Faculty of Education Research Hubs

Further to the recent call for Hubs to bring academics from different Academic Groups and Research Centres together around collaborative programs of inquiry, we are pleased to announce Hubs focused on the following themes:

Digital Wellbeing Communities

Which will investigate how we can safely and effectively capitalise on young people’s engagement with technology to optimise their social connections and belonging, and deliver real outcomes that enhance social connection among Australian young people. (contact: Prof Nikki Rickard)

Educational Philosophy

Which will generate knowledge of how researchers from different areas of education develop philosophical and theoretical positions to frame their investigations, and how these philosophical understandings inform education research and the academic and public debates that researchers engage with to impact practice. (contact: A/Prof John Quay, Dr Maurizio Toscano, and Dr Sonja Arndt)

First Nations in Education 

Which will investigate how education researchers from a range of contexts and disciplines can contribute to the growth of knowledge about First Nations in Education through evidence-driven scholarly research and practices, to privilege sovereign, reparative, and relational research to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ future livelihoods. (contact: A/Prof Melitta Hogarth)

Global Childhoods 

Which will focus on the lives and experiences of children from birth to 18 across the world to disrupt silo discourses that break up childhoods into conventional categories by age, and investigate the interconnections and disconnections of these multiple childhood experiences within those varied contexts. (contact: Prof Nicola Yelland)

International Classrooms 

Which will investigate how teachers across disciplines understand their practice, in and across international sites and settings, and contribute cross-cultural understanding of teaching practices to facilitate reflective practice and professional learning in teaching. (contact: Dr Carmel Mesiti, Dr Esther Chan, and Prof Jan van Driel)

Each Hub has a three-year program of activity around these big ideas, including opportunities to grow membership from both within and beyond the Faculty. Watch this space for information about their events and activities in coming months.

In addition to these initiatives seeding new areas of interdisciplinary inquiry across the Faculty, it has also been great to see teams emerge to consolidate and strengthen existing areas of deep expertise within our Academic Groups and Centres, through new lab-based communities: