School of Education and Culture

Leadership, Indigenous and Contemporary Knowledge and Pedagogies for ethical institutions and communities

This theme draws together colleagues collaborating on complex and wicked problems in Educational leadership; Educational management; Histories and frameworks of Educational administration; Research and evidence use; Educational philosophy and ethics; Organisational cultures, change and decision-making; Professional identities and labour; Pedagogies of health and community; Creativity and imagination in pedagogy; Intercultural Studies; Employability and Education-to-work transitions; Social movement activism; and Wisdom studies.

Teaching English as a Second Language and Language and Learning

This theme brings together colleagues researching language learning and teaching across diverse settings — from early childhood and school contexts to higher education, adult learning, and international environments. Our work spans four interconnected areas: multilingualism and inclusive pedagogies, including translanguaging, bilingual and plurilingual approaches, EAL teaching, and content-language integration; language, identity and society, encompassing teacher and student identity, emotion and agency, intercultural education, and critical, decolonial and policy perspectives on language in global and postcolonial contexts; teaching and professional practice, including TESOL teacher education, professional learning, classroom interaction and conversation analysis, language assessment, and creative pedagogies such as silence studies; and digital innovation in language education, with a focus on digital literacies, educational technologies, and generative AI.

Colleagues in this theme collaborate with schools, government agencies, and community organisations to produce research that is rigorous, policy-relevant, and responsive to the needs of learners and teachers in a multilingual world. The theme is strongly international, with active research partnerships and professional learning programs across Asia and beyond.

Globalisation, History, and Education

This theme draws together colleagues collaborating and leading on global projects, actors and processes in education, such as the politics of class, race, gender and empire; education as a human and ethical right; International and Comparative Education and Organisations; Multi-scalar governance and politics; economics of education, academic, student and policy mobilities; critical media activism and literacy; Indigenous knowledges, Western and non-Western knowledge; climate change and sustainability.

Social justice, Ethics, Decolonisation and Policy formation

This theme draws together colleagues researching on factors that influence the discourse and language of education theory and policy; theories of social justice; anti-racism, decolonisation and colonisation studies; Indigenous and Indigenist transdisciplinary research; issues of belonging, diversity and inclusion studies; the politics shaping equality of opportunity and social inclusion in education and the labour market; elite formation; gender, intersectionalities and identity making; education market-making and privatisation; complex and wicked issues within educational contexts such as early childhood centres, schools, higher/tertiary education, vocational institutions.

Digital Education and Society

This theme draws together colleagues working on sociotechnical approaches toward digitalisation, including digital inequalities, automation and AI, datafication and data justice, digital surveillance, digital ethics and harms, platformisation, the political economy of ed-tech, digital infrastructure, digital cultures, and the critical studies of education and technology.