Indigenous leaders in higher education are restive, disaffected, and dissatisfied with the slow gyrations of change. Using Interest Convergence Theory, this paper will unravel the constraints inherent in institutional reform that delimit the influence of Indigenous senior leaders in the sector. Positioned amidst the burgeoning impact of…

University institutional policy is poorly understood. While policy is required by law for universities to accept funding and is revered for articulating values, mitigating risk, and guiding practice, policy is frequently considered absurd and resisted in practice. This is the policy-practice divide. To gain a better understanding of this divide…

Despite the visibility of equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenization (EDI&I) discourses within large institutions, such as post-secondary institutions, research has chronicled only modest advancements on these stated values. Blocks to advancements in EDI&I stem, in part, from the structural nature of racist and sexist domination, and…

The language and cultural priorities in Australian Indigenous education have been priority areas since the inaugural national Indigenous education policy was launched in 1989. For over thirty years, these priorities have sat awkwardly in the largely non-Indigenous teaching profession and classroom teachers continue to struggle with how to embed…

Force majeure circumstances, such as those witnessed in the COVID-19 pandemic, have been used to justify new technologies of governance as policy-makers around the world began to realise the magnitude of the problem and its political implications. In Australia, the coronavirus crisis focussed attention on the vital role education plays in society…

Politics and pragmatics are central and inseparable features of curriculum reform. In a federated system like Australia, many individuals and organisations are invested in reform at the national and jurisdictional level. This paper focuses on the policy work and roles of key actors positioned at the interface of national and state-based curriculum…

Neo-liberalism continues to expand its grip on education, despite fierce opposition. As an economic and political hegemony, neo-liberalism silences alternative viewpoints and neutralises resistance. Using an example of integrating Australian Indigenous pedagogy in early childhood initial teacher education, this article puts forward a typology for…

We describe a short, interactive case-based activity for illustrating cognitive distortions of communication underlying resistance to change. Based on a real-life story, the case describes a failed effort by the mayor of Toowoomba, Australia to fund a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant. After reading the case, students work individually…

The key premise of professional development (PD) is that learning to teach continues throughout teachers' careers. And yet, experienced teachers are often portrayed in media and public policy as resistant to such learning and afraid of change. This paper seeks a more nuanced understanding of why experienced teachers might resist the prospect of PD…

The purpose of this article is to present a problematising and exploration of how teachers educated within settler-colonial systems are positioned to analyse critically and resist whitewashed curriculum when planning for school-based learning. Since the 2013 implementation of the Australian Curriculum: History, Aboriginal and Torres Strait…

Public universities, as the predominant source of nurse education, serve an instrumental role as pressure mounts to produce large numbers of workready graduates to meet the needs of the labor market. Neoliberalism is recognized as the dominant political and economic philosophy across the globe, and new managerialist, corporatized practices, as its…

In the spirit of solidarity, critical activist scholarship and collaborative critical inquiry, this article calls for adoption of a counterhegemonic, transformative education strategy by proposing the development of an alternative vision to current neoliberal education projects and standardization. The political economy of education is driven by…

In this paper, we offer a critique of neoliberal power from the perspective of the gendered, sexualised, raced and classed politics of motherhood in English universities. By using dialogical auto-ethnographic methods to examine our own past experiences as full-time employed mother-academics, we demonstrate how feminist academic praxis can not only…

In this collective article, the authors explore constructions of early childhood practitioners and how they disconnect and reconnect in a global neo-liberal education policy context. The contributions to the conversation provide windows into shifting professional identities across five national contexts: New Zealand, the USA, Ireland, Australia…

Increasingly mediatised policy processes influence practice in schools as education becomes a site of parental anxiety and choice exacerbated by standardised national assessment and ranking of schools in the media. This paper analyses the responses to media scrutiny of six principals whose schools' national test results were reported in the…