School autonomy and social justice?

How does school autonomy or decentralisation promote or undermine social justice? Watch this video to learn about some of the findings from our study

Public education and the 2022 federal election

In the lead up to the 2022 federal election, our team members Jill Blackmore, Amanda Keddie and Katrina MacDonald offered some thoughts on the misrecognition of 'problems' in Australian public education published on the Australian Association for Research in Education blog: EduResearch Matters:

Education has been politicised over the last three decades, yet it has not been a key feature of the current election campaign. To be sure, we have heard public statements from Federal Education Minister (acting) Stuart Robert about ‘dud’ teachers in our public education system as well as his approval of increasing student demand for private sector schooling. Amid both parties’ support for parental choice in education and concerns about Australia’s under-performance on standardised international and national tests such as PISA and NAPLAN, the focus in this election campaign has largely been on how teacher quality might be improved through attracting and retaining better teachers. While quality teaching is important, this focus misrecognises the ‘problems’ of Australian education in a number of ways....

https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=13067

The social justice implications of school autonomy reform in Sweden (Part 3)

In this, the final installment of three videos, Professor Lisbeth Lundahl and Professor Jane Wilkinson discuss the social justice implications of school autonomy reform in Sweden. Over the coming days we will release a series of videos in which, in conversation with Professor Jane Wilkinson (Monash University), Professor Lisbeth Lundahl (Umeå University, Sweden) discusses the effects of school autonomy reform in Sweden. Professor Lundahl, a key member of our International Expert Reference Group, has written extensively on the Swedish school choice revolution and its policy and equity implications and what that means for the Nordic model of education which has been historically aimed at social justice, equality and cohesion.

To view the complete interview, see below:

For further information on Professor Lundahl's work:

Holm, A. S., & Lundahl, L. (2019). A stimulating competition at the Swedish upper secondary school market?. Fejes, A. and Dahlstedt, M. (Eds) Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education: Lessons from Sweden. Routledge.

Lundahl, L. (2016). Equality, inclusion and marketization of Nordic education: Introductory notes. Research in Comparative and International Education, 11(1), 3-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745499916631059

Lundahl, L., Arreman, I. E., Holm, A.-S., & Lundström, U. (2013). Educational marketization the Swedish way. Education Inquiry, 4(3), 22620.