In recent times, young people from Australian Sudanese and South Sudanese communities have received considerable negative racialised public and political attention. This publicity has the potential to negatively shape the perspectives of other Australians, which in turn can have adverse consequences for these youth in terms of their social…

The notion of agency has been widely used in various disciplines but is relatively new in the field of employability of international graduates and returnees. This discussion paper addresses this gap by unpacking the determinants that influence the enactment of agency of international Ph.D. graduates in Australia and Ph.D. returnees in China. In…

Australia's much-vaunted reputation as a successful egalitarian, multicultural country has substantial merit, but it also has a chequered history, and the official narrative of egalitarianism and multiculturalism is experienced differentially by vulnerable, marginalised people and communities who bear the brunt of residual and new forms of racism…

Purpose: The article examines the differences in the reception of international and Indigenous students to understand the challenges faced by the first students who identified as Indigenous, and to improve understanding of the 1950s, a pivotal decade in the development of university culture. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on archival sources…

Purpose: This article explores the childhood, professional life and social activism of Alice Rigney (1942-2017) who became Australia's first Aboriginal woman principal in 1986. Design/methodology/approach: The article draws on interviews with Alice Rigney along with newspapers, education department correspondence and reports of relevant…

The old canard that Indigenous and First Nations peoples had, or have, only rudimentary mathematical skills has been curiously persistent, against widespread published evidence over the past century and a half. In Australia, attempts to include Indigenous mathematical knowledge in curriculums have encountered strong resistance. After more than…

Purpose: This paper aims to highlight how Black African academics who live and work under coloniality are systematically seen as "out of place" and how this positioning compounds their experiences of interpersonal and systemic marginalisation within predominantly white universities. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper…

Purpose: Academic scholarship on the White Australia Policy (WAP) has highlighted the history of Asian migration, early perceptions and policy-making initiatives. Prominent scholars have also pointed out the impact of the British Empire and WAP on Australia-India relations and early Indian migrants in Australia. Drawing on the debate concerning…

Schooling has been a site of harm for Indigenous people in settler colonial contexts, as a tool of dispossession, assimilation and separation from country and kin. However, schools have simultaneously been sites to work against this and build alternatives to settler colonial systems that nourish Indigenous futures. This article centers the…

There is clear evidence that Indigenous education has changed considerably over time. Indigenous Australians' early experiences of 'colonialised education' included missionary schools, segregated and mixed public schooling, total exclusion and 'modified curriculum' specifically for Indigenous students which focused on teaching manual labour skills…

Australian universities attract increasing numbers of students from the Asia-Pacific region. It is important, therefore, that academics have meaningful understandings of these students in order to provide them with a supportive learning environment. This article suggests that part of this understanding is being aware of the ways in which some of…

Crises affect international students' overseas experiences, but crisis theory is rarely considered in international education studies. This article provides a comparative study of two countries, using a 'most similar cases' research design, to analyse host-nation government responses to crisis situations. The two countries are Australia and New…

This research addresses the appeal for more empirical-based research on exclusionary practices in local community sport that often go unchallenged within dominant discourses. By examining how organised community sport clubs can uphold systemic segregation of various ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious and socioeconomic groups, this study also…

In this article, we introduce a time mapping methodology to chart the impact of transcultural and First Nations' histories, geographies and cultural knowledges on doctoral education. Drawing upon a 'Southern', postcolonial-decolonial theoretical framing and extending textual life history methodologies, we argue that time mapping is a visual…

'Education is the key' is often used as a metaphor in remote Australian First Nations communities to indicate the importance of learning to achieve some measure of socio-economic advantage--education is seen as a vehicle for advancement. First Nations people have enthusiastically bought into education and training vehicle. High school completion…