Overrepresentation of Indigenous students in school suspension, exclusion, and enrolment cancellation in Queensland: is there a case for systemic inclusive school reform?

Well-established evidence of the ill-effects of exclusionary school discipline, its disproportionate use on students of colour, and association with the “school-to-prison pipeline” has, in the last decade, led to systemic reforms in the United States, which are successfully reducing exclusion and improving outcomes. Few studies, however, have similarly investigated overrepresentation in Australia, with little attention to systemic reform as a result. In this study, we analysed suspension, exclusion, and enrolment cancellation rates in Queensland (QLD) government schools between 2013 and 2019 and found Indigenous students were consistently overrepresented. Suspension incidents proportionate to enrolments increased for all students, but this increase was faster for Indigenous than non-Indigenous students and driven primarily by steep rises in short suspensions during primary school (Preparatory-6). Exclusions increased—again disproportionately—for Indigenous students, chiefly in secondary school (7–12). During 2019, Physical Misconduct had the highest incident rate for both groups; however, Indigenous students were most overrepresented in suspensions for Disruptive/Disengaged behaviours. Further, while Indigenous students were overrepresented in all QLD regions, one region’s Indigenous suspension rate was higher than all others despite no difference in the distribution of Indigenous/non-Indigenous enrolments across regions. The scale and nature of Indigenous overrepresentation in exclusionary discipline incidents in QLD indicate clear need for further research to secure political commitment to systemic inclusive school reform, as well as to produce high-quality evidence capable of guiding that reform.

Sociality, resilience and agency: how did young Australians experience online learning during Covid-19?

In 2020 when schooling was abruptly reconfigured by the pandemic, young people were required to demonstrate new capabilities to manage their learning and their wellbeing. This paper reports on the feelings, thoughts and experiences of eight Year 9 and 10 students in NSW and Victoria about the initial period of online learning in Australian schools that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic. Beyond dominant narratives of vulnerability and losses in learning, our participants offered counternarratives that stressed their capacities to rise and meet the times. We trace three central themes on how they: found moments of agency that increased their confidence, reconfigured resilience as a socially responsible set of practices, deployed sociality as a resource for the benefit of themselves and others. The pandemic opened up conversations with young people about where and how learning takes place and how schools might adapt and respond to young people’s growing sense of urgency about the future of schooling.

Aboriginal cultural educators teaching the teachers: mobilisng a collaborative cultural mentoring program to affect change

This paper discusses an Aboriginal cultural mentoring project for non-Aboriginal teachers that positions Aboriginal people front and centre as cultural and educational experts. In so doing it sets out to contribute to work in Australia that challenges ‘common’ understandings about mentoring in educational contexts where the expert is usually a western-educated non-Aboriginal teacher. In this project, non-Aboriginal teachers are supported in implementing culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogies into their classroom through building relationships with Aboriginal mentors and students. Analysis of thirteen pre and post surveys, four mentee interviews and one mentee focus group, illuminated the emergence of collaborative cultural mentoring processes, where teachers developed trusting, reciprocal and respectful relationships with Aboriginal people. We argue that a systematic, well-supported Aboriginal cultural mentoring program can be used to create and convert new knowledge into practice, and that this can have a positive impact on teachers’ understanding of teaching/learning processes thereby contributing to Aboriginal student engagement in their learning.

Primary specialisations in Australia: graduates’ perceptions of outcome and impact

In 2014, the Australian Government established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) to advise on how teacher education programmes could ensure new teachers were adequately prepared for the classroom. Following this, the Australian Government endorsed a key recommendation of the TEMAG Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers report, the inclusion of specialisations in primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This research was conducted at an Australian public university that, in 2016, had embedded specialisations in a revised primary teacher programme structure and was one of the first ITE institutions in Australia to graduate primary teachers with a specialisation. Using a mixed-methods case study design with convenience sampling, this study sought to investigate these primary graduates’ perceptions of undertaking a specialisation in relation to the development of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in the specialist area, as well as perceived employment advantages. This research took place over 4 years with participants having completed a Bachelor of Education (Primary) at least three months prior to participating. The participants reported benefits to having completed a primary specialisation but expressed concerns about their preparedness to teach their specialisation and whether it would result in any advantages for employment. Recommendations from the participants included teaching practice in their area of specialisation, consideration of specialist skills and changing the timetabling of the specialisation in the programme. Ultimately, there is a need for ongoing research in this area to determine the extent to which primary specialisations deliver the intended outcomes and impacts at both the policy driver level and the university level.