With its shift to a market economy gathering speed from the 1990s, the Chinese Government embarked on an agenda that brought neoliberal forces into almost all sectors including education. The policies underpinned China's spectacular economic growth, but in education have had consequences that arguably are problematic. Drawing on a mixed-methods…

This article seeks to augment an emerging interest in education policy research in enactment theorising, to explicitly consider the role and contribution of materiality in this theorising. Guided by the notion of policy "matters," the article takes as its empirical context a major policy initiative, the Building the Education Revolution…

Research on the merit of school tracking policies has long been at the center of heated educational debate. Unfortunately, while the trend in studies looking at tracking in schools has continued, the student perspective has been underutilized in much of this previous research. Recently, however, there has been a surge in research that focuses on…

Citizenship education in Australia is embedded throughout the school curriculum. Despite a coherent policy context for the inclusion of citizenship and civic education at all levels of schooling, the links between education and civic minded citizens are tenuous. This paper explores these connections by drawing on the views of participants in an…

This paper explores how the strong policy push to improve students' results on national literacy and numeracy tests -- the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) -- in the Australian state of Queensland influenced schooling practices, including teachers' learning. The paper argues the focus upon improved test scores on NAPLAN…

The aim of this study was firstly to describe the experiences of international students living and studying in a UK university, to understand and explain their responses to those experiences and to make recommendations to stakeholders in the light of the findings. The research found that international students' two biggest concerns are their…

Capital expenditure at United Kingdom (UK) universities is rapidly rising, with new buildings erected on the premise that national and international competitiveness must be maintained. We examine students' engagement with and conceptualisation of university estate, and explore broader questions about the extent to which building design can…

The aim of this study was to identify how and why doctoral students do interdisciplinary research. A mixed-methods approach utilising bibliometric analysis of the publications of 195 students identified those who had published interdisciplinary research. This objective measurement of the interdisciplinarity, applying the Rao-Stirling index to Web…

In the past few decades, the internationalisation of higher education has become an increasingly popular trend across different parts of the globe. The fierce global competition and the aggravating unemployment rate, coupled with low teaching and research quality revealed by universities in mainland China, have inevitably compelled a growing…

The starting point of this paper is the question: Which issues do students think are important when choosing a higher education institution, and how are they related to the factors taken into consideration in ranking institutions? The aim is to identify and rank the parameters students perceive as important when choosing their place of education.…

Findings from a study on academic integrity at Australian universities challenge the presumption that postgraduate research students have prior knowledge of academic integrity. A review of online academic integrity policy in 39 Australian universities found that one in five policies had no mention of higher degree by research (HDR) students.…

This article reports on a research project that investigated the aspirations of primary and secondary school students about access to, and participation in higher education. The research was undertaken at schools in low socio-economic status regional and rural areas of north-eastern New South Wales. The paper discusses the background to the…

This article reports on interview-based research on Chinese students' perceptions of aspects of university study and their reasons for undertaking Australian programmes. In this cross-cultural setting, perceptions of "good" and "bad" subjects were elicited, and the need to standardise or adapt programmes to meet Chinese…

Studies documenting the harm associated with excessive drinking amongst university students are numerous. Fewer studies have explored the experience of non-drinkers in the university setting. In 2008, 826 students aged 18-29 years responded to an online survey aiming to investigate alcohol use and alcohol related harm at an Australian university.…