Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe Right to Education Act (2009) and school enactments of inclusion in India( 2020)This thesis is concerned with the landmark right to education legislation, which was included as a fundamental right in the Indian constitution, in 2002, and enacted as law as the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act, 2009). This Act makes free and compulsory elementary education of children between 6 and 14 years of age a fundamental constitutional right. It also details conditions for provision of education, specifying minimum standards of school infrastructure, teacher qualifications, teaching norms, assessment, and curriculum. Importantly, it includes a provision for the reservation of entry-level seats for children from underprivileged backgrounds in private schools, to create more inclusive school communities. At a time when policy focus is on learning outcomes and the issue of quality of education, this research instead draws attention to the objectives of inclusion and social justice implied by the constitutional mandate for the right to education and is concerned with the ways in which schools have responded to and enacted this provision for inclusion in classrooms. Using theoretical resources drawn from recent literature on policy enactment approaches, this thesis focuses on the materializing practices that enact the right to education in two school settings in India. School leaders’ and teachers’ readings of policy discourses, and teachers’ negotiations of multiple ideas and policy objects encountered in the post-RTE classroom settings, are explored. Concepts from new materialism are used to analyse interview and ethnographic observation data by mapping the meanings, discourses and affects assembled in practices of schooling. The role of affect in learning, and the ways in which it produces new capacities to teach, and learn, in school settings are explored. Pedagogies that include and exclude become visible at the confluence of policy discourses, practices of educational reform and institutional histories. The potential of ethical pedagogies of affect to enact inclusion in the context of the right to education in India is shown.
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ItemGlobal tides, Pacific shores: an exploration of the emerging possibilities of political autonomy in the formation of education policy in the Pacific( 2018)Since gaining independence, the education landscape throughout Pacific Island nations has changed as a result of both local pressures and global forces, which have included: the evolving legacies of colonialism; changing perspectives on modernisation; the introduction of neoliberal principles in governance; the rise of Asia and the growing economic, cultural and political role that new donors such as China are now playing in the region; shifts in the modus operandi of long-standing donors such as Australia; and, more broadly, rapid globalisation across all aspects of life. More recently, the idea of ‘development partnerships’ has been used to recognise and build on the promises of political autonomy that emerged at the time of independence. This thesis examines how policy actors in three Pacific Island nations (Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu) seek to negotiate the global designs for education reform amidst these complex geopolitical shifts, while remaining determined to exercise political autonomy in line with their local cultural and educational priorities. Methodologically, the thesis adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach, informed by a commitment to prioritising indigenous voices within the context of calls to decolonise educational research. It draws on data from semi-structured interviews with local policy actors concerned with issues relating to educational development, in order to understand the complexities, opportunities and challenges they face in seeking to exercise political autonomy in light of various external pressures. The thesis suggests that while the voices of local policy actors continue to be inhibited by external forces, there is also emerging throughout the region a rejuvenated postcolonial confidence, which offers new possibilities for the exercise of political autonomy in the formation of education policy in the Pacific.
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ItemParticipation on the margins: young people’s citizenship experiences in schools( 2017)This research project is an interdisciplinary study that draws upon on-going discussions and emerging scholarship in the fields of Citizenships Studies, Education and Sociology of Youth to offer a renewed perspective on how young people experience citizenship through their everyday social encounters in schools and classrooms. More specifically, this study looks into young people’s everyday school practices to: a) offer a situated account of how those who face various sources of marginalization experience participatory citizenship, and b) examine the factors, both in the students’ backgrounds and within the social geography of the school, that contribute to such experiences. The research is an ethnographic study with 12 students who attended an alternative education program in a metropolitan school located in a low socio-economic status suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. Findings from the data gathered over eight months from participant observation, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with the students, some of their teachers and the school principal highlighted a set of factors behind young people’s political experiences on the margins of the mainstream school. These factors include: school belonging, inclusion, relationality, recognition of difference, student voice and school discipline. Drawing on the students’ narratives and experiences, I argue that rather than offering a level playing field in which all young people have the opportunity to participate, the social geographies of schools emerging under neoliberal policy reforms tend to differentiate among students on the basis of how well they can satisfy the needs and requirements of the institution in terms of performance and benchmarking. What follows from this process of differentiation, which revolves around the normative definition of ‘good student’ as a self-reliant and high performing individual learner, is the construction of ‘the other’ who lacks the dispositions of the socially sanctioned ‘norm’, and is, therefore, positioned and treated differently in the social field of schools and classrooms. I conclude my thesis by calling for a conceptually comprehensive understanding of youth citizenship that takes into account the complex interactions and overlapping relationships among the elements that constitute youth politics. Within such a conception, all the factors that impact on the political geographies of young people such as belonging, inclusion, relationality, recognition of difference, voice and discipline stand in continuous and dynamic interaction with each other. As I further argue, to create a truly democratic education that is inclusive of all students regardless of their needs and social backgrounds, we should bring issues of social justice centre-stage in our debates about civics and citizenship education.
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ItemBridging the data literacy gap for evidence-informed education policy and practice: the impact of visualization( 2017)Data literacy comprises an important set of competencies in today’s society. Its rise in prominence can be traced to several developments: the exponential increase in data leading to unprecedented possibilities for transforming society; the global Open Data movement as a driving force in making data more accessible; and the evidence-informed policy movement. In the education sector, the latter is linked to the data-driven decision making movement, which refers to the use of data to inform education policy and practice at all levels. Because of these developments, data literacy is becoming embedded as an integral part of professional competencies for educators and education leaders. The purpose of the study was twofold: first, to investigate whether data literacy can be measured on a single scale of increasing proficiency, and second, to investigate the effect of different data presentation formats on data literacy within the context of evidence-informed education policy and practice. A data literacy test was developed which required participants to answer multiple-choice questions based on a set of research briefs. Participants consisted mainly of graduate students enrolled in an education-related degree and education researchers. An experimental design was used in which the treatment condition was the presentation format of the research briefs. Test participants (N = 127) were randomly assigned to one of three presentation formats – text-only, text plus tabulated data, and text plus visualization – where tabulated data and visualizations were constructed from information in the text. The findings from the test calibration supported the hypothesis of a hierarchical unidimensional data literacy scale. The interpretation of data literacy competencies along a log-linear scale replicated the hypothesized hierarchical development of data literacy levels. It was also hypothesized that text plus visualization would lead to higher levels of data literacy compared to the other presentation formats. While previous research analysed differences in presentation formats through raw scores, this study used many-facet Rasch model analysis. Ordinal-level raw scores were transformed into linear, interval-level measures as an outcome of the interaction between three facets: person, item, and presentation format. In contrast to raw scores, Rasch model parameter estimates are sample independent, so the findings can be more objectively generalized beyond the sample and items used in the study. Rasch parameter estimates for the three presentation formats supported the hypothesis that the use of visualizations is associated with higher levels of data literacy. Item-level analysis of the effect of presentation format, based on the theories of cognitive fit, cognitive load, and the proximity compatibility principle, suggested that data presentations which emphasize relationships between variables matching the problem context increase data literacy levels. Those that do not may lower data literacy levels by acting as extraneous cognitive load that diverts limited cognitive resources, especially if they misdirect attention and subsequent analysis. Implications of these findings were discussed in terms of the conceptualization of a hierarchy of data literacy competencies vis-à-vis the requirements of educators and education leaders, the potential and caveats of using data presentations for communicating policy-relevant evidence, and future research on data presentation and visualization.