UNSW

Immigrant students: how to support motivation and achievement

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Around the world nations have experienced significant growth in their immigrant populations, including an increase in immigrant students. The way schools respond to this has a significant impact on how well immigrant students adapt to and succeed in school. 

Although there are many success stories, there are also immigrant students who struggle at school. They are then at risk of missing out on vital educational and job opportunities after school. This impacts individual students as personal potential is unrealised. It also impacts at the national level because immigrants have and always will be a key part of nations’ social and economic development. 

We need to understand how to support immigrant students in overcoming academic challenges and supporting their educational wellbeing.

Our study

In a recent research study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, we harnessed the Academic and Cultural Demands-Resources (ACD-R) framework to investigate the factors that are important for nurturing immigrant students’ academic motivation and achievement. We used the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from Australia and New Zealand—two countries with a history of receiving migrants to live and raise their families. PISA is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of 15-year-old school students’ learning and performance in mathematics, science, and reading. 

Two main parts of PISA are a student survey and a school leader survey. In a previous study, we focused on the student survey and how teachers can support individual immigrant students. This present study focused on the school leader survey and how whole-school action can support immigrant students.

The ACD-R Framework 

Under the ACD-R framework, demands are features of the learning process or learning environment that can get in the way of students’ educational progress – while resources help and support students’ educational development. These demands and resources may be academic factors or ethno-cultural factors that impede or assist students’ educational pathways.

Participants in Our Research

The research involved 545 schools across Australia and New Zealand) and nearly 5000 immigrant students.

The school leaders were asked to report on key features of their school, including the various demands and resources present in the school. We then linked their responses to the motivation and achievement scores of the immigrant students in their school (summarized from the PISA student survey). This enabled us to examine the whole-school factors that are associated with the academic development of immigrant students in the school.

The Measures in Our Study

The main measures in our research were drawn from survey items administered to school leaders asking about the academic and cultural demands and resources in their school. Academic demands were assessed via two measures. The first tapped into the extent to which school instruction was hindered by staffing and resourcing issues, what we call a resource shortage. The second asked about the extent to which students’ learning was hindered by the nature of teaching (e.g., teachers not meeting individual students’ needs), referred to as hindered learning. Academic resources were assessed with a measure which asked about the extent to which students were provided with resources to support their learning, referred to as student assistance (e.g., rooms where students can do their homework).

Cultural demands are represented by immigrant socio-economic disadvantage. This refers to  the proportion of immigrant students in a school experiencing socio-economic disadvantage. Cultural resources comprised cultural learning, shared cultural values and immigrant student language support. 

Motivation was assessed through measures of self-efficacy (students’ belief in their capacity to attain desired academic outcomes) and valuing (their belief in the usefulness and importance of what they learn). 

Achievement was based on students’ achievement on the PISA mathematics, science, and reading tests. 

In all our analyses we accounted (controlled) for school location, school type (non-independent, independent), staff/student ratio, average class size, and percentage of immigrant students in the school—so we knew that any significant demand and resource findings were above and beyond any influence due to school location, etc.  

Our results

The study identified four demands and resources that were significantly associated with immigrant students’ motivation and achievement: 

  • Student assistance and cultural learning (academic and cultural resources) that had positive effects.
  • Resource shortage and immigrant student socio-economic disadvantage (academic and cultural demands) that had negative effects

In addition to these significant demands and resources, we also found immigrant students’ motivation was significantly linked to their academic achievement. Immigrant students who believed in themselves (self-efficacy) and saw the relevance, importance, and usefulness of school (valuing) were likely to achieve highly.

Strategies for Schools

These findings point to six areas of whole-school action, each attending to a significant demand, resource, or motivation factor in the study.

  1. Resource shortage (academic demand). Our study signalled various aspects of school-level resource shortages that need attention when supporting immigrant students, including inadequate teaching- and learning-related infrastructure (e.g., teacher shortages) and  a lack of educational materials, resources, and learning spaces. 
  1. Student assistance (academic resource). At the same time, we found academic resources in the form of student assistance played a supportive role for immigrant students. Our study indicated such resources include provision of staff to help with homework and study, practical help and relational support from teachers that help immigrant students develop their academic skills and provide a sense of belonging at school. 
  1. Immigrant socio-economic disadvantage (cultural demand). Schools may look to target the barriers that disadvantaged immigrant families can experience if they are  socio-economically disadvantaged. In our research, we identified “agency” as one factor and suggested schools can work with immigrant parents and ethnic communities to design and implement linguistically and culturally responsive interventions (e.g., authentic school involvement of immigrant students’ cultural community) to empower families in the process of supporting immigrant students, especially those that have newly arrived to the country. 
  1. Cultural learning (cultural resource). Promoting this involves schools fostering learning about diverse cultures and the histories of these cultures. This can be strengthened through curriculum that provides a nuanced and authentic representation of diverse ethnic and cultural groups both locally and globally.
  1. Self-efficacy (motivation). Boosting students’ self-efficacy can involve teachers breaking schoolwork down into manageable chunks for students to experience smaller successes as they learn (this builds confidence through tasks), encouraging students to recognize their academic strengths (that also builds academic confidence), and teach students how to challenge negative beliefs that may be undermining their self-confidence. 
  1. Valuing (motivation). There are three types of valuing that can be nurtured. The first is attainment value, which involves explaining to students how what they learn at school is important. The second is intrinsic value, which involves setting schoolwork that arouses curiosity or is enjoyable. The third is utility value, which involves making it clear to students how what they learn is relevant to their lives or to the world more broadly.

Our research shows how to implement whole-school action to support immigrant student cohorts. The findings  demonstrate that attending to cultural demands and resources, alongside academic factors, has significant potential for optimising immigrant students’ educational development through school and beyond. 

Andrew Martin is Scientia Professor of Educational Psychology and chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group, School of Education at UNSW. He specialises in student motivation, engagement, learning, achievement, and quantitative research methods. Gregory Arief D. Liem is associate professor in the Psychology and Child & Human Development Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on student motivation and engagement. Rebecca Collie is Scientia Associate Professor in Educational and Developmental Psychology at UNSW. Her research interests focus on motivation and well-being among students and teachers, psychosocial experiences at school, and quantitative research methods. Lars Erik-Malmberg is professor in education at the University of Oxford. His research interests are in quantitative research methods and students’ academic development. Tim Mainhard is professor of educational sciences at the University of Leiden. His research interests are in teacher-student interactions, student motivation, learning, and wellbeing.

jigsaw of a community representing teacher retention

Retention: How to keep teachers

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It’s no secret that Australia is in the grip of a teacher workforce crisis. The federal government review has revealed a shortfall of over 4,000 teachers, while reports and media headlines continue to highlight “critical teacher shortages”, “fears students will suffer as burnout contributes to ‘unprecedented’ teacher shortage” and other alarming trends. Amid this national narrative of crisis, one question is rarely asked: What about the schools that are managing to retain their teachers? What can we learn from them? What succeeds in teacher retention?

Rewriting the Narrative

Much of the current research and policy debate has rightly focused on why teachers are leaving the profession. The Australian Education Union’s 2024 State of Our Schools survey highlights chronic underfunding, excessive workloads, administrative overload, declining wellbeing, occupational violence, and limited career progression as key factors driving teachers out of the classroom. 

But understanding what’s driving teachers away is only half the story. The other half, arguably the more actionable part, lies in what enables teachers to stay.

We thus need to balance the debate by asking not only ‘Why are some teachers leaving?’ but also ‘How are some schools managing to keep their teachers, despite all the odds?’

This shift in perspective opens the door to learning from the ‘success stories’.

Learning from the Schools Getting Teacher Retention Right

There is a plethora of research on why teachers leave. And yes – workload, burnout, inadequate support, limited career pathways and housing stress all play major roles. It’s vital that we continue to examine these factors. 

But when the national conversation remains stuck on what’s going wrong, we risk missing the bigger picture: learning from some schools that are getting it right.

Across Australia, in the very places hardest hit by staffing shortages, remote towns, outer suburbs, low socio-economic communities, some schools are quietly bucking the trend. They’re not just holding onto teachers; they’re building stable, collaborative staff cultures where teachers stay and thrive.

These schools are not unicorns. They are real and they exist in the same policy and funding environments as those struggling with attrition. What sets them apart are the ways they’ve created spaces and structures that help their teachers stay the course.

Yet, these stories rarely make the headlines.

Where Community Keeps Teachers

Some schools are keeping their teachers not through flashy incentives, but by building strong local connections. Our recent research found that in hard-to-staff schools, what makes the difference is context, knowing the community, responding to students’ real lives, and creating a culture of care.

In one rural Victorian school, one principal talked about success coming from “translating” teaching to fit students’ needs and building trust with families, many of whom had negative experiences with school themselves. 

Another principal in outer Melbourne talked about the power of “boots on the ground” leadership, being present, responsive, and deeply embedded in the school community.

These schools don’t rely on top-down rules. They focus on relationships, inclusion, and flexibility. And it’s working. They’re holding onto their new teachers because those teachers feel connected, supported, and valued in their school communities.

In our Queensland case studies, what stood out was the basics done well. When schools offered practical support such as affordable housing and child care, paired with strong, empathetic leadership and a culture that trusted teachers to use their professional judgement, something powerful happened. Teachers stayed. 

Teachers told us they had the autonomy to do what they came into the job to do: make a real difference in the lives of kids. It’s about creating the conditions where teaching feels possible, purposeful, and sustainable.

Ditch the Deficit Talk

For too long, discussions about hard-to-staff schools are being dominated by a deficit narrative. We hear that “no one wants to teach there”. Or that “students are too difficult”, or that “nothing can be done unless the entire system changes”. These narratives paint an unfair picture of the students and communities. And they also risk devaluing the incredible work being done by teachers and leaders who are making a difference in these schools and their communities.

Focusing only on what’s broken can be deeply demoralising for those working in the system. It can lead to policy solutions that treat schools as sites of failure, rather than places of potential.

A more productive approach is to ask: where is retention working, and why?

By highlighting success stories, schools that have achieved relative workforce stability even in high-turnover contexts, we can identify practical, replicable strategies. We can also challenge the myth that teacher attrition is inevitable in certain places.

Let’s Celebrate What’s Working

It’s time we give credit where it’s due. There are principals across Australia who have created supportive, empowering work environments despite resource constraints. And there are teachers who stay, not out of obligation, but because they feel connected, respected, and supported in their professional growth. There are communities that rally around their local schools to ensure teachers feel welcomed and valued.

These efforts deserve recognition, not just as heartwarming exceptions, but as serious sources of insight.

Learning from what’s working allows us to shift from damage control to positive change. It equips other schools, policymakers, and education departments with ideas grounded in real-world experience. Most importantly, it gives the teaching profession, and the students who depend on it, something increasingly rare: hope.

To be clear, naming and addressing the problems driving teachers out of the profession is still essential. But we can’t afford to dwell solely on the negative. A deficit-only narrative will not lead to change. What we need now is a dual approach, one that recognises what’s wrong, and builds on what’s strong.

Let’s start recognising the schools that are holding on to their staff. And let’s amplify the voices of teachers who choose to stay. Let’s look beyond the crisis headlines and ask: what can we learn from the schools that have found ways to build a stable teaching workforce?

Amid the crisis talk, there are quiet successes all around us. We just need to start listening.

Bios

Babak Dadvand is a senior lecturer in pedagogy, professional practice and teacher education at La Trobe University, Australia. His research focuses on issues of equity and social justice in education, with a particular emphasis on preparing and supporting teachers to work in underserved and hard-to-staff school settings. 

Steve Murphy is a senior lecturer at La Trobe University and is informed by his experience as a teacher and educational leader in rural primary and secondary schools. His research focuses on teaching and school leadership practices. He is particularly interested in practices contributing to students’ engagement and achievement in STEM education. 

Terri Bourke is dean/head of school and professor at Queensland University of Technology and researches professional standards, professionalism, accreditation processes and diversity in education.

Reece Mills is an associate professor of education. He commenced his career in education as a secondary school science teacher before being appointed at QUT. Reece’s research aims to create ecologically and socially sustainable futures through education.

Scott Eacott is professor of education at UNSW Sydney. His current research looks at the systemic implications of housing and transport affordability for the teaching workforce.

Juliana Ryan is a senior lecturer in Teacher Education and Ethics in the School of Education at La Trobe University. Her deliberately diverse career has been shaped by a belief in the importance of social equity in and through education. Juliana has taught in community, carceral, vocational and university settings. 

Young student at white board in maths lesson

Is successful maths teaching more than method?

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What counts as “evidence-based” teaching in mathematics? Given calls by the Grattan Institute to end the lesson lottery and make a maths guarantee, this question matters. Explicit teaching is always part of a high-quality lesson sequence. But defining it as the ultimate pedagogy sidelines the very practices that engage students in mathematical thinking. Students need more than procedural recall and routines without reasoning if they’re going to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Why is explicit teaching making a comeback?

In signing the Albanese government’s Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, Australian states and territories have committed to provide all students with highly effective evidence-based teaching and equitable learning opportunities.

This is translated as adopting the Australian Education Research Organisation’s (AERO) advice on explicit instruction as “what works best” when it comes to teaching fundamentals like reading and mathematics.

In its explainer on how to optimise learning, AERO describes explicit instruction as follows:

‘Teachers directly explain to students how to complete a task, why the task is important, and how the task relates to and extends their previous knowledge. Demonstrations of how to perform tasks or solve problems are provided, often using worked examples.’

It is important to note that AERO’s valuing of explicit instruction stems from a narrow interpretation of the purpose of school education and what counts as research evidence. The studies AERO favours are typically randomised controlled trials not set in school classrooms. Seeking to transform teaching practice by generalising research findings made in tightly controlled environments is problematic. Why? Because these settings are often worlds apart from real classrooms. As the OECD notes, the reality for teachers is often unpredictable classrooms, where students have diverse and competing needs, resources are limited and time is constrained.

Policy is being used to deliver instructional fidelity

Yet, for the first time, education policy is being used to deliver instructional fidelity. The NSW Department of Education School Excellence Framework states: “Explicit teaching is the main practice used in the school.” In the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model Version 2.0, explicit teaching is the only pedagogy mentioned. 

In both these states, departments of education have produced detailed guidelines outlining what explicit teaching is and isn’t. They also provide lesson banks to help teachers align their teaching practice with these specifications. Across the Catholic system, instructional resources developed by AERO’s preferred partner, Ochre Education, are now widely used.

As a result, the classroom experience for many young Australians is now the use of universal slide decks that follow the “gradual release of responsibility” model. It borrows from literacy research and is sometimes referred to as the “I do, we do, you do” lesson structure. According to AERO, this involves the teacher modelling how to do mathematics and monitoring for 80% of students to achieve mastery before moving to any form of meaningful independent practice. This enactment tends to focus teachers and students on perfecting procedures and algorithms. This leaves less time for real world problem-solving experiences that more holistically develop mathematical thinking.

To adhere to these directives is to ignore decades of mathematics education research. 

So, what is the evidence for effective mathematics teaching and learning?

The truth is there is no magic bullet.

Studies have shown that when teachers combine student- and teacher-centred pedagogies, students do better. In fact, an OECD analysis identified three broad teaching strategies described as active learning, cognitive activation, and teacher-directed instruction. The OECD inked exposure to these teaching strategies with student performance on its PISA mathematical literacy assessment. It found strategies for active learning and cognitive activation were more effective than explicit or direct instruction. However, teacher-directed instruction was what students mostly experienced, despite this mode of instruction being least impactful for mathematics performance. 

Another OECD PISA analysis found teacher-directed strategies can support student success on easier tasks. But as problems become more difficult, students with more exposure to teacher-directed instruction no longer have a better chance of success. This is because too much teacher talk limits students’ opportunities to take ownership for thinking mathematically without close guidance. This insight is consistent with studies that show student-centred pedagogies are particularly effective in developing student initiative, responsibility and working mathematically.

Of course, it is important to teach explicitly and to make mathematical language and representations clear and visible. But flexibility is key. What works is contingent on the circumstances, including curriculum learning outcomes, learner profiles and the mathematical foci for the lesson.

Strong mathematics and numeracy leadership also matters 

The presence of an expert mathematics teacher who has input into school policy decisions and knows how to develop others’ teaching practice is a key feature of schools that perform highly in mathematics. 

For example, a substantive study commissioned by the Australian Chief Scientist analysed data from 52 case study schools. Each of these schools had an increase of 1 standard deviation or more in their NAPLAN results. Data collected from hundreds of school leaders, teachers and students across these settings revealed organisational factors that underpin success. 

These schools were committed to teaching mathematics for deep understanding. They valued student-centred learning, including student talk for understanding. They also took a consistent (not uniform) approach to local curriculum planning and had high levels of teacher autonomy. This means teachers were trusted to select teaching resources and pedagogies that met their students’ needs and interests.

We need to make maths real

A recent report explained that the telling and testing students typically experience in school mathematics is often at odds with developing positive feelings or a long-term interest in the subject. Parents and teachers want mathematics lessons to be  more engaging and real-world relevant so young people learn to use mathematics to think critically and make decisions. 

Studies of student motivation have shown teaching mathematics through interesting and challenging real world examples motivates students to choose the subject in senior secondary years and pursue mathematics-related careers.

That’s why curriculum writers have tried to position young people as active in the process of developing mathematical knowledge, skills, proficiencies and processes. 

It is through actively doing mathematics – not watching slide decks and memorizing procedures – that young people develop the kind of mathematical thinking they’ll need beyond the school gates.

Explicit teaching may be a solution to some problems in mathematics education, but it is not the only solution to all problems, all of the time.

Carly Sawatzki and Jill Brown are mathematics education researchers at Deakin University’s School of Education and in the Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI). Laura Tuohilampi is a mathematics education researcher at UNSW and the founder of Math Hunger and Maths for Humans. The authors’ work helps teachers connect the school curriculum with the real world, making mathematics education lifeworthy for today and tomorrow.

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of professional educators who provided insights and feedback that shaped this article.

Aboriginal perspectives

How to teach Aboriginal perspectives

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Aboriginal Perspectives in the Curriculum: Many teachers feel they lack the necessary skills and knowledge to teach Aboriginal perspectives, even though it’s a cross-curriculum priority. Researchers have sought to identify effective strategies to assist teachers, including how to meaningfully incorporate such perspectives into classroom learning and respond to the needs of local Aboriginal communities. It is vital for promoting mutual respect and understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members of society. 

Alongside research into the skills and knowledge needed to teach Aboriginal perspectives effectively, we suggest that understanding teachers’ motivation towards working with Aboriginal perspectives is a valuable avenue to explore. Taking self-efficacy as a motivational case in point, teachers lack the confidence to teach Aboriginal perspectives. This lack of confidence has been observed to impact their students’ own motivation for learning, including their Aboriginal students’ motivation.

Culturally Nourishing Schooling

We recently conducted a study as part of the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project, investigating teachers’ motivation to teach Aboriginal perspectives, what factors can support their motivation, and the implications of this for their Aboriginal students’ motivation. 

Specifically, we looked at two aspects of teachers’ agency (adaptability and teacher-student relationships), their role in teachers’ motivation (self-efficacy and valuing) to teach Aboriginal perspectives, and the extent to which this motivation predicted Aboriginal students’ own motivation (self-efficacy and valuing) to learn. The following figure shows the process we examined.

We explored two aspects of teachers’ motivation to teach Aboriginal perspectives: self-efficacy and valuing. 

Previous scholarship has argued that when teachers feel confidence (self-efficacy) in their capacity to teach particular subject matter, they invest greater effort in working with students, persist in meeting the needs of diverse students, and are more enthusiastic and energetic. This leads to positive impacts on students’ own motivation. When teachers place value in a subject or subject matter, this is communicated directly and indirectly to students, through instructions and through encouragement and modelling. This positively impacts student motivation. 

In our study, we hypothesised that teachers’ motivation to teach Aboriginal perspectives in the curriculum would positively impact their Aboriginal students’ motivation to learn, specifically, Aboriginal students’ academic self-efficacy and valuing of learning. 

Agency Factors Underpinning Teachers’ Motivation

There are salient agency factors that can impact motivation. Identifying such factors is important because it provides some guidance as to where professional learning might be directed to better support teachers’ motivation to teach Aboriginal perspectives. 

Research identifies two key aspects of agency implicated in teachers’ motivation: adaptability and teacher-student relationships. 

Adaptability is the capacity to adjust one’s thoughts, behaviours, and feelings in response to unfamiliar, new, changing, or uncertain situations and circumstances. Some examples of adaptability include looking at a situation in a different way (thought), taking a new course of action (behaviour), or minimising disappointment or fear (emotion).

Adaptability is highly relevant to teachers because their work often involves responding to and managing ongoing change and unfamiliar terrain, including new or changing curriculum. That includes teaching Aboriginal perspectives in the curriculum.

A large body of research has identified the ways in which interpersonal relationships impact motivation. Positive teacher-student relationships have an energising function that activates positive task-related emotions. Teachers ‘getting on’ with students in their classroom are more likely to be enthused and energised to teach these students. In many Aboriginal cultures, relationality to people and place are central ontological axes that have been demonstrated to underpin the manner and conditions by which students interact with teachers and learning content in Australian schooling spaces. For this study, we examined the extent to which teachers positively connected interpersonally with their Aboriginal students. 

Our Participants

Our online questionnaire had nearly 300 responses from Australian teachers who had taught Aboriginal perspectives to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in 2020, 2021 and 2022. This made it both recent and relevant. Most of our respondents were women and they had taught, on average, for ten years. Other participant details can be found in the published study.

What We Found

Four key findings emerged from the study. 

  1. Teachers’ adaptability was significantly associated with higher self-efficacy for teaching Aboriginal perspectives. It thus seems that teachers’ capacity to navigate change, uncertainty, unfamiliarity, and novelty underpinned a confidence to teach Aboriginal perspectives. 
  2. Teacher-student relationships was significantly associated with teachers’ valuing of Aboriginal perspectives. It seems that when teachers connect with their Aboriginal students, there is a greater sense of the intrinsic utility and importance of Aboriginal perspectives. This may be because these interpersonal connections lead teachers to feel a sense of purpose and commitment to their Aboriginal students, and by implication, a desire to promote Aboriginal perspectives in their teaching. 
  3. Teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching Aboriginal perspectives was associated with greater valuing among their Aboriginal students. Thus, teachers’ confidence to teach Aboriginal perspectives may help their Aboriginal students to be interested in their learning and to see their learning as important and worthwhile. 
  4. Teachers’ valuing of Aboriginal perspectives was associated with greater self-efficacy among their Aboriginal students. It seems that when teachers value teaching Aboriginal perspectives more, Aboriginal students tend to also show more confidence in their schoolwork. 

The figure below summarises these main findings.

Implications for Practice

These findings have important practice implications. They suggest adaptability and teacher-student relationships are critical to teachers’ motivation and for supporting Aboriginal students’ motivation. Adaptability and teacher-student relationships are modifiable so they are viable foci for supporting teachers’ professional learning and development. 

We suggest teachers might be encouraged to identify areas of Aboriginal curriculum where they are uncertain or find unfamiliar. They could then brainstorm adjustments that could be made to enhance adaptability. 

Here are some examples:

  • thought (e.g., adjust their attitudes, beliefs, or expectations about these areas of curriculum)
  • behaviour (e.g., seek help or look for new resources to help them navigate these areas of curriculum)
  • emotion (e.g., address anxieties about implementing this new curriculum material)

For interpersonal relationships, we suggest that teachers may benefit from better understanding the different forms of relational support they can provide students, including their Aboriginal students. Two major sources of relational support are instrumental support and emotional support. Instrumental support includes:  

  • help with homework and assignments
  • support for study management
  • additional content-specific instruction
  • seeking help from Aboriginal Education Officers in the school on pedagogical approaches 

For emotional support, teachers could look to:

  • ensure that communication with Aboriginal students is characterised by empathy, warmth, and care 
  • provide encouragement to Aboriginal students if they experience setback at school
  • connect and work with local Aboriginal communities
  • understand sovereignty and relational systems between students  

To Sum Up

Our study provides further insights into the motivational dimensions of teaching Aboriginal perspectives and the factors that may be targeted to better support this motivation, with a view to better supporting Aboriginal students’ own motivation to learn at school. 

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation (grant number: 5031). Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. The authors would like to thank members of the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project and the Blak Caucus for advice and assistance during the conduct of this research.

Biographies

Andrew J. Martin is Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education at UNSW, Sydney. His research interests are student motivation, engagement, learning, instruction, and quantitative research methods.

Keiko Bostwick is a Research Fellow in the Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. She previously worked for the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project at UNSW as a quantitative Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Tracy Durksen is a Scientia Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer of Educational Psychology for the School of Education at UNSW, Sydney. As a non-Indigenous Canadian and former primary school teacher she aims to impact the learning and development of students and teachers through research on interpersonal interactions and psychological characteristics like motivation and adaptability.

Rose Amazan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW, Sydney. She has extensive experience working with low socio-economic status communities in Australia and internationally. Rose’s research, teaching, and service activities are motivated by her commitment to community development and creating equitable environments for marginalised and disadvantaged communities.

Kevin Lowe is a Gubbi Gubbi man from southeast Queensland and is a Scientia Indigenous Fellow and Professor at UNSW, Sydney. Kevin has had experience in education as a teacher, administrator and lecturer. He has expertise in working with Aboriginal community organisations on establishing Aboriginal language policy and school curriculum implementation.

Sara Weuffen is a specialist of educational research in cross-cultural studies, history, diversity, and inclusion. As a non-Indigenous woman of German, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry, she works with other non-Indigenous educators with the intention of interrogating the almost invisible conditioning factors and systemic pressures of education in order to develop more relational and authentic schooling experiences for all students.

HEADER IMAGE:

The CNS logo was designed by Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist and curator, Dennis Golding.

decisions

Decisions, decisions: Why do teachers feel time poor?

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The first school term for 2025 is ramping up, and many teachers are returning to complex and tiring – if extremely important and fulfilling work. A key part of this work is making decisions: from long-term, considered decisions, to those which occur ‘in the moment’, consciously or subconsciously during classroom interactions. Indeed, there’s a common understanding that teachers make a lot of decisions. In the 1960s, sociologist Philip W. Jackson estimated the number to be about 1500 in a single day.

But while Jackson was interested in documenting ‘life in classrooms’, he was not really focused on the question of how decision making is experienced by teachers, or how it might be a factor in understanding concerning recent reports of work overload and intensification. Indeed, most scholarly work on teacher decision making so far has positioned it as part of what makes teaching effective; as something that changes over time with growth in professional knowledge; and/or as a resource – a source of professional control and autonomy.

In our research, we sought to ask the question of whether decision making might be part of the subjective intensity of teaching work. To do this we used an app developed for the Teachers and Time Poverty project. The app asked teachers to report on the number of decisions made within a time-sampled 30-minute period, and the stakes and time pressure associated with these decisions. In a recent chapter for a book two of us edited on time poverty, we present these decision making data from a trial of the app with 138 teachers reporting on 280 30-minute timeslots.

How many decisions?

In our trial, most teacher respondents (189/68%) estimated that they had made 30 decisions or less within their assigned 30-minute period (with the most common response being 11-20 decisions, and the average being 21-30). This is somewhat low, if we consider Jackson’s estimation of 1500 a day, which would equate to at least 130 decisions in half an hour. This result may be because decisions that become automatic are harder to recall, and/or because stressful or complex situations may make it harder to recall the process of making a decision. Importantly, Jackson was observing teachers – not doing the teaching himself and trying to self-report his decision making.

How pressured were these decisions?

Questions about pressure to make decisions quickly, or make high stakes decisions, were measured using a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 was ‘not at all’ and 7 was ‘to a great extent’. In terms of pressure to make decisions quickly, most responses ranged from 4-7 out of 7. Leaders reported more pressure (83% in the range of 4-7) than teachers (71%).

In terms of pressure to make high-stakes decisions, responses were more evenly distributed. Leaders tended to report greater pressure here (67% in the range of 4-7), compared to teachers (48%).

These findings around decision making pressure suggest that it’s not just the number of decisions, but the nature of those decisions that contribute to the teachers’ and school leaders’ experiences of working time.

Do teachers have enough time?

A further question we consider in our chapter is whether participants felt they had enough time to complete everything they intended to do within the 30 minutes they were reporting upon. Responses from over half the group (58%) tended toward ‘not at all’, with 19% selecting 3, 23% selecting 2, and 16% selecting 1 out of 7.

Is this unusual?

We also asked teachers how typical their day was overall. The majority of responses confirmed that theirs had been more or less a typical day, with a median response of 5 on the 7-point scale. This indicates that not having enough time to do all they need to do, and needing to make decisions quickly – some of which are high-stakes – is a commonplace experience in teaching. Teachers also reported undertaking a very wide range of activities during their allocated 30-minute time slots, including face-to-face teaching, preparation and administration, student wellbeing responsibilities, and other activities outside the classroom – and often more than one of these categories within the same 30-minute block. We wonder if this ‘typical’ kind of variability, including as it relates to decision making, may be a further dimension of the intensity of teachers’ working time.

Decision making and time poverty

Our work sees decision making not in terms of how teaching works and how to make it work better, but instead, as part of how it is experienced: a window into understanding the texture of teachers’ time at work. The data we gathered indicate a clear sense of participants feeling rushed and not having ‘enough’ time, with decision making experienced as consistently, if not evenly pressurised (both in time and stakes), and conducted across a wide range of activities.

Our analysis therefore contributes to our broader argument in the Teachers and Time Poverty project that time poverty for teachers is not simply about a lack of available ‘clock time’, but rather, how the nature of the time teachers currently spend at work is constituted, and the considerable variability of this.

Complexity

This highlights the complexity of what teachers do: the wide range of tasks they undertake, the kinds of decision making these demand, and the ‘typical’ unevenness and lack of predictability that require teachers to make these decisions. We think this might be a key part of what makes teaching such an exhausting (albeit worthwhile and fulfilling) job. It also points to why ‘quick fixes’ like a little less playground duty, or less after school meetings cannot, on their own, solve the enduring problem of teacher time poverty. 

Meghan Stacey is associate professor and ARC DECRA Fellow in the UNSW School of Education, where she researches the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Sue Creagh has most recently worked as a senior research fellow at QUT. Sue’s research interests are in education policy, national testing, and English as an Additional Language/TESOL.  Nicole Mockler is professor of education at the University of Sydney. Her research interests are in education policy and politics, professional learning and curriculum and pedagogy. Anna Hogan is associate professor and ARC DECRA research fellow in the School of Teacher Education & Leadership at QUT. Anna’s research interests are in education policy and practice, and in particular the privatisation and commercialisation of schooling. Greg Thompson is professor in the School of Teacher Education & Leadership at QUT. His research focuses on the philosophy of education and educational theory.

Aboriginal cultures and histories

Aboriginal cultures and histories: ‘Deep truths’ about content in the new syllabuses

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 As many in the curriculum ‘engine room’ know, curriculum development is a complex collaborative process that is dependent on a range of factors. 

Some of those factors include:  legislative frameworks of governments, curriculum reviews, policy cycles, inquiry recommendations, political priorities, funding, sources of evidence, community partnerships, education sector capacity and the available and accessed expertise of the developers. All of these make a very real impact on what the children of families across this continent experience each business day when they enter a school and its various learning environments. 

Curriculum development from outside the ‘engine room’ can be a difficult space to engage with. Specialist mechanisms and user experiences can change with each batch of syllabus output.  There is usually a period of some apprehension for educators and system representatives as consultation phases on draft syllabuses take place and eventually give way to published syllabuses, ready for implementation. 

Deep time history does not appear

Scrutiny of the new NSW History 7-10 Syllabus (2024) reveals that, indeed, as Michael Westaway, Bruce Pascoe and Louise Zarmati wrote in the Conversation, the concept of deep time history does not appear. 

Efforts by NESA to future-proof syllabus content could likely be one reason (think ‘Big History’) for this decision. Another might be due to evidence from various fields that deep time history is less compatible with some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representations of time as cyclic rather than linear. 

Mize (2024) suggests deep time ‘is a colonialist construct that risks both reinforcing white-supremacist epistemologies and occluding non-white ways of relating to the environment’ (pp.143-4).

The claim by authors Westaway, Pascoe and Zarmati that, ‘the only Aboriginal history taught to NSW students would be that which reflects the destruction of traditional Aboriginal society’ quickly gains our attention and invites us to look more closely. In doing so we notice that some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures content familiar to Stage 4 history teachers in NSW, has been relocated instead into the new HSIE Kindergarten to Year 6 Syllabus (2024). 

Some educators would argue that this relocation may compromise the depth of study for students, while others may welcome the early exposure as a means of normalising learning about Aboriginal cultures and histories. 

Compromising depth or early exposure

There are, though, explicit references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ histories and cultures in Stage 4, within Historical context 1(core): The ancient past. 

More significant than all of this, is the fact that NESA has in the new NSW History 7-10, Geography 7-10 and Human Society and its Environment (HSIE) K-6 syllabuses, achieved a first in mainstream curriculum history in NSW – and likely in Australia. It embeds Aboriginal Cultures and Histories in the outcomes of the new syllabuses, rather than solely, as in past syllabuses, in content. 

This has produced strategically located, high-quality continua of learning about Aboriginal cultures and histories in new NSW history and geography syllabuses from kindergarten to year 10; at once sequential, complementary and avoiding duplication. 

What the peak advisory body says

Additionally, NSW AECG Inc. as ‘the peak advisory body regarding Aboriginal Education and Training at both State and Commonwealth levels’ has expressed its support for the new History, Geography and HSIE syllabuses developed by NESA. 

Supporting this work, NESA has continued its practice of engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers to draft Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in the new syllabuses. This was first introduced in 2016 when new Stage 6 English, Mathematics, Science and History syllabuses were developed. 

Targeted consultations

The practice, evidence of NESA’s decolonising of curriculum process, was coupled with targeted consultations with Aboriginal education stakeholders on draft representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.  This was for the purpose of cultural quality assurance of content. 

Potentially alleviating some of the concerns expressed by Westaway, Pascoe and Zarmati, the new NSW History 7-10 content related to Aboriginal Histories and Cultures is well complemented by the new Geography 7-10 Syllabus, with examples below:

GE4-APC-01

Explain Aboriginal Peoples’ Custodianship, care and management of Country

GE5-APC-01

analyses how Aboriginal Peoples’ Custodianship of Country supports environmental management and enhances Community wellbeing

Curriculum reviews: national and state

Curriculum reviews are enormous investments and are extraordinarily influential. For NSW, there have been two reviews of consequence in recent years.

Firstly, ACARA made its most recent Australian Curriculum (Version 9.0) available in 2022 with flexibility for jurisdictions to implement and/or incorporate in state or territory curriculum. Despite the high quality of the many representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in Version 9.0 and the potential for ACARA to be international leaders for Truth Telling and Reconciliation, the outcome of the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, appears very uneven across Learning Areas, with the majority optional. 

Secondly, in 2020 the NSW Curriculum Review Final Report resulted in procedures being introduced by NESA to progress further curriculum renewal (adopting the term ‘reform’) of the majority of syllabuses from Kindergarten to10.

Disappointingly restrictive

For Aboriginal education stakeholders, Recommendation 5.3 was significant but disappointingly restrictive, containing Aboriginal histories and cultures content to HSIE, ‘Develop a curriculum that specifies what every student should know and understand about Aboriginal cultures and histories, and incorporate this curriculum into Human Society and its Environment’. 

This limitation of Recommendation 5.3 was despite the successes of the representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures content across a range of Key Learning Areas beyond HSIE such as in English, Mathematics, Science, Technology, PDHPE and Languages syllabuses developed between 2016 and 2019. If anything, it is the disciplinary limitation inherent in this recommendation that, if acted on, will become a regrettable ‘step backwards in education’ making non-HSIE syllabuses out of step with the increasingly inclusive research produced by higher education that curriculum authorities rely upon for curriculum content. 

Shared end-goals of the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges in school curriculum 

Among the many tensions for curriculum and assessment authorities, and communities that underpin the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, skills and understandings in school-based curriculum is the ambiguity surrounding a shared end-goal. While this will be always be a work in progress as Australian history continues to mature around its reconciliation, Truth Telling and reparations negotiations, the question remains, ‘how do curriculum and assessment authorities and communities start to frame an end-goal of representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges in school curriculum?’. 

For example, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students comprising 6.5% of Australia’s school student population in 2023 (ABS, 2024) is it a fair ask to anticipate curriculum planning in the future ensures each mainstream syllabus has approximately 6.5% of content reserved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges? This may seem an outrageous suggestion for some, but it is starting to become a reality in the new NSW HSIE syllabuses.

The measure of success

Ultimately, the measure of success is when all school students across the nation successfully comprehend, value and respectfully utilize knowledges, skills and understandings gained by exposure to culturally and academically rigorous and assessable representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures across subjects in all Key Learning Areas.  

Christine Evans is a Wiradjuri woman and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Education) at the University of New South Wales. In her role she contributes to enhancing opportunities for the representation of Indigenous knowledges in curriculum and in professional development using culturally responsive methods. Earlier in her career she was a secondary Visual Arts teacher/head teacher in NSW public and independent schools. Christine held the role of Chief Education Officer, Aboriginal Education, at NESA for several years and, in 2016, introduced a new model for the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in NSW school curriculum.

The header image comes from the AIATSIS guide to evaluating and selecting education resources

Professional development announcement by Prue Car

Professional development: The minister claims she trusts teachers. But does she really? 

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The NSW Minister for Education Prue Car has just announced important changes to professional development for registered teachers in NSW. Among them, ‘accredited’ PD has been dumped, along with the constraints of ‘mandatory priority areas’ introduced in 2021, and removing some time-consuming documentation and evaluation. The changes were announced directly to teachers last week via email. In an earnest talking head video, Prue Car vigorously defended the need to trust teachers, as “the architects of learning” and “the experts in identifying the tools and the resources …[they] need”.  

While this focus on trust is admirable, the changes raise some serious questions. 

What counts as teacher professional development?

The Minister emphasised that teachers will be trusted to “choose the professional development that suits their needs”. But when we look at the fine print, there are professional development activities currently highly valued by teachers that are either not included in the Government’s new framework, or explicitly excluded. This includes professional reading, collaborative planning, and the moderation of student assessment – core professional activities at the heart of good teaching practice. Furthermore, while research shows that ‘home grown’, school-based, teacher-led activities are highly effective in supporting teacher development, there is a disturbing pervasive idea that PD is something “delivered” to teachers by a “provider”.

Curiously, “compliance training” is, for the first time, explicitly included as professional development. First aid and child protection updates are undeniably important in maintaining teachers’ fitness to practice. But it is questionable whether they meet the benchmarks of high quality teacher professional development we should be aspiring to. 

Who decides what teachers will do?

The second question is, who decides? While the Minister emphasised that the changes will “ensure that every hour of professional development that you do is relevant and valuable to you and your practice”, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) website also states that employers “may choose areas of priority for their staff”, decisions which can be made at both a school and “system level”. There has been a trend toward NSW Department of Education ‘control and command’ approaches to dictating the focus and form of professional development activities for public school teachers. This suggests that teachers may continue to have little say in the kind of PD that matters to them. 

The shift from ‘accredited providers’ to ‘recognised providers’ seems at odds with the Minister’s messaging, by reinforcing the idea that teachers are not best placed to decide which PD to engage with. The list of recognised providers will be “overseen by an expert advisory panel”, whose membership is as yet unclear. The use of the term ‘providers’ again suggests a view of PD as something ‘‘delivered’ to teachers rather than something they actively engage with and have ownership over.  

Will teachers’ professional development be monitored?

Finally, while there does seem to be a reduction in administrative compliance work as part of this change, particularly for ‘providers’, teachers will still have to log their hours and be subject to an ‘audit process’ described by the Minister as “an annual review of the PD teachers have recorded so that the 100 hours of appropriate PD can be verified if needed”. This monitoring signals the continuation of “appropriate” teacher professional learning being defined by ‘experts’ (rather than by teachers themselves), which does not include many of the professional learning activities teachers may value the most.

Good teacher professional development is not measured in hours. If, in the words of the Minister, PD has “always been at the heart of [teachers’] practice… it was simply what teachers did”, then why is an auditable log of hours required? It hardly illustrates the ‘trust’ the Minister was at pains to express for teachers.

Increasing trust in teachers is a worthy and much-needed objective. But these changes make little meaningful progress toward it. While teacher PD continues to be framed as a set number of auditable ‘hours’ that are ‘delivered’ by ‘providers’, we will miss an opportunity to genuinely support teachers to do what they value and sustain them in the profession.


From left to right: Nicole Mockler is professor of education within the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. She has a background in secondary school teaching and teacher professional learning. Meghan Stacey is a senior lecturer in the UNSW School of Education, with a particular interest in teachers’ work. She has a background in teaching English and drama in public secondary schools. Claire Golledge is a lecturer in education and the co-ordinator of HSIE Curriculum (Secondary) in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. She worked as a secondary teacher of humanities. Helen Watt is professor of educational psychology at the University of Sydney, initiator of the Network Gender & STEM (www.genderandSTEM.com) and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Header image of Prue Car from the Minister’s Facebook page.

teacher shortages

We have a massive teaching shortage. Here’s how to fix it

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The Federal Department of Education predicts an alarming teacher shortage of 4,100 teachers by 2025. It is now more pressing than ever that we explore ways of addressing this crisis. 

Our research examined female Initial Teacher Education (ITE) completion data in Australia to identify trends around which degree types (postgraduate and undergraduate) and study modes (internal, external, and multimodal) are likely to attract more potential female ITE students, and subsequently increase the ITE completion and ultimately the teacher supply pipeline.   

The research reveals a declining trend in ITE completion by females in the internal study mode for both degree types.  On the contrary, there has been an increasing trend in ITE completion by females in the external and multimodal study modes for both types of programs.  We therefore argue that policymakers and universities should make these programs and study modes more accessible to potential female ITE students.  This would help to maximise female ITE completion in tackling the predicted teacher shortage. 

Why use female ITE completion data? 

Historically, the teaching profession in Australia – and globally – has attracted more females than males. As such, efforts to increase the number of females graduating from ITE programs would play a significant role in bolstering the teaching workforce. Supporting women’s entry and retention in the teaching profession is key to ensuring an adequate ongoing teacher supply.  

A closer look at what the female ITE completion data tell us 

Our research shows that for the period from 2001 to 2021, there was a significant decline – by nearly 40 per cent – of female ITE completion in the internal study mode for undergraduate ITE programs. But at the same time, female ITE completion by multimodal study doubled and nearly tripled for female ITE graduates in the external study mode.   

Similar observations can be seen with the postgraduate ITE programs.  The internal study mode declined by nearly 20 per cent in the same period. For the external and multimodal study modes, there were mammoth increases of 264.40% and 1089.11% respectively in female ITE completion.  

It is clear that there is a growing interest by females to enrol in and complete ITE programs in the external and multimodal study modes as opposed to the internal study mode. 

A graph showing the percentage of a course type Description automatically generated

The upward trend in the external and multimodal study modes is likely attributed, in part, to technological advancements.  The increased use and accessibility of the internet in homes would have contributed to the growth in female ITE completion in these modes of study.  

These same technological advancements facilitated the adoption of online delivery methods for ITE degrees by universities. The shift to online learning around 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic would have also contributed to the upward trend in the external study mode. 

Given the increasing trend in female ITE completion in these flexible study modes, universities would be wise to make these modes more accessible to maximise ITE completion.  We argue that policymakers, universities and schools have an important role to play in this space to address the teacher shortage. 

Policymakers should consider: 

Offering financial support, such as scholarships and financial incentives, which are specifically targeted at female students, for example: 

  1. loans or grants for female students during placements to help cover living expenses; and 
  2. needs-based support for female students from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds. 
  3. Capping tuition fees to ensure they remain affordable for all female students. 

Universities should consider:  

Providing support for students balancing academic studies with other commitments, such as family duties, which disproportionately burden female students, such as: 

  1. flexible assignment extension and leave of absence policies; and 
  2. subsidised childcare services. 

Offering flexible study options, which might include: 

  1. part-time study;  
  2. evening classes; 
  3. block study; and 
  4. mixed study mode. 

Enhancing the accessibility of external and multimodal programs by: 

  1. providing 24/7 IT helpdesk support and certified training programs to aid the development of skills required for online learning; 
  2. implementing user-friendly learning management systems and eLearning tools; and 
  3. offering funding for suitable IT equipment and internet access, especially for those in regional areas.

Fostering supportive and inclusive learning environments by: 

  1. establishing peer support groups and academic skills advising tailored to external and online students; 
  2. providing networking opportunities;  
  3. mentorship programs; and 
  4. further initiatives that address the unique challenges faced by women in tertiary study. 

Schools should consider: 

Collaborating with policymakers and universities in structured partnerships to: 

  1. facilitate the establishment of outreach programs; 
  2. provide mentoring initiatives; and 
  3. promote teaching as a viable and rewarding career choice for females.

Investing in flexible, supportive, and financially accessible ITE programs, alongside broader strategies can encourage more females to enrol in and complete ITE degrees.  This would contribute to ensuring a steady supply of qualified teachers to help avert the pending teacher shortage. 

From left to right: Scott Cowie is a librarian in Academic Engagement Services at Griffith University, who has a keen interest in educational research.  Loan Dao is an Educational Designer at the University of New South Wales and an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Access Education at Central Queensland University.  Jeanne Allen is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University and is also a member of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research.  Darren Pullen is a Lecturer in Health Science and Information and Communications Technology in the School of Education at the University of Tasmania.

school exclusion

School exclusion: what this heartbreaking work tells us

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Numbers show school exclusion is on the rise. But there is very little evidence to show it is an effective mechanism for improving or managing student behaviour. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students with a disability, or living in out of home care continue to be significantly overrepresented in suspension and exclusion statistics. These patterns of systemic exclusion are part of a much longer story. Ahead of the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s inquiry into the education system, what might we learn from this history that can help us to end school exclusion?

School exclusion today

Across Australia today, schools disproportionately exclude Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Data from 2019 shows that in Queensland and NSW, schools directed 25% of all exclusions at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students despite making up just over 10% of full-time state school enrolments in QLD and only 8% in NSW. The likelihood of exclusion increases even more for students with intersecting experiences such as living with disability or in out of home care. There are also connections between inadequate and unfair schooling systems and contact with the criminal justice system. However, access to up-to-date school exclusion data remains difficult, limiting public scrutiny and accountability for the full extent of school exclusion across Australia. 

The history of school exclusion

Beginning in 1883, multiple generations of Aboriginal students at Yass were segregated, excluded and denied access to public schooling. The 70-years of school exclusion at Yass is just one of many stories of school exclusion detailed in a recent research report. For the first time, the history of school exclusion of Indigenous students across Australia has been recorded in one place. It confirms what families and communities have said for generations: the education system has a systemic racism problem. But Indigenous communities have always resisted and organised to fight exclusion. The historical record is replete with stories of families fighting back in diverse ways including strikes, organised protests, letters and petitions, media and legal campaigns.  

What we found

Our research found exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students occurred across all state school systems in Australia. We found systemic exclusion, that is, exclusion in all states and territories, from the foundation of the first education systems in the 1870s to the present. We found two main types of exclusion:

  1. The failure of governments to provide access to schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students by either not ensuring access or by outright denying access. 
  2. The disproportionate use of exclusionary measures, such as suspension and expulsion, against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. 

Historically, Indigenous students were excluded based on explicitly racialised justifications. Today, modern forms of exclusion are represented as race ‘neutral’, yet schools use disciplinary exclusion measures disproportionately against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, compounding the educational debt that is owed.

This history highlights the explicitly racist origins of school exclusion today. It also makes clear that school exclusion is not a new issue but rather is part of a system that has yet to fundamentally rethink how it supports young people. 

Problems with current policies

Exclusion has proven ineffective in addressing the underlying causes of student ‘misbehaviour’. In fact, most data shows that once a student is excluded, they are likely to be excluded again. Yet school systems in Australia continue to rely on exclusion as a form of punishment. 

Our research also found troubling continuities between past and present policies. From the outset, education systems gave police powers to investigate and bring charges against families for their child’s non-attendance, sometimes leading to the removal of children from their families. Today, police continue to play a central role in managing school absenteeism in many states. In Queensland, this relationship has been formalised. Of 57 secondary schools currently in QLD’s ‘School Based Policing Program’, 41 have an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student population higher than the state figure of 8-10%. This suggests a link between the racial profiling, surveillance, and over-policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in schools, and their overrepresentation in processes of school exclusion. 

Policy fixation

Another problem is policy fixation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school attendance and disadvantage which have dominated the policy-making space in Indigenous education. Yet, there has rarely been a focus on the impact of the exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In fact, notably, our research suggests that discipline policies, suspensions and expulsions are rarely mentioned in national policy documents and inquiries.

Finally, access to data remains difficult. This is despite national agreement for increased levels of transparency around school attendance. Limited availability of data on school exclusion in Australia prevents a full investigation of the racialised nature of exclusion and hinders public accountability.

So what does work?

First and foremost, disaggregated data needs to be made publicly available to increase transparency. Only then can we have a full picture of which students are being excluded which can be used to hold governments and schools to account.

Second, we need to shift away from school exclusion as a form of discipline towards more restorative approaches that emphasise repairing relationships over and above the need for punishment. Restorative justice practices are already being implemented in communities across Australia and numerous school districts in other countries are implementing restorative practices in schools as an alternative to exclusionary discipline. We have clear examples to draw on, we just need the willingness to do so.

Lastly, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have fought and continue to fight resolutely to access schooling for their children and to resist discriminatory practices and policies. Today, organisations like the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition are taking up this fight, advocating for the end of school exclusion and for a self-determined education system that reflects and embodies Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. 

How do we end school exclusion?

We developed a School Exclusion 101 – Youth Guide. It aims to equip young people with the knowledge and tools to challenge exclusion in schools. The guide includes an audit tool that young people can use to reflect on whether their school’s student behaviour policy (or code of conduct) is inclusive, transparent and fair. It provides a starting point to discuss ways to make such policies more inclusive.

The report underscores the need for greater attention to the historical foundations of discrimination in Australian school systems. Acknowledging this history and advocating for greater truth-telling is a pivotal step towards addressing systemic inequalities.

From left to right: Mati Keynes is a non-Indigenous historian living and working on Wurundjeri Country. Mati is currently McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Education at the University of Melbourne. Samara Hand is a Worimi/Biripi woman born on Awabakal Country in New South Wales, Australia. She is currently a PhD candidate at UNSW, visiting scholar at the University of Manitoba, and a co-founder of the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition.  Beth Marsden is a non-Indigenous historian living and working on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. Currently, she is ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Deep History at the Australian National University. Archie Thomas is a Chancellors Research Fellow at University of Technology Sydney where his research focuses on how institutions like schools and the media exclude and include historically marginalised groups.

How to predict if an immigrant student will succeed – and what you can do to help

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Many nations around the world have seen a steep rise in the size of their immigrant
populations, including their immigrant student populations. How educators respond to this
plays a big part in how immigrant students adjust to and thrive at school. There are many
success stories, but there continues to be immigrant students who underachieve, leave school early, and lose critical post-school education opportunities.

Immigrants have and will continue to play a major role in our nation’s social and economic
potential and so there is an ongoing need for research that identifies how to better help
immigrant students navigate the academic challenges facing them and support their academic
outcomes.

Our study

A recent study published in the international journal, Learning and Instruction, sought to do this. It applied the “academic and cultural demands-resources” (ACD-R) framework to investigate the academic, personal, and ethno-cultural factors that impact immigrant students’ academic success at school. The study harnessed the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2018) data of immigrant students in Australia and New Zealand, two nations that have traditionally been “settlement countries”, receiving migrants to live, work, and raise their families. PISA is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) of 15-year-old school students’ motivation, engagement, and academic performance in mathematics, science, and reading.

What is the ACD-R Framework?

Before looking at the study and its findings, a brief introduction to the ACD-R framework is in order. The ACD-R framework draws on “job demands-resources” (JD-R) theory and the “academic-demands resources” (AD-R) framework. As an introduction to the ACD-R framework we’ll describe the AD-R framework and refer the reader to other literature explaining the JD-R theory. 

Academic demands are aspects of learning or the learning context that can impede students’ academic development (for example, poor quality instruction, a heavy study load). Academic resources are features of learning or learning contexts that help students attain academic goals and growth (for example, instructional support, positive teacher-student relationship). In the AD-R framework there are also personal demands that are personal attributes acting as barriers to students’ academic development (for example, fear of failure, fixed mindset). There are also personal resources that are personal attributes positively impacting academic outcomes (for example, adaptability, academic buoyancy). 

The ACD-R framework is an extension of the AD-R framework in that it adds ethno-cultural demands and resources to the AD-R framework’s academic and personal demands and resources. Cultural demands are ethno-cultural contextual and/or personal challenges experienced by students from culturally and/or ethnically diverse backgrounds (for example, racism at school) and are associated with negative academic outcomes. Cultural resources are ethno-cultural contextual and/or personal strengths or assets (for example, cultural pride or confidence) that are associated with positive academic outcomes for students from culturally/ethnically diverse backgrounds. 

In the AD-R and ACD-R frameworks, demands and resources can also have buffering and boosting effects. Taking buffering effects as a case in point, there may be some cultural resources that reduce (buffer) the negative impacts of demands. For example, cultural pride (a cultural resource) may reduce the stressful effects of poor-quality teaching (an academic demand). 

Figure 1 shows the ACD-R framework.

Importantly, the AD-R and ACD-R frameworks aim to challenge potential deficit framing of students by locating their personal resources as central to their academic development. They also aim to reallocate the task of academic development from the disproportionate or sole responsibility of students (which risks “blaming the victim”) by emphasising the major role of contextual demands and resources in students’ academic outcomes.

Figure 1. The Academic and Cultural Demands-Resources (ACD-R) Framework

The study participants

Our study comprised 4,886 immigrant students from Australia (3,329) and New Zealand (1,557) who participated in the PISA (2018) survey. The average age of students was 15-16 years. Just over half were first-generation immigrants who had arrived in the country between the ages of 8 and 9 years; the other immigrant students were second generation (born in Australia/New Zealand and whose parents were both born overseas).

Assessing the Demands and Resources Framework

The central measures in the study were online PISA survey items about academic demands and resources, personal demands and resources, cultural demands and resources—as well as academic motivation, academic outcomes, and background attributes.

Academic demands were assessed via ‘learning-disrupted teaching’ (students’ experience of chaotic or disruptive learning and teaching conditions; sample item, “Students don’t listen to what the teacher says”). Academic resources were measured by ‘autonomy-supportive teaching’, ‘instrumental-supportive teaching’, and ‘warmth-supportive teaching’ (students’ experience of teaching that provided autonomy support, instrumental support, and relatedness support or warmth, for example, “The teacher listened to my view on how to do things”).

Personal demands were assessed via ‘fear of failure’ and ‘fixed mindset’ (students’ concerns about failure and their view that competence is relatively fixed, for example, “Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much”). Personal resources were assessed through ‘perspective-taking’ and ‘adaptability’ (students’ ability to see others’ point of view and capacity to adjust in the face of change and uncertainty, for example, “I can change my behavior to meet the needs of new situations”). 

Cultural demands were assessed via ‘discrimination’ (negative orientations to and treatment of people from different ethno-cultural groups in the school, for example, “Teachers … say negative things about people of some cultural groups”). Cultural resources included ‘cultural communication skills’, ‘cultural interest’, and ‘cultural confidence’ (students’ capacity to communicate with other ethno-cultural groups, interest in other ethno-cultural groups, and sense of pride and confidence in their own ethno-cultural group, for example, “I am interested in how people from various cultures see the world”). 

Motivation was assessed via ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘valuing’ (students’ belief in their capacity to attain desired academic outcomes and their belief in the utility and importance of what they learn, for example, “Trying hard at school will help me get a good job”). 

Outcomes comprised two measures of engagement—‘persistence’ and ‘non-attendance’ (perseverance towards task completion and skipping school, for example, “Once I start a task, I persist until it is finished”). Outcomes also included ‘achievement’ (performance on the PISA mathematics, science, reading tests). 

In all our analyses we accounted (controlled) for student background characteristics (such as gender, home socio-economic status) and school characteristics (such as school staff/student ratio, school location).

Our findings

For this sample of immigrant students, our topline findings were that demands predicted lower motivation, resources predicted higher motivation, and motivation predicted positive academic outcomes. 

That said, of particular interest were the specific demands and resources that were salient in the study—and we turn to these findings now.

The first of these was that the cultural demands and resources played a more prominent role in predicting motivation and outcomes than the academic demands and resources. With regard to cultural demands, discrimination was associated with lower valuing, higher non-attendance, and lower achievement. With regard to cultural resources, cultural communication skills and cultural confidence were positively associated with both self-efficacy and valuing, while cultural interest was linked to higher self-efficacy.

For personal demands and resources, adaptability was the factor that stood out. It was associated with higher self-efficacy (in fact, the largest effect size in the study) and valuing. Indeed, adaptability was also the only resource that featured in the ACD-R buffering/boosting process: results indicated that when immigrant students experienced discrimination at school, adaptability was important for boosting their academic valuing in the face of this.

Ideas for action

The ACD-R framework lends well to targeted practical action. Here we focus on the salient cultural and personal demands and resources in the study: discrimination, cultural communication skills, cultural interest, cultural confidence, and adaptability.

To address cultural demands (discrimination), it is important that:

  • Teachers act as positive role models in their interactions with immigrant students, showing respectful and inclusive behaviour that sets an example for other students to emulate, and nurtures an inclusive and harmonious classroom environment 
  • Schools establish clear definitions and guidelines regarding intercultural relations and discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, including helping teachers and students know what racism is, defining racism, having clear processes for reporting racism in the school, and being clear about anti-discrimination legislation that schools and staff are bound by
  • Pre-service teacher training and ongoing professional development includes modules and in-servicing on cultural sensitivity, intercultural communication, and strategies for creating an inclusive classroom environment. 

To promote cultural resources (cultural communication skills, cultural interest, cultural confidence), educators can:

  • Teach oral communication skills, non-verbal and visual communication, active listening, and contextual communication to help immigrant students better express themselves and be better understood
  • Inspire two-way interest among immigrant and non-immigrant students by enhancing intrinsic value, such as by identifying the importance of learning more about someone or something from another culture
  • Affirm students’ cultural identity, meaningfully involve immigrant students’ cultural community at school, and ensure appropriate representation of staff from culturally and/or ethnically diverse backgrounds. 

For adaptability, students can be taught how to: 

  • Adjust cognition by thinking about a new situation in a different way (for example, considering the opportunities a new situation might offer)
  • Modify behaviour by seeking out new or more resources or information (for example., asking a teacher to help with a new situation).

To conclude

Our study of immigrant high school students has demonstrated that including cultural demands and resources alongside academic and personal factors accounts for important aspects of their motivation, engagement, and achievement—and has potential to add to practical directions for optimising immigrant students’ academic outcomes through school and beyond. 

From left to right: Andrew Martin is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co-Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

He specialises in student motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods. Rebecca Collie is Scientia Associate Professor in Educational and Developmental Psychology at the University of NSW. Her research interests focus on motivation and well-being among students and teachers, psychosocial experiences at school, and quantitative research methods. Lars Erik-Malmberg is Professor in Education at the University of Oxford. His research interests are in quantitative research methods and students’ academic development.