Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Day 2: Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Social inclusion in education: The challenge of creating capable students in higher education

Roundtable meeting
10:45 - 12:30
Main Committee Room at Parliament House

From the : 2009 HASS on the Hill program

The roundtable is an exercise in knowledge transfer, allowing researchers, MPs and Senators to discuss what we know and don't know about the question of social inclusion in education, and the key programs and policies needed to achieve the Bradley Review target of 20 per cent participation in higher education from socio-economic groups disadvantaged through social and educational systems, low incomes, remoteness and other factors.

• Discussion paper
• Roundtable participants
• Also see: Roundtable briefing paper
• Also see: Outcomes from roundtable meeting

Discussion paper

In March this year the Minister for Education Julia Gillard announced the Government's aim to increase the proportion of students from low socio-economic (SES), rural, regional and indigenous backgrounds participating in higher education to 20% by 2020. Achieving this target requires a holistic approach to social inclusion policies, with a specific focus on addressing the causes and consequences of educational exclusion of low SES, rural, regional and indigenous students. This includes tackling the health, financial, cultural and systemic barriers to educational attainment within specific schools, families, and communities; promoting high quality early childhood programs; and improving school retention rates and supporting students through crucial educational transition periods.

The roundtable is an exercise in knowledge transfer, allowing researchers, MPs and Senators to discuss what we know and don't know about the question of social inclusion in education, and the key programs and policies needed to achieve the Bradley Review target of 20 per cent participation in higher education from socio-economic groups disadvantaged through social and educational systems, low incomes, remoteness and other factors. The roundtable will be chaired by Professor Ross Homel AO (CHASS Vice-President and Director of the Griffith Institute for Social and Behavioural Research) and Professor Trevor Gale (Director, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, University of South Australia).

Social sciences researchers have a strong track record on the question of improving the educational achievement of socially marginalised children and young people. We can draw on a large international and Australian evidence base pointing to the importance of early childhood development and primary schooling in improving educational outcomes in the long term. Much is also known about the ways in which our educational systems reproduce advantage and disadvantage, and what can be done to overcome systemic barriers to achievement. In this regard, universities have a distinct role to play in targeting outreach programs at preschools, primary and high schools and at crucial educational transitional periods. What is needed is a co-ordinated approach involving the higher education sector, schools, government departments and non-government organisations, aimed at building capacities in communities, preschools, schools and universities.

Discussion questions

1. How do children and young people negotiate the Australian education system, particularly the key life transitions of starting school, going to high school, and leaving school?
2. What programs and policies are effective in improving the pathways of socially marginalised children and young people through the school system?
3. What policies and programs are effective at the tertiary level in encouraging participation by marginalised groups in higher education?
4. What are the effective means of evaluating what works and what doesn't in encouraging participation by marginalised groups in higher education?

Download the roundtable discussion paper   [PDF file size: 89kB]

Roundtable participants

The following people are participants in the Social inclusion in education roundtable.

• Chair: Professor Ross Homel AO

CHASS Vice-President, Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University

• Co-chair: Professor Trevor Gale

Director, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, University of South Australia

• Associate Professor Marian Baird

University of Sydney

• Professor Jennifer Bowes

Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University

• Dr Merryn Davies

Co-Director of Victoria University's Access and Success Project

• Professor Cathryn McConaghy

Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Canberra

• Mr Sam Sellar

Post Doctoral Research Fellow, University of South Australia

• Professor Faith Trent

Executive Dean, Faculty of Education, Humanities, Law and Theology, Flinders University

• Ms Dianne Peacock

Director, Student Income Support Policy, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Chair: CHASS Vice-President Professor Ross Homel AO

Professor Ross Homel is Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, and Director of the University's Strategic Research Program in the Social and Behavioural Sciences. From 2004 till 2007 he was Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith, and he also served as Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice between 1993 and 96 and 2002 and 2003. He was editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology from 1992 to 1995, and was a part-time Commissioner of the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission from February 1994 to April 1999. In July 2003 he took on a half-time role for 12 months with the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, to help develop a set of national research priorities to advance the wellbeing of children and young people, and to set up a new Australian Research Council research network on behalf of the Alliance. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Homel's career focus is the theoretical analysis of crime and associated problems, and the prevention of these problems through the application of the scientific method to problem analysis and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions. He is particularly interested in prevention projects implemented through community development methods at the local level, and is co-director of a large project in a disadvantaged area of Brisbane (the Pathways to Prevention Project).

Co-Chair: Professor Trevor Gale

Trevor Gale is Professor of Education and the founding director of the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education; an Australian Government funded research centre hosted by the University of South Australia. Previously he was Associate Dean (Research Degrees) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, where he also taught courses in the sociology of teaching, policy sociology, and qualitative research methodology.

He is a foundation member of the National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC), the founding editor of Critical Studies in Education, and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Inclusive Education. From 2000 to 2006, Trevor was an executive member of the Australian Association for Research in Education. As President in 2005, he led the discipline's early response when Australia's Research Quality Framework was first mooted.

Trevor received his PhD in policy sociology in 1996 from the University of Queensland, for which he was awarded the Grassie-Bassett prize, and has been researching education policy and social justice issues in education for almost two decades. He is currently directing a commissioned DEEWR project investigating Australian universities' interventions early in school to increase students' later participation in higher education.

Trevor is author and co-author of 3 books. Just Schooling (OUP 2000) and Engaging Teachers (OUP 2003; translated into Spanish in 2007) are seminal texts in under and post graduate sociology of education courses throughout Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Rough Justice (Peter Lang 2005) is a narrative of youth homelessness and disadvantage in Australia and is used extensively by juvenile justice workers in Victoria's Department of Human Services.

Trevor is currently writing two further books: Schooling in Disadvantaged Communities (Springer 2009, in press) with Carmen Mills and Educational Research by Association (Sense 2009, in press), an edited collection with Bob Lingard. He is author and co-author of over 100 book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers.

Associate Professor Marian Baird

Associate Professor Marian Baird is a researcher in the fields of women, work and family and industrial relations. Marian's specific research focus is maternity leave and she is a lead investigator on The Parental Leave in Australia Study which has provided detailed survey, case study and interview data that is currently informing policy analysis and practice in Australia. Marian teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney.

Marian has also undertaken a number of other major Australian Research Council (ARC) funded projects on work and family. Marian is currently working on a project examining the diffusion of human resource management practices of multi-national companies operating in Australia. With colleagues from around Australia, Marian was also a senior researcher on a project analysing the impact of regulatory changes on vulnerable workers.

Marian has been invited to present her work to a range of groups including the Department of Commerce, Office of Industrial Relations, NSW Government, Unions NSW, the Catholic Commission on Employment Relations, the BOSS business forum, Families Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the International Parental Leave Network. Marian also has strong international links with work and family researchers in the US, the UK and throughout Europe, and convenes the Women?Work Research Group.

In 2008 Marian appointed by the Prime Minister to the Australia: 2020 Summit for the 'Productivity Agenda' panel. In 2004, Marian was the inaugural winner of a University of Sydney, School of Business Award for Excellence in Research. Marian is an editorial member of the Journal of Industrial Relations. She is a past-President of the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand, is a Chartered Member of the Australian Human Resources Institute and is a book review editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources.

Professor Jennifer Bowes

Professor Jennifer Bowes is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University and founding Director of the Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie University. She has a research background in educational and developmental psychology and is leader of two Child Care Choices research projects, a longitudinal investigation of the effects of multiple and changeable child care in the first three years of life on the development of young children and an investigation of the child care choices and attitudes of Indigenous families, both funded by the NSW Department of Community Services. She also leads a DEEWR-funded project on early childhood education in relation to four marginalized groups: children with disabilities, gifted children, Indigenous children and children of recent arrivals.

Dr Merryn Davies

Dr Merryn Davies is co-director of the Access and Success project at Victoria University in Melbourne. The Project comprises a suite of research and development initiatives which involve working with schools to improve the access and successful participation of young people in post compulsory education and training in the west through collaborative research and deliberate informed strategic action.

Prior to taking up her position with Victoria University Dr Davies was a project researcher and manager at the Equity Research Centre in Melbourne where she led a number of research and evaluation projects on equity and student outcomes in education and training environments. She has also worked for as a Research Fellow in the area of post compulsory education and training outcomes in the Centre for Post Compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Melbourne.

Her research interests have focussed on teaching and learning in higher education, educational partnerships, organisational culture, social inclusion and values in education. Merryn has a PhD from University of Melbourne, where she also completed a Masters of Education and a Graduate Diploma in Education. She completed a BA Hons at La Trobe.

Professor Cathryn McConaghy

Professor Cathryn McConaghy is Dean of the Faculty of Education. She is a National Board member of the Australian Council of Deans of Education and the inaugural convenor of the International Forum of National Capital Deans of Education. She is an internationally renowned researcher on the sociology of education and has conducted two Australia Research Council projects on rural social and educational disadvantage and Indigenous education. Her educational research methods include social and political analysis, biography, psychoanalysis, and the socio-spatial analyses of policy and practice. Her books include 'Rethinking Indigenous Education' (Post Pressed) and a co-edited volume, 'Provocations. Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Excitability in Education' (Peter Lang). Prof McConaghy is the Director of the Centre for Research on Education, Poverty and Social Inclusion.

Mr Sam Sellar

Sam Sellar is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. He recently completed his PhD at the University of South Australia and his research was undertaken as part of the ARC funded Redesigning Pedagogies in the North project. His research interests include social justice issues in schooling and higher education, critical policy sociology, and ethical and affective dimensions of pedagogy. He has contributed to research projects undertaken for State and Federal governments in areas such as pedagogy, the middle years of schooling, and university outreach programs. He has recent publications in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education and Pedagogy, Culture & Society, and has presented his research at a range of national and international conferences.

Mr Tim Sealey

Tim Sealey is the Assistant Director Statistics and Data Analysis for Universities Australia; a position he has held since March 2006. For the ten years prior he was responsible for Younger Veterans Policy and Programs in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, which played an important part in the development of his thinking into issues of equity, particularly in the areas of health and well-being. He is currently doing his Doctorate in the area of small group performance at the University of South Australia.

Professor Faith Trent AM

Professor Faith Trent, AM FACE is currently Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Humanities, Law and Theology at Flinders University, Adelaide. She has been a member of the senior executive at Flinders since 1991. Faith was an inaugural member of the national Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching from 1992-1996 and is the immediate past President of the Australian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities (DASSH), a position she held from 2006-2009.

She has undertaken consultancies in higher education in curriculum design and implementation, teaching and learning and multicultural education, and provided advice to the governments of Brunei, Hong Kong and Canada. Faith was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003 for service to education as an academic, as a contributor in the area of educational reform, and to the community, particularly in the areas of Indigenous and Multicultural Affairs. In 2007 Faith was awarded a Fellowship of the Australian College of Educators for distinctive contributions to educational leadership at a national, state and institutional level. Earlier this year, Faith was approved as an AUQA auditor which will take effect from 1st October, 2009.

Faith has held a number of state and national appointments, including being a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Continuing Education Community College Board (2007- present); a member of the Board of Governors, Adelaide Central School of Art (1997-present); Chair of the Academic Board, Adelaide Central School of Art (1997-present); a member of the Helpmann Academy Board of Directors (2008-); a member of the SA Skills and Training Commission (2003-2007); and Secretary of DASSH (2005).

Faith's research interests include quality and quality assurance in universities; knowledge of social justice and equity matters including women, Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander students, NESB students, and students with disabilities; a range of education issues including distance education and open learning, education of boys, and cross cultural education; and WW2 Academic Refugees.

Ms Dianne Peacock

Dianne is the Director of Student Income Support Policy within the Social Inclusion and Participation Group in the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

The primary role of the Social Inclusion and Participation Group is to take forward the social inclusion, participation and income support policy agenda within the context of the portfolio's responsibilities. The Group develops policies that aim to ensure programs and services across the portfolio provide socially inclusive avenues for people in socially excluded groups to participate. Student income support policy aims to ensure that financial barriers do not impede the participation in education and training of people from low to middle income backgrounds.

Dianne began working in the Commonwealth public service in 1991 in the then Department of Employment, Education and Training in Canberra. She has worked in areas related to school education, higher education, cross-sectoral policy and analysis as well as student income support policy. Dianne's career previously included curriculum and teacher development policy in the Tasmanian education department and teaching and leadership within Tasmanian secondary schools.

Dianne's qualifications include a Master of Educational Studies and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tasmania.