Early career teachers often feel overwhelmed by the complex, intense and unpredictable nature of their work. Recently, policy initiatives have been introduced to provide new teachers with extra release-time from face-to-face classroom teaching duties to assist them in their transition to the workforce. This paper reports on a critical policy study…

Recent changes in higher education have confronted education research with a conundrum: how our traditionally multidisciplinary field can refine itself as a unified discipline. In this address I sketch out what this conundrum may mean for education research, both substantively and methodologically, in the future. I propose that one starting point…

This paper provides some background information about the Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research initiative: a joint program of work sponsored by the Australian Association for Research in Education and the Australian Council of Deans of Education. In addition, it offers some broader analysis of the contexts within which…

The results of Australia's first national research assessment, excellence for research in Australia, provoked considerable discussion about the state of educational research in Australia. Understanding the nature of this field of research became the focus for empirical research and analysis that was intended to inform strategic planning. This…

This paper introduces the Young Learners' Project, which is a large scale longitudinal study that aims to identify a number of factors associated with positive outcomes in literacy in the first year of school: the role of the preschool teacher, home life and child characteristics. In particular, it presents the design of one sub-study within the…

This article addresses the issue of affective labour in education in the context of standards-based reforms and accountability. In particular, it focuses on neoliberal strategies of rationalization and control that produce a number of social pathologies, such as alienated teaching and learning and reified social relations between teachers and…

This paper reports on the work of a small group of Education academics to build a professional learning community in a regional university in the north of England. Their efforts form part of a "Leading Learning" school-university partnership serving schools in disadvantaged communities in inner city Leeds. This is designed to support teachers'…

Globally, science curricula have been described as outdated, and students perceive school science as lacking in relevance. Declines in senior secondary and tertiary student participation in science indicate an urgent need for change if we are to sustain future scientific research and development, and perhaps more importantly, to equip students…

In 2007 the Rudd Labor government in Australia introduced significant changes to education policy for the nation. The "Skilling Australia's Future" (Rudd et al. "Skilling Australia for the future. Election 2007 policy document," 2007) policy was meant to redress a perceived failure by the previous Howard federal Liberal-National Coalition…

This paper argues for the need for critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability that often promotes reading comprehension as readily assessable through students answering multiple choice questions of unseen texts. Based upon a 1 year study investigating literacy in Years 4-9 the ways strong-performing primary schools develop serious…

In this article, the author revisits the interlinked conceptualizations of globe, of an unconscious, and of the child, which subtly shape repetitively appearing issues that educational research now entails, confronts, and works through. By looking exclusively at institutional structures, educational policy, or classroom-based interactions, the…

This paper presents (i) a purpose-built conceptual model for professional learning and (ii) a leadership framework designed to support a large-scale project involving diverse sites across the state of Queensland, Australia. The project had as its focus teacher-capacity building and ways to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for students at…

Being a proficient and professional teacher in Australia and similar countries is one of the most difficult and complex occupations imaginable. All teachers are confronted with carefully analysing the mix of socio-economic and cultural factors that present and design appropriate learning strategies that engage all students. Within this context,…

In this paper I critically examine the changing nature of teacher professionalism in relation to educational policy-making, specifically, the new national policy for values education in Australian schools, and a newly endorsed "Cultural Understandings" syllabus for teaching in New South Wales' secondary schools. I argue that these policy changes…

Ghosts haunt the school curriculum. Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" provides a starting point for thinking about these curriculum ghosts. In the Preface, he states that he has "endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea". In this article, the author seeks to raise the ghost of an idea, and to have a bit of fun with…