The notion of reading publics has a secure place in the sociology of Literature but its place in the educational literature around curriculum studies is relatively sparse. Here I address the question of reading publics in a curriculum context by examining school subject curricula whose very raisons d'etre are the creation of a reading public, viz.…

This article reports on a critical policy analysis of discourses related to school exclusions. The management of problematic student behaviour is one of the intractable problems facing education systems today. Despite being ineffective, school suspensions and exclusions are commonly used in many countries as a discipline strategy to manage student…

Background: In this study, we examined nutrition-related topics among adolescent students attending schools with different Indices of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA). Method: Participating students (N = 206) from 5 schools in Western Australia completed a paper-based questionnaire on nutrition-related topics. Frequencies and…

In all levels of schooling there exist disparities in terms of class and gender. The research presented in this article contributes to the study of how gender, class and curriculum influence the aspirations of students who are the first-in-family to attend university. Drawing on a study of 48 students over a three-year period, we are interested in…

The role and significance of schooling in maintaining and renewing social disadvantage is particularly evident in upper secondary education, and especially so in the high-stakes final examination at the end of Year 12. This paper focusses on Senior English in this context, with specific regard to the Australian state of New South Wales. Building…

Many education systems aim to provide learning opportunities to all students regardless of their backgrounds in order for them to realise their potential. Education systems are expected to break down barriers to social mobility. However, too often, children are not given enough opportunities to succeed, to pursue their interests, or to develop…

This paper reflects on the recounts of a group of 'old boys' about their transition from elite schools to university. Analysis of semi-structured interview data reveals that this transition was not always straightforward. Although educational background has traditionally determined access to, and progress through, university, this paper details…

This paper addresses the marked absence of student voices in contemporary research on academic integrity, and in doing so challenges a number of persistent ideas about cheating in higher education. We report the qualitative findings from a large-scale survey of Australian university students (n = 14,086), in which 4,915 students responded to one…

This paper explored the multiple layers of social and intercultural adjustment challenges experienced by international female doctoral students in Australia. The paper investigates multiple dimensions of sociocultural differences between the students' native and host countries, including sociocultural context, community engagement, personal and…

International higher education in many developed countries and more particularly in the United States and Australia has become a great source of revenue for their economies from students of the developing and underdeveloped countries (Least Development Countries). Money together with the mobility of international students from Least Development…

Recent studies in Australia have found that bachelor's degree participation in vocational institutions in Australia tends to skew towards students from high and middle socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. This outcome runs counter to overall vocational participation which is dominated by students from low and middle SES backgrounds. This paper…

'Camouflaging' is a set of strategies used by autistic people to hide or compensate for their autistic characteristics to fit into predominantly non-autistic social environments. Many researchers have used the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) to measure camouflaging. However, there have been questions about the construct validity…

In this paper, we consider educational populism on social media in England and Australia. In both contexts, academics are positioned as a key constituent of an unjust elite with previously voiceless teachers (UK) and students (Australia) framed as the 'just people'. While populism often speaks to nations and nationalism, as 'the people' against an…

The Whole of Community Engagement (WCE) initiative sought to identify barriers and enablers in Aboriginal students' pathways to post-compulsory education, in six remote communities in Arnhem Land and central Australia. It identified known factors like colonial history, low English literacy, job prospects and cultural difference. Responses often…

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a market leader in international education however, research suggests that it predominantly serves elite populations (Bunnell, T., M. Donnelly, H. Lauder, and S. Whewall. 2020. "International Mindedness as a Platform for Class Solidarity." "Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International…