The identity of first-generation immigrant groups is a highly complex construct, evolving and changing in response to a host of social, psychological, and contextual factors. This paper explores how first-generation Chinese immigrants from mainland China position and negotiate themself in relation to the perceived sociocultural groups they…

Improving schooling outcomes is a preoccupation facing school leaders globally. At the heart of such an agenda is the school leader's capacity to make professional learning decisions that best support the professional learning needs of their teachers. Thus, this paper investigates the extent to which principals' control to make professional…

Absence from school, especially frequent or prolonged absence, is acknowledged as a potential factor in school dropout and suboptimal academic achievement. The issue of absence from school took on added significance in 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, which resulted in schooling interruptions in several jurisdictions. However, there is…

Purpose: This article explores the overlooked experiences of Chinese students in Australia from the White Australia Policy era to the post-war period. It argues that the emerging post-war transitional generation faced racial discrimination and geopolitical challenges, leading to the establishment of student societies and collaborations with…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the clubs and club memberships of 491 elite women in three eastern Australian states in the 1930s. It is the second part of a descriptive analysis of these women's biographical sketches in Who's Who-type collections, now out of copyright, published in Australia in the 1930s: Victoria (1934), New…

This practice report, framed within transition pedagogy (Kift et al., 2010), seeks to offer suggestions to assist higher education educators and administrators to develop and apply policies to foster student belonging. The authors of this article are employed at an Australian university which offers alternative pathways for students to enter a…

Children who are excluded from school may end up being excluded from other social institutions. Yet little research has considered whether low school belonging is a risk factor for not being in education, employment, or training after graduation. Using two longitudinal cohorts from Australia (N = 14,082; 51% Boys), we explored this relationship.…

In 2017, the School of Law at the University of Wollongong commenced an experimental initiative through the introduction of a Law Student Pledge. It was designed as a symbolic statement to students that from the day they begin their law studies they become a member of the legal professional community. In this way, it invited First Year Students to…

The purpose of the study reported here was to explore teachers' lived experiences and reflections on how they perceive and understand the benefits of allowing student voice within the gifted and talented cohort of students at an independent school located in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Using the phenomenological framework of van…

University participation has increased in many countries in recent years in response to the requirement for a strong knowledge economy. While this has provided additional access opportunities, not all students enter university with the same transferrable social capital. To counter this, educational institutions could play a strategic role in the…

This study uses cultural capital theory as an analytical frame to investigate first-generation students' sense of belonging at university. The purpose of this study was to examine first-year students' perceptions of their sense of belonging by exploring the extent that they perceive a sense of belonging, whether they perceive barriers to their…

The higher education participation and success rates of students in low socio-economic status (SES), regional, rural, remote, and isolated areas -- who often attend university later in life -- is a persistent concern in Australia and beyond. This article focuses on mature-aged students in low SES, regional and remote areas in Tasmania, Australia,…

Despite a strong body of evidence demonstrating the importance of school belonging across multiple measures of wellbeing and academic outcomes, many students still do not feel a sense of belonging to their school. Moreover, school closures caused by COVID-19 lockdowns have exacerbated challenges for developing a student's sense of school…

Since 2011 the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University has been actively supporting an ethos of belonging throughout their learning and teaching. In 2017 'belonging' became a formal university priority, embedded in the institution's strategy and dispersed across Colleges and Schools through a range of activities and interventions.…

The 'digital imperative' of contemporary education practice is without contention; however, much learning technology research has focused on pragmatic issues such as learning design, often founded on uncritically accepted claims about 'digital natives'. This focus has come at the expense of learning theory. Alongside the scholarly voices calling…