Utbildningssociologiska kollegiet
Kollegiet är ett forum för den vetenskapliga diskussionen av sociala, kulturella och politiska dimensioner av utbildning och undervisning. I form av arbetsseminarier och föredragningar av medlemmar och inbjudna gäster presenteras och diskuteras forskningsverksamhet av relevans för kollegiet, däribland avhandlingsarbeten och färdiga avhandlingar, liksom annan aktuell forskning inom området, nationell som internationell. Här behandlas också den vetenskapliga utvecklingen inom området.
Seminarier vid Utbildningssociologiska kollegiet
2025-04-10: Dr. Katrina Macdonald
Tid: kl. 09:00–11:00
Plats: Online. Delta via Zoom.
The challenges of school autonomy reform for equitable education systems
There is strong political consensus in Australia, England, Sweden and the United States that greater school autonomy is good for schools - that it frees up schools to respond to local concerns, to be innovative and to drive up academic standards. However, research continues to indicate that there are no definitive links between school autonomy and school improvement (as measured by student outcomes). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that greater school autonomy within marketised education systems may undermine school improvement.
Our four-year Australian Research Council study, School Autonomy Reform and Social Justice in Australian Public Education, examined how school autonomy is understood by key education stakeholders in Australia, how it is enacted in Australian public schools, and the implications for social justice. Our conceptualisation of social justice drew on different theories but focused on issues of economic injustice (e.g., how school autonomy reform has tended to exacerbate economic inequalities between schools in low SES areas and rural/remote areas and schools in more privileged and centrally located areas in relation to their capacity to access material resources); and political injustice (e.g., how school autonomy reform is differently experienced in schools in relation to who has a voice in decision making and who is silenced).
Our study has drawn attention to the complex and varied ways in which school autonomy is understood and enacted across and within state systems and schools. In this presentation, our findings are discussed including the different ways that autonomy is viewed by different stakeholders, that school autonomy does not necessarily lead to greater teacher autonomy, how autonomy reform within a context of marketisation has placed undue pressure on school principals without the necessary system supports, and how principals experience autonomy differently depending on their experience and the context of their schools.
About Dr. Katrina Macdonald
Dr Katrina MacDonald is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University. Her research and teaching interests are in social justice, public education, educational leadership, the teacher workforce, school reform, intersectionality, spatiality, and the sociology of education through a practice lens (feminist, Bourdieu, practice architectures). K
atrina is an assistant editor for International Journal of Leadership in Education. She is a former anthropologist, archaeologist and primary and secondary teacher in Victoria, Australia. Her recent book is: Socially Just Educational Leadership in Unjust Times: A Bourdieusian Study of Social Justice Educational Leadership Practices. For more information on Katrina’s work see deakin.edu.au.
Få uppdateringar
Information om seminarier och andra relevanta nyheter som rör kollegiet distribueras med hjälp av en e-post-lista. För att få dessa uppdateringar, skicka ett mejl till Mohammad Ammar Syed.