Research Students

Thesis

Research Topic: Commercial for-profit VET providers within the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia.

A significant number of commercial for-profit VET providers (CVPS) have ceased operations either voluntary or involuntary through cancellation by Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) or insolvency in recent times. The impact of these closures has resulted in dramatic consequences including thousands of students unable to finish their training and high loses of private and public funds. To understand the underlying causes of these events, this research will examine what makes a CVPS organisationally sustainable in the VET market within Australia from a business, corporate governance and pedagogy aspect. The proposed outcomes of this research is to contribute new knowledge and improve the professional practices of CVPS and advance on how they operate, how they train and how they become organisationally sustainable within the VET sector in Australia.

Supervisors

Principal Supervisor: Associate Professor Gosia Klatt

Co Supervisor: Professor Fazal Rizvi

Thesis

Slow violence and schools: Charting a course towards a practical ethics of education

Bio

Leanne Higham is interested in everyday practices of education and how these enhance the capacities of those within educational contexts—as well as limit and constrain them. Leanne's research interests are theoretically and empirically informed by the critical posthumanities and feminist new materialisms. Her work takes a radically empiricist approach towards practical ethics in education.

Alongside her PhD, Slow violence and schools, Leanne is working on Re/imagining School Climate with Dr Melissa Wolfe (Monash) and Dr Eve Mayes (Deakin), and Holy Homophobia led by A/Prof Tonya Callaghan (Calgary) with Prof Jo Lampert (La Trobe). She is a consultant to St Mary’s College, Windsor in their progression from single-sex to co-educational schooling.

Leanne's MEd thesis, Becoming boy: A/effecting identity in a Catholic boys' school was awarded the Faculty of Education 2016 Freda Cohen Prize for most meritorious thesis submitted for the Master of Education.

Leanne is currently a Lecturer at La Trobe University.

Supervisors

Dr Dianne Mulcahy and Professor Jane Kenway

Thesis

Title: Cultural Encounters of the Third Age: Assembling wellbeing at the museum

Topic: Health and wellbeing of older people in the context of the museum

Overall research question: How do positive cultural encounters between older people and museums contribute to their health and wellbeing?

Populations around the world are ageing. In developed nations, we are now living an average of 30 years longer than we did a century ago. These demographic changes have significant social and policy implications and keeping older citizens physically and mentally healthy, and disability-free have become public policy priorities. A body of social epidemiological research provides strong evidence linking cultural attendance to health and wellbeing outcomes. Informed by a posthuman, new materialist methodological approach, this qualitative study explores how this might occur by examining the affects, relations, events, forces and spaces that constitute the lived experience of cultural engagement for older people. Using a multiple case study design, data has been collected in four museums in four countries (Australia, New Zealand, France & UK).

Supervisors

Dr Dianne Mulcahy, Dr Richard Gillespie, Professor Kate Darian-Smith

Thesis

Global citizenship in higher education: Everyday life in university residential colleges

Supervisors

Professor Julie McLeod, Dr Amy McKernan, Dr Nicky Dulfer

Additional information

Monika is also currently the Graduate Research Representative on the Faculty of Education Graduate Student Advisory Committee.

Thesis

Youth Voice on Juvenile Justice Education in the Northern Territory

Supervisors

A/Professor John Quay, A/Professor Nikki Moodie, A/Professor Kylie Smith

Additional information

Emlyn is a Philosophy, Humanities and English teacher, with teaching experience in secondary schools, youth detention settings and adult prisons. He has also worked in wellbeing promotion, suicide prevention and critical incident response. Emlyn is currently a sessional academic, with teaching responsibilities in the sociology of education, humanities, student wellbeing, and critical thinking. His research interests are in critical pedagogy, social inclusion and equity, curriculum theory and human rights.

Thesis

The experience of becoming a doctor for medical students from non-science backgrounds: a phenomenological study

Supervisors

Dr Diane Mulcahy and A/Professor Kylie Smith

Additional information

Neville Chiavaroli has been a DEd research student since 2019, having worked in medical education and curriculum design for many years. His research project involves a phenomenological investigation of the experience of becoming a doctor for students who enter medicine from a non-science background.

Thesis

Stories of Schooling, Language and Race

An investigation into understandings of language and culture for second-generation African Australian children from refugee backgrounds, their caregivers and educators.

Supervisors

A/Professor Jessica Gerrard, Dr Julie Choi, Dr Paul Molyneux

Thesis

(Re)conceptualising curriculum in outdoor education: An assemblage analysis

Supervisors

A/Professor John Quay and Dr Maurizio Toscano

Additional information

Kathleen's research is focussed on the possibilities for outdoor education curriculum, drawing on posthuman and new materialist theorising. Before returning to study, she worked as a lecturer in outdoor environmental studies, and a secondary school teacher of outdoor education and mathematics.

Thesis

Assembling fitspirational bodies: Social media and gender identity work

Supervisors

Dr Dianne Mulcahy and Dr Brady Robards

Additional information

Josie Reade is a PhD candidate from the Faculty of Education at The University of Melbourne. Her research and teaching interests include the body, gender, youth, and social media. Josie’s current research takes up a feminist new materialist approach to explore women’s lived experiences and embodied practices of posting and engaging with fitspo (fitness inspiration) content on Instagram. Here, she draws upon data produced through participant-observation and interviews with Instagram users to examine what relations between bodies, images and fitspo can do for how women come to know and understand their bodies and gender

Thesis

Research topic: Examining equity in Australian school funding policy

‘Assembling equity in school funding policy’

Supervisors

Dr Dianne Mulcahy and A/Professor Jessica Gerrard

Additional information

Elisa is PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education. Her research focus is the sociology of education policy, with a particular interest in articulations of equity in school funding policy. Elisa’s research is also concerned with the intergovernmental relations of Australia’s federal system, as well as its school-sector based system, and the conditions of possibility that these create for the enactment of policy.

Thesis

Globally mobile lives and suburban government schooling

Supervisors

Professor Julie McLeod and Emeritus Professor Fazal Rizvi

Additional information

Jo's thesis uses cross generational narrative and interpretive methods to investigate how family experiences of global mobility interact with journeys through school in globalising times.  She interviewed a group of senior secondary students from across three suburban government schools in Melbourne and their parents, all of whom have experience of life and schooling in Australia and other countries. The thesis examines and reflects on senses of temporality, place and identities, in interaction with contemporary sociological and educational ideas about globalising social transformations.

Thesis

Climate change and affect in Australian schools

Supervisors

Professor Marcia KcKenzie and Jackie Peel

Additional information

Claudine has an interdisciplinary background, having taught in primary schools and across various not for profit environmental organisations. She has interest in sustainability, climate change, affect and psychology in educational contexts. She is currently lecturing for Melbourne Polytechnic and La Trobe University.

Thesis

A Childhood of My Own: Decolonizing Indigenous Education Policies in Pursuit of a Self-Determined Utopia

1. What does an Indigenous educational utopia look like in the 21st century?

2. What current models (programs and policies) exist that promote genuine Indigenous self-determination? How might these exemplary models influence policy and political

changes?

3. How can mainstream policies better promote the agency of Indigenous students who

attend fully integrated school systems?

4. What does modern-day self-determination mean to Indigenous people?

5. How are paternalistic approaches promoted in modern Indigenous education policies, via

education action plans, within the United States and Australia?

6. How can Indigenous autonomy be promoted in modern education policy?

Supervisors

Professor Sarah Maddison and Dr Ligia (Licho) Lopez

Additional information

Leeza joins the University of Melbourne as a scholar of early childhood education, special education, sociology and education, and educational policy. Leeza’s research is focused on the decolonization and reimagination of current educational practices within colonized lands with a particular focus on Indigenous education policy. Leeza has a professional background as a primary school teacher having taught in many diverse settings around the globe such as Japan, Kuwait, Hawaii, New York City and rural Alaska.

Thesis

Afrofuturism and Anti-Racism:  A Way Forward For Self-Determined Black Futures?

Supervisors

Professor Nicola Yelland and Dr Ligia (Licho) López López

Additional information

Sista Zai Zanda is a poet whose research-based artistic practice formed out of prior studies in International Development and Law (with a focus on gender and sexuality in the southern African context). As the founder and curator of the Pan Afrikan Poets Cafe, her curatorial practice created a platform that showcased over one hundred performances by African-descended artists in conversation with First Nations. Her work within the creative industries contributed to the development of Melbourne's rich Afro-diasporic literary culture and inspiration for her PhD research topic.

Thesis

The academic profession from the perspectives of aspiring academics

Supervisors

Professor Leo Goedegebuure and Dr Peter Woelert

Additional information

Ai Tam's PhD draws on the sociology of profession, academic cultures, and studies in higher education to examine the academic profession from the perspectives of doctoral candidates from four disciplines in Australia. Her thesis contributes to theoretical development in higher education research and provides insights into academic training in Australia. Her current research interests include the interprofessional dynamics in the university context, the making of university engagement, cross-countries analysis of research training systems, and academic training and development for graduate researchers.

Ai Tam is a contributor and former editorial member of the Early Career Higher Education Researcher (ECHER) Blog. She is currently leading and developing a professional development project to facilitate graduate researchers' engagement activities through blogs and podcasts. The project is supported by the Researcher Development Unit at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to the PhD, Ai Tam was awarded an Erasmus Mundus+ Scholarship by the European Commission to pursue a master's degree in Educational policies for global development (GLOBED). Her master's thesis investigated the contributions of community learning centres in Myanmar using social capital theory, which was later published in an article. In her previous professional role, Ai Tam worked as a coordinator for an educational NGO with a mission to promote higher education through sports.

Thesis

Working title: Mobilising strategies for decolonial futures: The effects of change discourse in higher education

The overarching aim of this project is to offer a deeper understanding of the potential role of Australian higher education in (re)producing and transforming the colonial present.

Supervisors

Professor Julie McLeod and Dr Ligia (Licho) López López

Additional information

Alice joined the Faculty of Education as a PhD student in 2022. Alice has previously held positions at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (ANU), the National Centre for Indigenous Studies (ANU), and the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute, where she worked as a Research Officer and tutor in Australian Indigenous public policy.

Alice’s Honours research problematised and stimulated new ways of thinking about the widespread and largely uncritical use of liberal political reason in Australian Indigenous affairs discourse. Alice maintains her interest in liberal systems of thought and knowledge production, and is currently exploring the complexities, tensions, alignments, limitations, and paradoxes of doing decolonial work in Australian universities.