Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice in Education

This book presents an edited collection of critical discourse situated in the fields of diversity and inclusion broadly, and more specifically, within the discipline of education. Each chapter articulates the importance of educational diversity in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4. The edited collection presents a grounding narrative of equitable learning opportunities and experiences via interpretivist theoretical frameworks and student-centered methodologies. The combination of these approaches, combined within the strong and scholarly-informed social justice lens, reminds us, that the onus of education is to acknowledge, recognise, respect, and engage with the diverse student cohorts, learning needs, and multiple knowledges and cultures that exist in educational contexts. This edited collection creates a holistic discourse around the experiences, interrogations, and innovations occurring within education communities to foreground deeper and more holistic understanding of the intersectionality of diversity and inclusion existing within the contemporary educational settings.

 

Dr Sara Weuffen is a teacher-researcher specialist at Federation University, and the University of New South Wales, Australia. She has a Ph.D. in cross/inter-cultural education research between non-Indigenous people, Aboriginal peoples, and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia. She specializes in learning and content design for student-centred education diverse cohorts across a broad range of platforms: online, blended, and face-to-face. As a non-Indigenous woman born on Gundijtmara Country (Warrnambool) and living on Wadawurrung Country (Ballarat), Sara draws upon her formative grey methodological approach, where both Poststructural theory and Indigenous methodologies are bought together, and collaborations with Australia's First Nations Peoples, to critique dominant structures and ideologies, interrogate binary discourses, and push educational boundaries for emancipatory and success-orientated shared-learning outcomes and positive social progress.

Professor Jenene Burke is the Director of Academic Operations in the Institute of Education, Arts and Community at Federation University Australia. As a teacher educator, Jenene's learning and teaching interests centre on educational responses to student diversity, with respect to inclusive education and disability studies in education. Jenene's expertise as a higher education teacher was recognised with an Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2013 in the Australian Awards for University Teaching. Jenene is the President of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE) and co-chair of the Inclusion, Social Justice in Teacher Education in Global Contexts research focus area for WFATE.

Dr Margaret Plunkett is Adjunct Associate Professor at Federation University, Australia. She has been a teacher educator and researcher for more than three decades, specialising in the fields of rural and regional education, teacher professional learning and gifted education. She has extensive research expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and across all educational sectors, particularly in relation to diverse student populations in rural and regional areas, with much of the work focusing on the intersection between aspirations, rurality and achievement. Margaret has conducted research for the Victorian Department of Education, resulting in state-wide policy change. She has also been involved in a number of longitudinal mixed methods research projects with schools in the Gippsland region, focusing on how educational environments can help develop knowledge, skills and competencies that assist in building meaningful and sustainable relationships and emotional competence within communities. She is an experienced supervisor of higher degree research candidates, many of them international students with broad-ranging topics and methodologies, with particular expertise in mixed methods and case study research. A major part of Margaret's passion has been the development and teaching of courses in gifted education for which she has won a number of teaching awards including the Pearson/ATEA Teacher Educator of the Year (2012) and an Office of Learning and Teaching Citation (2014). Her research in the field has resulted in many publications and conference presentations both nationally and internationally. Margaret is Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, elected Australian delegate on the World Council for Gifted Children and a member of a range of national and international education associations.

Dr. Anitra Goriss-Hunter is the Director, Learning and Teaching and a Senior Lecturer at Federation University Australia. Her research and teaching focuses on gender and education, inclusion, and pre-service teacher (PSTs) education. Anitra was awarded the prestigious Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association award for most outstanding PhD thesis. Anitra's research investigates women's careers in Higher Education; ways to improve female participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education; and, the development of inclusive teaching approaches that offer authentic learning experiences for PSTs. Anitra's contribution in the last field was recognized when she was awarded the Federation University Vice-Chancellor's Award - Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning 2020.

Dr Sue Emmett is Senior Lecturer at Federation University, Australia. She has been extensively involved in early childhood education and the translation of research into the practical environment for over thirty years. Her professional experience includes early childhood teaching in a range of settings, work as an early childhood educational consultant and teaching and researching within TAFE and Higher Education sectors. Sue is currently working as Senior Lecturer in Education at Federation University, Australia, where she coordinates and teaches in Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood Programs and manages partnerships with external organisations both domestics international. Prior to this, Sue worked as a Research Fellow within the School of Social and Policy Research at Charles Darwin University, where early childhood literacy was central to her research, particularly in relation to indigenous education. Her research interests also include the well-being of children and educators including trauma informed practice in early childhood contexts, and has published academic literature in these areas. She completed her PhD in 2011, entitled 'Preparing Professional Caregivers as Young Children's Attachment Partners: A longitudinal study of a new Australian pre-service program', which centred upon relationship focused theory and practice in early childhood contexts as well as learning and teaching at tertiary level.