Dr Bonita Marie Cabiles

Lecturer

Bonita Cabiles is a lecturer at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Her research has focused on schooling, specifically in the primary setting, looking at curriculum and pedagogy by engaging with historical and sociological perspectives. She has engaged with Bourdieusian sociology and qualitative research approaches in her more recent work. She is interested in exploring educational practices, as well as the practice of educational research, to examine issues of disadvantage and social justice. Her work endeavours to attend to the intersections of theory, methodology, and practice to understand how issues of inclusion, participation, and diversity manifest and are addressed in schooling.

Bonita’s doctoral thesis examined the dynamics around student participation in the context of cultural and linguistic diversity. Her thesis entitled, ‘Participation and cultural and linguistic diversity: An in-depth qualitative inquiry of an Australian primary classroom’ was awarded the Penny McKay Award for most outstanding thesis.

Bonita teaches in the Master of Teaching and Master of Education programs at the MGSE. She coordinates the subject, Diverse and Inclusive Classrooms (DIC) for the primary, and early childhood and primary student cohorts. She is also coordinating the Engaging and Assessing Learners 1 (E&AL1) subject for the primary cohort.

Prior to joining academia, Bonita worked as a teacher and development worker. She has taught in her home country, the Philippines, and in Indonesia. Working in/with non-governmental organisations, she has contributed to educational assistance and curriculum reform projects for under-resourced and minoritised communities in the Philippines.