Work 2024 approximately 30% of students would be ineligible due to working too few hours, and another approximately 30% would be ineligible due to working too many hours (based on a minimum wage * hours calculation). Some no or short work hours students would, however, be eligible based on receiving an income support payment.
There is no taper in the Prac Payment. A person averaging $1499 a week gets the full $331.65 Prac Payment, a person averaging $1501 gets nothing; a person working 15.5 hours gets the full amount, a person working 14.5 hours gets nothing. We can expect gaming of the system to expand eligibility.
But with administration of the program outsourced to universities, discussed below, a tapered payment would have been unreasonably complex for organisations with no experience of running income support programs.
Policy purpose – income test
Other than to reduce the government’s costs, I’m not clear on the rationale for the $1500 a week cut-off for Prac Payment eligibility. If the student is their household’s main or a major income earner the financial consequences of taking time off for the placement are more serious than for students whose paid work finances discretionary expenses. The more than 15 hours minimum work makes more sense than the $1500 income maximum.
Admittedly $331.65 is not much compensation if the placement requires forgoing the full $1500+ a week; making the placement work is still going to require savings and sacrifices. But arguably a higher income signals greater rather than lesser needs.
The ATO takes its share
As well as counting towards social security income tests the Prac Payment is taxable. Somone on Austudy for 52 weeks would receive $17,245, just below the first income tax threshold of $18,200. Each course has its own maximum number of weeks on placement. It is 20 hours for nursing, so a maximum Prac Payment of $5219 (at the $260.97 effective rate, the money will be taken out of their Austudy), and total income support of $22,465. Of this, $4265 is taxable at 16 cents in the dollar = $682.
Someone at the upper limit of the income range would be in the 30 cents in the dollar tax bracket.
As the Prac Payment is taxable this reduces the effective cost of extending it to people earning over $1500 a week.
Deductible placement expenses?
While the ATO gets a cut of the Prac Payment money, as students are earning money for the placement can they claim placement expenses as tax deductions? I think probably not due to the interaction of section 26-19 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and section 160AAA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, which refers to a ‘Commonwealth education or training payment’ (sub-section 1(b)). But sub-section 1 (b) cross-references a sub-section 6(1) for more detail, but that section does not seem to exist.
The role of Centrelink and the Department of Education
In 2024 I thought that Centrelink rather than universities should administer the Prac Payment. Universities aren’t set up to run means tests. If all the casual underpayment issues are a guide, they aren’t very good at ad hoc payments either.
During the Senate inquiry into the bill authorising higher education Prac Payment spending, however, students made a reasonably persuasive case that dealing with Centrelink was not easy, and that students not on income support currently have no interaction with the social security system. The universities would also still need to be involved, to authenticate that the placement was happening.
But arrangements for vocational education diploma of nursing students suggest a third option, that the relevant policy Department arrange the payments – the Department of Education for higher education students. If DEWR can do it so can the DofE, or better still they could share it. It would be more efficient than every university setting up its own means testing system, for which the Department has already paid them $2.3 million.
The relevant students could be flagged in TCSI, and records of the payments sent to Services Australia and the ATO for maximum efficiency and cost recovery.
Will it make a major difference?
The Prac Payment is a good idea, but with overly complex implementation that also reduces its value to students. Many students in Prac Payment courses will find that they are not eligible at all or, due to income tests and income tax, will get less than the already modest $331.65 a week. Some money is better than none at all, but these deficiencies raise questions about whether the Prac Payment will make a major difference to completion rates.
In contrast, the AITSL presents a more polished message: “Australia is popular for many things… a safe country with a friendly and relaxed culture… we can help you get started on your teaching journey”. Yet the AITSL portal also codifies a logic of superiority—positioning Australia’s education system as globally exceptional, its teachers as stewards of excellence, and its structures as the source of “evidence-based tools”.
This nation-branding rhetoric appears inclusive on the surface. But as our discourse analysis reveals, it constructs a one-way narrative of giving. Migrant teachers are positioned as beginners—“starting out”—even when they arrive with decades of experience. Their role is not to enrich the system, but to assimilate into it. As Mahati, a respected English teacher from India in Nashid’s doctoral study, reflected: “I had been teaching English for over twenty years across continents—India and Uganda—before I came to Australia. But here, I had to redo everything. It felt like I was invisible”.
The real costs are tangible. Laura, a cherished English teacher from the Philippines and participant in Nashid’s doctoral study, told us: “I took the IELTS test four times plus a review over two years. It cost me nearly four months’ salary in pesos. I had everything else ready—but the language requirement kept holding me back”.
An overall IELTS score of 7.5 or 8.0 can still be rejected if one skill—such as Writing at 6.5—falls below the required threshold. As scholars argue, this rigid, decontextualised format reflects a neoliberal and neocolonial gatekeeping logic. It marginalises qualified multilingual teachers through standardised measures detached from real-world communication.
Reza explained: “I kept failing. One time I got 8 in listening but 6.5 in writing. The next time it was the reverse. After two years, I gave up and returned home”.
One teacher’s journey
He continued teaching—at an international college in Bangladesh—while repeatedly sitting for the IELTS test. Over time, each attempt brought him close, but never across the threshold required by Australian standards. After two years of emotional and financial strain, his family suggested he apply through New Zealand. There a score of 7.0 across all bands was still accepted. He met the criteria, registered with the Teachers Registration Board of South Australia (TRBSA), and used this to apply for skilled migration with family sponsorship—gaining an additional 10 points. From there, he transferred his registration to the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) and finally settled in Melbourne.
Quang, a respected English teacher from Vietnam with four English-medium postgraduate degrees (two from Vietnam, two from Australia, including ITE/Secondary), shared a similar experience. “I passed everything—teaching practicum, assessments, I even got distinctions. But I still had to sit for another English test to register in NSW”.
He started teaching as a CRT later. The principal introduced him to others by saying, “This is our new Vietnamese English teacher”. He wasn’t offended, even when told that others had laughed upon hearing that—but he understood what it signified.
“It shows what people expect: that someone like me isn’t usually seen as an English teacher”.
It’s not just language being measures
What’s being measured isn’t just language. It’s legitimacy. It’s the right to belong.
The AITSL migration guidelines suggest legitimacy flows from only a handful of countries—Australia, Canada, Ireland, NZ, the UK, and the USA—excluding many English-medium post-colonial nations like the Philippines, India, Kenya, Ghana, and Singapore.
Similarly, the “Teaching in Australia” guide constructs the ideal teacher through phrases like “Australian teachers must…”, framing competence as nationalised and native. Even appeals to “multicultural classrooms” fail to acknowledge migrant teachers as co-creators of this richness. Their linguistic and cultural knowledge is seen less as a resource, more as a hurdle.
Natalie, a Bangladeshi teacher, shared: “Sometimes I switch to English, Chittagonian, Jessore dialect, or what’s called standard or non-standard Bangla—not for fluency, but to build trust. It’s about connection and recognising different ways of knowing”.
Quang, reflecting on his students, said: “They’d ask me, ‘Is my accent okay?’ I’d say, ‘Your English is beautiful. Don’t worry about it’.”
These teachers are already transforming classrooms
Such affective, relational practices disrupt top-down discourses of “support.” These teachers aren’t waiting to belong—they’re already transforming classrooms.
So let’s stop asking whether migrant teachers are “ready for Australia”.
Let’s ask whether Australia is ready to learn from the teachers already here— fluent not only in English, but in empathy, hybridity, and the courage to reimagine education.
Biographies from left to right
Nashid Nigar teaches at the University of Melbourne and brings 20+ years of experience in language and literacy education, academic writing, and teacher development. Her PhD at Monash Education, awarded the prestigious 2024 Mollie Holman Medal, introduced the framework of Hybrid Professional Becoming—advancing research in multilingual curriculum, teacher identity, and curriculum justice. Her work, grounded in epistemic diversity and equity, informs national policy and supports culturally and linguistically diverse educators globally.
Lilly Yazdanpanah is a lecturer in the School of Education at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on equity and social justice in education, with a particular emphasis on teacher and student identity within English as an Additional Language (EAL) contexts. She has extensive experience teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programs across the Middle East, Europe, Central America, and Australia. Before joining La Trobe, she held teaching and research positions at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, specialising in TESOL and General Education.
Sender Dovchin is a Senior Principal Research Fellow and ARC Fellow at Curtin University. Her research focuses on linguistic racism and the empowerment of CALD youth in Australia. She holds a PhD and MA from UTS and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Recognised as a leading scholar in Language & Linguistics, she has published six books and numerous papers in top international journals.
Rachel Wilson is a leading scholar in education and social impact at the University of Technology Sydney. With a background in psychology, teaching, and research methodology, her work spans education systems, curriculum reform, equity, and leadership. Rachel has extensive experience in research training, educational evaluation, and policy advising, and is committed to advancing quality and justice in education.
Alex Kostogriz is the professor in Languages and TESOL Education within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. He currently serves as the Associate Dean (International) within the faculty. Alex’s ongoing research endeavours are centred around the professional practice and ethics of language teachers, as well as the realms of teacher education and the early experiences of early career educators.
This is a lost opportunity to bridge the current diversity gap in the teaching workforce and a lost opportunity to address the concerning national teacher shortage. Ethnic minorities, including Asians, are caught in a vicious cycle of underrepresentation, where small numbers of existing ethnic minority teachers in Australia equates to difficulty attracting new ethnic minority teachers.
Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group in Australia. They make up about one in six of the overall population. We don’t have specific data for Asian teachers and students but we know teachers from minority backgrounds, including Asians, account for only 4% of the P-12 teaching workforce in 2022. We also know there is increasing student racial diversity in schools. The result is a widening teacher-student racial parity gap.
Research has consistently captured the benefits of teacher-student racial-cultural-linguistic alignment. For instance, scholarship demonstrates a racially diverse teacher workforce contributes to minority student perceptions of schools as more welcoming places. It allows minority teachers to bring their own understanding of relevant cultural contexts, while also acting as role models for students from non-dominant backgrounds.
Research shows that they are crucial in supporting student well-being, especially among academically vulnerable minority students. Minority teachers are instrumental in providing an equitable and inclusive education, ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds can have their needs and voices heard and understood in their schools.
Similar considerations apply to Asian students and teachers in Australia. For instance, many Asian students tend to be seen as a culturally homogeneous whole, and are consequently (unfairly) held to a one-size-fits-all expectation around linguistic ability and academic performance.
These students often grapple with racial bias, discrimination, and lack of belonging in Australian schools.
But Asian teachers can leverage cultural knowledge and community connections to support Asian students. They can also debunk stereotypes among non-Asian students and educate non-Asian colleagues. While we are not suggesting that Asian teachers represent a distinct typology of educators or that racial matching is always necessary, research has shown us that educators who understand the cultural and social dynamics that shape their students’ lives are best positioned to support their learning. Asian teachers help challenge current dominant white and monolingual racial stereotypes of teaching, thereby encouraging more Asian students to aspire to become teachers.
Student experiences of racism and discrimination impact a sense of belonging and safety. That’s been a barrier to wanting to work in schools. Those memories of being belittled by school staff cause negative self-concept and lower minority students’ confidence in future teaching abilities.
Cultural and parental influences can also discourage Asian youth from choosing teaching in favour of securing employment in high-status, and high-salary careers. Many Asian students come from families who have internalised the racially-driven ‘model minority’ status. They often face significant familial pressure that emphasises high academic achievement as a stepping stone to employability and financial security. Asian parents may encourage their children to focus on prestigious and high-paying jobs as a protective factor from discrimination in a white-dominated labour market.
Some recommendations include increasing the number of minority teacher educators and creating an inclusive teacher preparation curriculum that reflects diversity to help attract and retain minority teacher candidates. Of course, this needs to first be grounded in formalised antiracist agendas within teacher education programs and at the institutional level. Similarly, beyond higher education, schools need to nip this problem in the bud by adopting a similar antiracist approach. Here, collective and coordinated support from school leadership, staff, and broader school communities is essential in rejecting racism and discrimination against Asian students and teachers.
Australian education research has remained relatively silent on Asian Australia despite the growing presence – and increasing importance – of Asian teacher and student populations alike. A growing body of scholarship is interrogating the racial-colonial discourses that impact this key stakeholder in Australian education.
Given the clear implications this discussion has for teacher attraction and retention as a means to improved (racial) equity in schools and higher education spaces, we contend that there is much that urgently needs to be done in this space.
Aaron Teo is a lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the University of Southern Queensland’s School of Education. He is convenor for the Australian Association for Research in Education Social Justice Special Interest Group. His research focusses on the raced and gendered subjectivities of migrant teachers from “Asian” backgrounds in the Australian context, as well as critical pedagogies in white Australian (university and school) classroom spaces.
Sun Yee Yip is a lecturer at the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her research focuses on teacher knowledge development, teacher diversity and raising the status of teachers and the teaching profession.
The men who helped Trump sweep to victory through inspiring young men to vote, such as billionaire investor Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan, hold a network of power and influence that might further exacerbate the undermining of women and girls’ rights and safety during a second Donald Trump presidency and beyond.
Given the existing reach of far-right, misogynist figures in Australian schools, it’s also important to consider potential implications for Australian education.
Here in Australia, pre-election polling found Australian men were more likely to indicate support for Trump than women. More starkly, while a lower figure than those American young men who voted for Trump, a significant 43% of Australian men under 30 indicated their support for Trump over Harris. While some data indicate Trump’s appeal to young men is based on economic policy and job prospects, it’s impossible to ignore the appeal of strongman politics, misogyny and male supremacy.
This type of misogyny is highly influential. Now no longer restricted to online spaces, it is likely that we will see boys and young men emulating and repeating Trump’s views and attitudes. Taking this alongside the polling data from Australia that indicate broad support for Trumpian politics, policies and persona, there will likely be waves of influence in Australian schools that will require policy, curriculum and leadership-level response.
Urgent need for training in critical thinking about the manosphere
Trump has a history of endorsing conspiracy theories. During his campaign, he affiliated himself with anti-abortion and anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist, RJK Jr, who said Trump had promised him control of public health agencies, ‘because we’ve got to get off of seed oils and we’ve got to get off of pesticide.’
For boys and young men consuming manosphere content and vulnerable to its misinformation, the emboldening effect of Trump’s election will have very real impacts on their understanding of key global issues, as well as girls’ and women’s safety.
This will make curriculum attention to critical thinking an essential and urgent priority. Critical and creative thinking has long been a general capability included in the Australian Curriculum. Now we need to pay specific attention to equipping young people with skills to identify misinformation and resist pervasive conspiracy theories; and increase all students’ critical digital literacy skills to understand how the manosphere exploits and manipulates their feelings and beliefs.
Brazen disregard for truth
Trump’s brazen disregard for truth and fact mirrors other manosphere figures, such as Tate, Trump and Joe Rogan. Both Trump and Rogan have claimed that Invermectin cures COVID and that vaccines alter your genes, among other conspiracies.Trump’s presidency is also a threat to climate action, which significantly regressed under his previous term. Joe Rogan and fellow manosphere figure Jordan Petersen have also faced criticism by scientists for their public climate change denialism. A conversation that took place on X between Trump and Musk was also widely condemned for being seeped in climate misinformation. The outcome of the election has also clearly emboldened white supremacists in the US, and is likely to do the same for such groups in Australia. This is especially concerning given their visibility has been already growing here in recent years..
Trump and manosphere support in Australia
Our research has indicated that figures of the manosphere—a term used to describe online groups, individuals and forums who represent anti-feminist and anti-women ideas—have influenced how boys behave towards women and girls in Australian schools. Andrew Tate is one of the most infamous members of the manosphere, a public misogynist charged with rape and human trafficking.
Once the election results were becoming clear, Tate announced that he is ‘moving back to America’—a clear endorsement of the election result and the permission provided for men like him to thrive in Trump’s America.
Tate later proudly boasted that ‘the men are back in charge’. He was making it clear women’s grievances were irrelevant now a male supremacist president was reinstalled.
These statements align with the comments posted by prominent far-right leader and activist Nick Fuentes, who posted on X ‘Your body, my choice. Forever’. This vile sentiment very quickly became a viral meme, across all the major social media sites. It was even printed on T-shirts and readied for purchase. Australian women have also reported being on the receiving end of the ‘’your body, my choice’ statement as well as experiencing an increase in violent and misogynist messages from men online since Trump’s election win.
In a climate of increasing hostility and endemic levels of violence against women, the affirmation of male supremacist ideas and attitudes by the election of a misogynist to public office presents a very real threat to women’s safety in Australia.
Viral misogyny
Tate’s influence on other manosphere creators and sympathisers and the viral spread of his misogynistic ideas is part of a phenomenon known as ‘networked misogyny’. The endorsement of Trump by high-profile figures such as Rogan and Musk provide an example of how figures of the manosphere work to support each other and provide access to power. For example, Musk used his significant profile on X to ‘amplify right-wing conspiracy theories, spread misinformation and promote the Republican candidate.’
Algorithms presenting manosphere content such as Andrew Tate’s to boys and young men regardless of whether they search for it. There is now a strong body of research documenting the ways that this content shapes how boys and young men treat women. This includes sexist and derogatory comments and behaviour. It also includes a refusal to accept the gender wage gap is real and opposition to gender equity.
Inaccurate beliefs
These beliefs are key parts of grievance politics that were key to Trump’s success, and feed inaccurate beliefs about disadvantage and lack of opportunity. These ideas find homes in the minds of boys and young men, who in return begin to see women and girls as barriers to their success.
It is crucial we increase all students’ critical digital literacy skills to understand the malign influence of the manosphere. With Australia heading into an election year in 2025, this need is more critical than ever.
Stephanie Wescott is a lecturer in Humanities in Social Sciences in the School of Education, Culture and Society, Monash University Faculty of Education. Her research explores socio-political phenomena and their intersections with education policy and practice.
Steven Roberts is a professor of Education and Social Justice in the School of Education, Culture and Society at Monash University Faculty of Education. He is a sociologist and has published widely in the areas of Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities and Critical Youth Studies.
When you enter the encampment, you see colour: the red, green, black and white of Palestinian flags and posters and the red, yellow and black of Aboriginal flags, clusters of multicoloured tents and the vibrant hues of children’s artwork. If you walk around, you pass the community library, public notice boards and tables sharing leaflets. There’s a central gathering space with circles of chairs and cushions in watermelon red and green. There may be paintbrushes scattered around from the latest banner painting session, a film screening underway. There may be a researching bee taking place, or myriad teach-ins. You’ll likely see a plurality of students of various religious, racial, gender, class and political positionings, all committed to working together. You might catch the scent of smoky fire cheese fry pans or see students cooking up some other feast from the community pantry.
If you stop and browse in the library or scan the noticeboard, chances are you’ll be greeted by students who are keen to chat about their concerns, local and global happenings and what the encampment is demanding: disclose ties to weapons companies, all funding and research deals; divest and cut ties with all weapons manufacturers; solidarity with Palestine and an end to the occupation. And chances are students will tell you it’s good that you are here. Together, we might ask the question of how can university students and staff support each other to teach and research in solidarity with Palestine? The message from students is clear: “Come down to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Help us build the anti-war campaign and stand in solidarity with Palestine.”
A global movement
Similar Gaza solidarity encampments have arisen on university campuses globally. Most establishment figures and institutions have insisted on crackdowns, closures and punitive measures. Encampments in the USA, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece have suffered threats and harsh physical and procedural treatment from police and universities. Mainstream media portray the encampments as hotbeds of antisemitism and violence. Such portrayals bear little resemblance to these camps’ operations.
Through social media the students decide on their own portrayals. They also publish formal statements and have their own student news outlets. Sharing is to inform, explain, inspire, warn. Confronting images of the NYPD invading student encampments across New York City ricochet around the globe.
What encampments teach
All encampments raise awareness about the justice of the Palestinian cause and the horrors of the war in Gaza. They demand their universities disclose and end their association with suppliers of arms to the Israeli state. Banners read ‘Disclose Divest. We will not stop. We will not rest’. ‘Stop the lies. Cut the ties’. If they meet with university leaders, if a university agrees to some demands, the students reveal it. They denounce those leaders who refuse to talk.
They post images of camps, campus marches with allies, occupations, die ins, rings of staff protecting students, of graduation ceremonies where gowned students unfurl Free Palestine banners and the Palestinian flag as they receive their awards. Through social media they hear each other’s chants and slogans, see each other’s banners and flags. ‘Stop Genocide Ceasefire Now’ ‘Jews against Genocide’ And they hear each other’s insistent voices— speaking, praying, singing, reciting poetry. Messages of support and solidarity flow out, flow in. Palestinians in Gaza send thanks. The students share lists and maps showing the latest encampments. A map of the Nordic countries is headed Students all across the Nordics are mobilising …. 13 encampments, 12 cities, 4 countries. Another map appears of Belgium’s five encampments; similarly, a map of Sweden.
They also share why, when and how some encampments end—seldom willingly. One student asks ‘What kind of system do we live in where an institution can call the police on you for opposing genocide?’
Pedagogic spaces
Moving through any encampment you might see a banner with the encampment’s ground rules, laying the foundation for a community collectively governed. We might see students reading books from the encampment library or gathering to prepare the next speech, rally, banner or chant. The air will be abuzz with the sound of community in the making. Students are becoming practiced in all manner of community actions, educating, caring and creating.
In the encampments, we see, feel, hear, envision and are invited into the cocreation of student-led pedagogies of action, protest, disruption and insurgence pedagogies of love and carepedagogies of peace and encircling pedagogies that exceed/seed/cede We see the enactment of education as something you do with and for other people.
A different way of doing education
University encampments invite us into a different way of doing education that defies institutional control. These are spaces that nurture student-led movements which are disrupting and expanding the boundaries of education. Such student-led projects extend beyond racial, religious, national and disciplinary boundaries, and refuse to be co-opted into the institutional status quo. Attending to student-led movements such as university encampments for Palestine opens possibilities for us to revitalise universities as generative spaces of study.
These students are refusing to spend their time of higher learning being processed as obedient units of the colonial class system that sacrifices our humanity, in one way or another, to the death spiral of global capitalism. They are insisting, instead, upon their right to create home, joy, and liveable futures. – Eugenia Zuroski
In the words of Eman Abdelhadi, the encampments are“gifting a new experience of wholeness”. They have “helped heal some of the wounds of the past seven months and reenergized us for the fight ahead.” The students’ university’s connections with the world confront the public university’s silence about and repression of what is happening in the world.
Don’t ask why students are protesting. Ask what died in you that you are not
The students have highlighted scholasticide in Palestine. The destruction of universities, schools, libraries, museums. The loss of many teachers, students, academics, intellectuals, writers, artists. In contrast most university leaders have been mute — failing to mourn the loss of what they claim to value. Failing to offer solace. Failing linguistically too. Any encampment student could explain that From the river to the sea and Intifada are not antisemitic and have special meaning for the Palestinian people. Largely, the leadership ignores this. Neither do they want to learn from Jewish members of the encampments who insist that Jewishness must not be used to justify genocide. Like many members of the Jewish community, when they say, Never again, they mean never again for anyone.
What university leaders could learn
University leaders could learn from the students’ ethical clarity. The students are providing the moral leadership expected from sites of knowledge and learning. And many staff are fearlessly joining them, despite the silencing chill from above. In contrast university leaders talk of Jewish students’ fear of attending campus and of the inconvenience of disruption and damage. If they visited the encampments and looked at the students’ screens, they would see the everyday, every night fear, disruption and damage of the Gaza war. This might help them gain a sense of perspective.
And having witnessed the encampments’ liveliness, diversity, community engagement and transnational solidarity they might think twice about the loss of the university’s soul and conscience under their watch.
Our job is not to protect the institution or its timelines or its profits or its myths of impartiality. Our job is to be strong for our students and to protect them every way we can so that they can realize their own visions of peace and liberation for Palestine. As you go to class today, remember, there are no universities left in Gaza. – Eugenia Zuroski
Main image: Student encampment at Adelaide University – Kaurna Yerta 5 May 2024. Photo: Jack Desbiolles
Jane Kenway is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research expertise is in educational sociology.
Katie Maher lectures in Education at the University of South Australia. She co-chairs the Pedagogies for Justice research group and is a Series Editor for AARE’s Local/Global Issues in Education book series.
It is vital that educators act to try to dismantle the social inequities they discover through their practice. We are privileged to work at the frontline of daily social change, and our work is a wonderful messy mix of teaching, learning and researching that shapes and is in itself, social action. As an educator in a range of roles – teacher, school curriculum and team leader, educational activist and researcher – with asylum-seeking students, I have long been committed to finding out about and building practices that work around and help to overcome the multiple barriers that Australia’s political, legal and social systems construct that exclude people who sought asylum by boat from full and sustainable educational participation.
My experiences have only strengthened my conviction that (1) being an educator demands empathic solidarity and (2) that such solidarity is an essential part of purposeful grass-roots practice for social justice. I have come to believe that educators can take certain kinds of action that is at once relational and political, neither fearful nor feeble in the face of the unjust exertion of state power. Such practices are in themselves the wonderful stuff of change.
What we found
In my doctoral study, Partnering for Hope, I worked with post-secondary asylum-seeking students, most of whom were studying on scholarships at a range of universities across Melbourne. One of the things that research found was that while the benefits to students on fee-waiver university scholarships were life changing, they remained significantly and persistently disadvantaged. Their parents often had little or no English language skills and they were the only adults in their family with strong English and experience in dealing effectively with Australian institutions of any kind.
They were trying to straddle two cultures and multiple demands: to study in their third or fourth language, to work to support themselves and their families and often to manage time-intensive needs of other family members – parents with various health issues, younger siblings education/school issues and whole family immigration visa-related issues. These young people told us clearly that in order to really help, we needed to take a whole-family approach.
What’s happening?
One of the responses to what we found has been a business plan for the Hope Kiosk, as the first Hope Co-Operative Social Enterprise Project. It has come about through conversations between Hope Co-op, Earthworker Co-operative and Victorian Trades Hall, and the empty kiosk space there. Trades Hall are generously subsidising 100% of the rent for the first few months, and Hope has been able to use a small business-development grant from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to begin preparations.
One asylum-seeker background family has decided to take on the challenge, learn to make great coffee and become part of the Trades Hall community, and together we have been cleaning, planning, getting initial training for the mother and daughter team, certification and registration of the business premises, and painting!
The Kiosk is due to be launched on May Day at Trades Hall, in Carlton, Melbourne. May Day is traditionally a day of celebrating the rights and gains of workers, including the eight-hour working day. It symbolises the rights and capabilities of workers to stand together and resist exploitation by the powerful. People seeking asylum have been among the most oppressed in Australian society – their human rights do not exist in Australian law; the Amendments to the Migration Act (2014) orchestrated by the previous government removed their right to natural justice, including that of fair legal process. It is wonderfully fitting that despite the most powerful exclusionary efforts by Australia’s highest authorities, Riya and Dilini’s rights to participate in their local society and economy have been upheld in solidarity, by grassroots community action. Alongside Riya’s first coffee sales and snacks, this solidarity will be marvellously celebrated on May Day.
Who’s involved?
The kiosk will be run by one Sri Lankan mum, Riya, and her daughter Dilini. Dilini has just finished her Bachelor of Science through an asylum-seeker scholarship at the University of Melbourne, has outstanding English and multiple skills. Her mum Riya, has had very low level English, been completely socially isolated for many years and just recently has become connected to the Hope Co-op community. The benefits for Riya are already becoming clear: she has learned to navigate public transport alone for the first time, has been able to purchase a phone and communicate enough in English to come to planning meetings and painting days. She has done her Barista and Food Handling certificates, and her wellbeing has been improving steadily just through embarking on this together.
Riya is also a highly skilled Sri Lankan cook, and after more than 10 years of being severely impacted by harsh Australian asylum-seeker laws, is excited about reviving her passion for hospitality. Her family, including Dilini, two school aged children and another sister who has just begun university after years of being locked out of higher education, will benefit for decades to come from Riya’s having work, developing her English and financial literacy, and being happily connected with instead of isolated from local community.
How you can help?
To launch the Hope Kiosk, Hope Community Foundation is aiming to raise $26,000 to cover the cost of the second hand coffee machine, add some shelving and cupboards to the Kiosk space, and subsidise Riya’s wages by 50% for six months, to allow her to develop the Kiosk into a self-sustaining Social Enterprise.
We have launched a crowd-funding campaign on the local Australian platform, Pozible. So far we have raised over $5500, but we need help to get to our first half-way target of $13,000. There are two things you can do to help:
1 – donate to the campaign
2 – share the link widely with your own networks, now and several times in the coming month.
Thanks for reading, and if you live or work close to Carlton, please keep an eye out for the Hope Kiosk banners on Lygon and Victoria streets, and pop in for a coffee! If you live far away, I hope this blog post inspires you a little in whatever your part is in our communal work for social good, active citizenship and inclusive education.
Sally Morgan has a PhD from Monash University. Her research is in education, agency and employment pathways for people of asylum seeker background. She wrote this piece during the 2023 AARE conference.
What will it mean to be a teacher – and teach – in the future? What should be the relationships between schools and communities, young people and school systems? How can we overcome the challenges currently faced by teachers and by schools to imagine new futures for teachers and teaching?
The Wednesday evening of the AARE conference week in Melbourne saw the launch of the Monash Faculty of Education’s Inquiry into the Future of the Teaching Profession. The Inquiry will put Australian teachers and teacher educators’ work into a broader international context and actively seek to create resources for local public debate – new ideas, new language, and new practical options for moving constructively to reimagine teaching, teacher education and schooling. It will be an opportunity to shape a new, hopeful and future-oriented discourse about education in society.
Chaired by Marie Brennan, Professorial Fellow in the Monash Faculty and eminent Australian educationist, the Inquiry panel will comprise James Desmond, Head of Humanities and an early career teacher at the Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School in Melbourne; Meredith Peace, Victorian President of the Australian Education Union; Professor Jay Phillips, Head of the School of Australian Indigenous Studies at Charles Sturt University; and David Robinson, Executive Director (Workforce Policy and Strategy) in the Department of Education in Victoria. You can find out more about the Inquiry itself here .
Speaking at the launch event, Marie Brennan was joined by Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Australian Greens spokesperson for schools and a former secondary school teacher, as well as Desmond and Robinson. The conversation among speakers and a large audience both in-person at the Monash Conference Centre in Collins Street and online via YouTube acknowledged the current challenges and issues facing Australia and many other countries globally but moved on to address both the general future directions of policy and practice as well as debating the focus for the work of the Inquiry panel over the first half of 2024. A recording of the launch event is available on YouTube.
A 2016 UNESCO report estimated that the world would need almost 69 million more teachers by 2030 to achieve the fourth Sustainable Development Goal – universal basic education. Current trends see that estimate increasing. Countries like Australia will experience the consequences of these trends – and will do so differentially, with often the poorest and least well-served and marginalised communities struggling to recruit and retain teachers. This year, 2023, the UN established a high-level panel on the teaching profession and just a few months ago more than 100 countries met and committed to fully funding public education for their countries. Yet many economically developed countries fail to do so, Australia being one of them.
For Senator Allman-Payne, fully funding public education in Australia was fundamental to addressing all aspects of the challenges going forward and inextricably linked to all future possibilities. Describing the shortfall in funding as the ‘elephant in the room’, Allman-Payne argued that a fully funded public education system was essential not only for a quality education but for a ‘cohesive society and a strong and robust democracy’. Marie Brennan picked up on the importance of public education in societal terms in referring to the outcome of the recent referendum on an Indigenous Voice in parliament, describing it as, in part, a failure of education that was linked to the broader politics of education in Australia, as well as other issues. For James Desmond, the key issue was ‘inequality – of funding, of opportunities, and of outcomes. Your postcode should not dictate the quality of and access to education you receive.’
David Robinson drew attention to the community respect and support afforded to teachers in successful education systems worldwide. For too long, he argued, the public discourse around education had been predominantly negative and failed to recognize the achievements and ‘everyday successes’ of teachers in classrooms. Marie Brennan extended this point by emphasising the necessity for schools as institutions as well as individual teachers engaging with their communities, understanding and learning from them, and regarding schools as in and of their communities rather than being separate from them. For Marie, teachers need the time and space to ‘build the relationships on which good teaching depends’ – and the relationship-building does not stop at the classroom door.
The kind of work that teachers are expected to do was also a focus of the discussion with Senator Allman-Payne and Marie Brennan both commented on the importance of teachers’ agency. For Senator Allman-Payne, teaching as a career is at its most rewarding when it empowers teachers to be agentic professionals. For Marie Brennan, given that education and the work of educators is ‘always future-oriented’, it is critically important that education policy also becomes future-oriented and resists reverting to trying to ‘standardise’ teaching and teachers’ work on a vision of the past. For David Robinson, as a public servant tasked with teaching workforce development, a future-orientation filled with hope is also a practical concern when it comes to both teacher recruitment and, crucially, retention.
For the evening’s panelists as well as the Inquiry panel more broadly, it is now time to focus on working towards a positive future for teaching, the profession and schools rather than reinventing the past. And while most work on educational futures has tended either to extrapolate on current trends or to imagine idealized, utopian institutions, different futures now need to be constructed in practice to move forward from the current situation.
This is a challenge that cannot be answered with yet another political review or academic critique. As James Desmond noted: ‘Ultimately the Inquiry is about looking forward, rather than analysing the past; to better understand the challenges of the future; and to make teaching a sustainable and attractive vocation for years to come.’The Inquiry will involve further public activities and events across Australia, in-person as well as virtually, along with commissioned briefing papers, and culminating in a final report in mid-2024. We hope you join us along the way.
Viv Ellis is Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His latest book (with Lauren Gatti and Warwick Mansell), The New Political Economy of Teacher Education: The Enterprise Narrative and the Shadow State, will be published by Policy Press early next year.
Image in header: Prof Marie Brennan, Chair of the Inquiry into the Future of the Teaching Profession, Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Education, Monash University; David Robinson, Executive Director (Teaching Workforce), Department of Education, Victoria; James Desmond, Head of Humanities and early career teacher, MacRobertson High School, Melbourne On the screen: Senator Penny Allman-Payne (Senator for Queensland, Green Party spokesperson on schools)
The referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a pivotal moment in Australia’s history of engagement with its Indigenous peoples. Amidst the ongoing, at times polarising, debates about The Voice, we gathered at La Trobe School of Education for a one-day workshop focused on fostering social justice through the frame of community engagement.
Community engagement is about voice, and can be a powerful catalyst for equity and justice. It is grounded in the recognition of voice as a political project that hinges on not only the ability to speak but also to be heard.
While the discussions that emerged in our workshop did not directly address the question of an Indigenous Voice, there were some uncanny parallels that we aim to tease out in this article. These include, among others, recognising that:
community engagement requires asking courageous questions.
community engagement is slow and persistent work.
community engagement requires adequate resourcing.
community engagement tackles deficit assumptions.
community engagement starts from those problems that matter.
community engagement can ensure quality.
Community engagement requires asking courageous questions.
Community engagement for social justice and equity requires us to ask courageous questions about the oppressive conditions (past and present) that perpetuate marginalisation. This can amount to ‘truth-telling’.
During his online keynote address, Tyrone Howard, from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, emphasised that equity requires us to repair the historical harm. It also needs us to promote inclusion by examining our ‘blind spots’ that might prevent us from seeing the suffering of others, and how we might be implicated in them.
The education field is political. Thus, as Tyrone Howard noted, teachers must be equipped with the necessary tools and awareness to confront these blind spots. By preparing educators to navigate contemporary issues with a keen eye for (in)justice, we can foster more equitable educational spaces that represent and celebrate our diversity.
Community engagement is slow and persistent work.
Community engagement demands unwavering commitment and perseverance driven by a clear sense of purpose. Jo Lampert from Monash University raised concerns about the taken-for-granted use of the term ‘community engagement’ and its insufficient integration into initial teacher education programs.
To rectify this, one must take a deliberate approach to work with vulnerable communities. This approach centres on co-design, shared decision-making and partnerships that prioritise their lived experiences and voices of those on the margins.
The call for community engagement in pursuit of equity and justice is cognisant of the political dimensions of this work, particularly power dynamics and representation. This makes representation an essential aspect of a justice project. Without adequate representation, it is difficult to make claims for more just policies.
Community engagement requires adequate resourcing.
Equipping teachers with community knowledge and awareness requires strong partnership models within initial teacher education. One initiative that aims to prepare community-engaged pre-service teachers is La Trobe University’s NEXUS program.
Bernadette Walker-Gibbs and Steve Murphy, from La Trobe School of Education, work at the cutting edge of innovative university-school partnership frameworks that focus on capacity building for community-engagement among pre-service teachers.
It should be noted though that building community engagement is a resource-intensive undertaking. To foster strong university-school partnerships, funding is needed to enable meaningful – rather than tokenistic – approaches to engagement and co-design.
Community engagement tackles deficit assumptions.
Tokenistic engagement can result in deficit views and lowered expectations. There is also a tension between recognising differences and deficit assumptions. This is called ‘the dilemma of difference’, which arises from concerns about effectively addressing differences without stigmatising individuals whose differences have been brought to light. Kitty te Riele from the University of Tasmania’s Peter Underwood Centre tackled these issues head-on, offering insights from working with disenfranchised youth.
Challenging the prevailing myth of low educational aspirations needs us to re-evaluate pre-conceived notions and explore the true aspirations of young people and their families. This requires a shift in perspective that embraces the diverse aspirations of young people in the context of social and material disadvantage against convenient myths and stereotypes.
Community engagement starts from those problems that matter.
At the heart of community engagement lies the crucial task of tackling the issues that hold significance for marginalised individuals and communities.
Lew Zipin and Marie Brennan from the University of South Australia shed light on the vital role of addressing real-world problems in education. This requires an inclusive approach to co-design that effectively incorporates local knowledge.
Bridging the gap between educational institutions and the realities of marginalised young people requires recognising students as proactive mediators between life-based and school-based knowledge. Such recognition has transformative potential, leading to a contextualised, community-aware approach to teaching and learning.
Community engagement can ensure quality.
In recent education reforms, the discourse surrounding quality education has shifted towards a human capital perspective.
Sue Grieshaber and Elise Hunkin from La Trobe’s School of Education examined the nexus of quality and equity in early childhood education, highlighting concerns about the potential ramifications of market-driven approaches to education on equity.
There is an urgent need to broaden our definition of quality education beyond market values to incorporate relationships with families and communities.
Overall, these insights from the workshop highlight the importance of co-design, teacher preparation, dispelling myths, curriculum design, and re-framing what is meant by ‘quality’. It showed how genuine community engagement for equity and social justice address power relations, challenge deficit narratives, and incorporate community voices.
Australia is approaching another historical moment in its relationship with its Indigenous peoples, a moment that will shape the moral sentiment of the nation for decades to come. In the lead up to the referendum, our discussions about community engagement was a timely reminder of the power of voice as a vehicle for impactful participation in the decisions that matter and that affect the most disenfranchised.
Babak Dadvand is a senior lecturer in Pedagogy, Professional Practice and Teacher Education at La Trobe School of Education. Babak’s research is in areas of teaching and teacher education with a focus on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion in relation to teachers’ work and student experiences. Babak’s current research is focused on the challenges that teachers face and the types of support that they need stay in the profession, especially in the more challenging working conditions of schools that serve communities that are socially-historically marginalised. Twitter: @DadvandBabak
Jo Lampert is Professor of Teacher Education for Social Transformation at Monash University. She has led alternative pathways into teaching in hard-to-staff schools for over 15 years, most recently as Director of the Commonwealth and State supported Nexus M. Teach in Victoria, a social justice, employment-based pathway whereby preservice teachers work as Education Support Staff prior to gaining employment as paraprofessionals (Nexus). She tweets at @jolampert
