Maria Raciti

In the twenty-first century, doctoral education has been captured within a performance culture that emphasizes timely thesis progression and completions over the importance of researcher identity (re)formation and intellectual growth (Manathunga, 2019). Under the conditions of ‘cybernetic capitalism’ (Peters, 2015), the doctorate has been reconceptualized as a neoliberal exercise in efficient project management where supervisors and candidates work through a linear process towards the production of theses (Zembylas, 2023). Instead, the experience of studying for a doctorate and supervising candidates is often a complex pedagogical activity, where research does not necessarily progress unproblematically and life events often intervene to impede steady progress. The huge gap in the ways doctoral education is represented and understood in policy documents and guidelines and the realities many candidates and supervisors experience often provokes unnecessary anxiety and stress for all (Mura & Wijesinghe, 2022). Rather than minimalizing the complexity of doctoral supervision, we argue it is imperative that policy makers, university leadership, supervisors and candidates be encouraged to grapple honestly with the inherent supervision complexities....

This chapter provides a “state-of-play” of Indigenous education in Australia. Over the past half century or so, the process of, and advocacy for, decolonization of Indigenous education has gathered pace, culminating with recent developments in Indigenizing the curriculum at both tertiary and school-level education systems. The challenges and opportunities faced in the delivery of national curriculum demands and managing the complexities of the private/public interface of Australian education for Indigenous education are explored. This chapter will draw on a range of literature and research, including the findings from Indigenous-led Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (previously The National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education) funded research projects. The coauthors have drawn on the findings from two projects led by Professor Bronwyn Fredericks: one on the success factors for Indigenous student university completion (Fredericks B, Barney K, Bunda T, Hausia K, Martin A, Elston J, Bernardino B, Griffiths D, Building the evidence to improve completion rates for Indigenous students, 2022) and a project on links between enabling/ pathway programs and Indigenous student completion (Fredericks et al. 2025). It will reflect on changes in Indigenous student success rates in the Australian tertiary sector and ask what has changed since the Australian Government’s Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People: Final Report (Behrendt L, Larkin S, Griew R, Kelly P, Review of higher education access and outcomes for aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: final report, 2012). We will conclude by suggesting what universities can do to lead stronger university pathway programs and post-enrollment mechanisms to support Indigenous student success and degree completion. Thousands of Indigenous peoples have pursued university studies through a range of pathways since Indigenous Australians first enrolled in undergraduate programs in Australian universities in the 1960s. University completion rates for Indigenous Australian students remain significantly lower than for non-Indigenous students.

This Australian case study outlines a project that explored how and why place influences the engagement of Indigenous university students. Uplifting Indigenous student engagement is a long-standing sector priority, with Australian universities seeking to create culturally secure ‘university places’ where Indigenous students can be, become and belong. Two regional universities participated in this project, each providing baseline data about their engagement with Indigenous students. Qualitative data was collected from Indigenous students, academic teaching staff and professional staff, and quantitative survey data was garnered from Indigenous students and academic teaching staff at both universities. Insights from the data resulted in the I-Place Ecology Tool. The tool is a holistic, ‘web-of-life’ perspective of the interconnectivity and co-evolution processes that trace Australian Indigenous student engagement. The tool can help to mature and uplift universities’ Indigenous agendas by providing a bird’s-eye view of many elements that shape Indigenous student engagement.

Education is powerful—transforming people, communities and societies. A university education enables intergenerational social mobility for First Nations peoples and their communities by disrupting the social structures that are the result of colonisation in countries like Australia. The First Nations people of Australia are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who make up approximately 3.3% of the total Australian population which equates to an estimated 798,400 people (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018). Most First Nations Australians identify as Aboriginal (91%) and prior to colonisation there were approximately 750 distinct Aboriginal societies with different languages and dialects, histories and territories (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018; Walsh, 1991). Colonisation has and continues to oppress First Nations Australians with present day inequalities across all facets of life, including education.

Educational inequality is a wicked problem in Australia and the world over, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Quality Education (SDG4). SDG4 seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (United Nations, 2015). Efforts to address educational inequality in Australian tertiary education is known as Widening Participation (WP). Australia’s WP agenda is decades old and it is championed by a dedicated community of WP practitioners and scholars. I’m a proud member of the WP community and had the honour of being the 2018 Research Fellow with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) and subsequent NCSEHE Adjunct Fellow.
There is no doubt that the pandemic has transformed higher education globally. Despite experiencing a paradigm shift of proportions unseen for decades, Australia’s WP community and its agenda remains resolute and committed to righting the wrongs of educational inequality. WP, however, is currently in the eye of the perfect storm. The perceived risk of going to university for students from priority groups and communities (e.g., students from low SES backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) has heightened during these VUCA times where Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity make it challenging to predict career outcomes. Shifting course delivery models and looming future work scenarios also fuel these perceived risks. It would seem that now is the time for the WP community to come together, reset the compass, and ask the tricky question: What’s the next best step?

Effective career construction for people from equity groups can help remedy intergenerational disadvantage by enabling the authoring of a new future. Career development learning (CDL) for equity students is crucial to enhance their confidence, broaden their horizons, foster self-determination and reduce their vulnerability to precarity and other future work scenarios. To achieve these outcomes, a healthy questioning and revitalisation of approaches to CDL research are needed. In this chapter, three Australian research projects focussed on increasing equity students’ participation in tertiary or higher education were appraised. The approaches, research methodology, and methods in these case projects were intertwined with their approaches to theory and theoretical model development. Ten macro-observations were made from the case projects approaches to theory, theoretical model development, methodology and methods. Lessons for CDL researchers are drawn from these ten macro-observations with numerous underutilised, out-of-the-box opportunities identified. Adopting out-of-the-box approaches to research will ultimately optimise CDL efficacy as well as help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as access to inclusive and quality education (SDG4) is a means to sustained and productive employment and decent work for all (SDG8).

Many universities globally are presently focused on neoliberal competition, commodification, consumerism and corporatisation (Manathunga and Bottrell, 2019). Such processes have devalued knowledge to a transactional exchange and substituted instruction for collegiality, weakening the ‘public good’ aspect of universities. This commercialisation impoverishes a university's original commitment to knowledge creation (Rolfe, 2013). It also diminishes the work in universities towards social justice, equity, and social and cultural inclusion, witnessed in the gradual opening of higher education to women, working-class, migrant, refugee and Indigenous 1 peoples (Stengers, Despret and Collective, 2014).

Social distancing is now synonymous with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and has triggered significant disruptions to higher education operations and governance. Whilst much of the focus has centred on the role of shifting pedagogies to a digital sphere, the role of public transport as a lever for widening participation within COVID-19 has received almost no academic attention. To address this knowledge gap, this research note unpacks the possible roles of public transport as supporting mechanisms in a post-pandemic higher education landscape.

Literature reflects and influences society (Albrecht, 1954). Literature can articulate uncomfortable truths of systemic injustice, reveal to the audience systems that privilege some and oppress others, and be a catalyst for empathy. The definition of ‘literature’ is contested and typically conjures up ideas of lengthy tomes (Meyer, 1997). The media of modern day ‘literature’ has moved beyond text to include oral literature (e.g., films), short stories, graphic novels (e.g., comic books) and a wide variety of electronic literature (see Gaskin, 2013; Meyer, 1997; Heckman and O’Sullivan 2017).

This literary essay analyses focuses on race relations explored in Theordore Melfi’s 2016 film Hidden Figures and Melissa Lucashenko’s 2016 short story Dreamers. The purpose of this literary analysis is to extract and foreground the powerful messages conveyed in each story about identities, places, ideologies and cultural assumptions. Narratives in films and short stories can communicate systemic injustice in compelling ways and may serve as an important educational tool. It is hoped that social marketers find inspiration in literary exposés such as this to enhance their social justice storytelling. Indeed, literary analysis may be considered as a new tool for the social marketers toolkit.