The spatiality of economic maldistribution in public-school funding in Australia: still a poisonous debate

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdictions; and the economic maldistribution within state public systems, including the ability of their school communities to contribute funds. Spatial injustice is uncovered in economic maldistribution within and across these policy layers, adding nuance to existing school funding debates. The Australian case is relevant to international explorations of school funding as an example of ‘unjust practice’ in the hierarchies between schools across sectors, between jurisdictions, and within systems of public education.

KEYWORDS:

• School funding
• public schools
• Australia
• economic maldistribution‌
• spatial justice
• Edward Soja

Disclosure statement

Co-authors Jane Wilkinson and Brad Gobby were removed from the Journal of Educational Adminstration and History editorial review process.

Notes

1 For comprehensive histories of Australian education funding, see Campbell and Proctor (2014), Greenwell and Bonnor (2022), and Rudkin (2005).

2 ICSEA indicates the socio-educational backgrounds of students and is not a school rating. It is benchmarked at an average of 1000 (ACARA 2021a).

3 These data were taken directly from the government source documents and rounding or truncation errors exist which cannot be determined from the original data presented.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council: [Grant Number Australian Research Council [DP190100190].].

Notes on contributors

Katrina MacDonald

Katrina MacDonald is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia. Her research and teaching interests are in educational leadership, social justice, spatiality, and the sociology of education through a practice lens (feminist, Bourdieu, practice architectures).

Amanda Keddie

Amanda Keddie is a Professor of Education at Deakin University. Her published work examines the schooling processes, practices and conditions that can impact on the pursuit of social justice in schools. Amanda's qualitative research has been based within the Australian, English and American schooling contexts and is strongly informed by feminist theory with a particular focus on gender.

Scott Eacott

Scott Eacott is Professor in the School of Education at UNSW and Deputy Director of the Gonski Institute of Education, Sydney and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Saskatchewan. He has developed a distinctive relational approach and further details can be found at www.scott.eacott.com

Jane Wilkinson

Jane Wilkinson is a Professor of Educational Leadership at Monash University, Australia. Jane's research interests are in educational leadership for social justice and practice theory (feminist, Bourdieuian and practical philosophy). Jane has conducted extensive research with refugee students in schools and universities in regional and urban Australia. Jane's books include: Challenges for public education: Reconceptualising educational leadership, policy and social justice as resources for hope (with Richard Niesche and Scott Eacott, Routledge, 2019) and Educational leadership as a culturally-constructed practice: New directions and possibilities (with Laurette Bristol, Routledge, 2018). Jane is co-editor (with Amanda Heffernan) of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

Jill Blackmore

Jill Blackmore is Alfred Deakin Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, and former Director of the Centre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. Her research interests include, from a feminist perspective: globalisation, education policy and governance; international and intercultural education; educational restructuring, leadership and organisational change; spatial redesign and innovative pedagogies; teachers' and academics' work, all with a focus on equity. Recent higher education research has focused on disengagement with and lack of diversity in leadership, international education and graduate employability. Her research has focused in particular on the re/constitution of the social relations of gender in and through education in the early 21st century.

Richard Niesche

Richard Niesche is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of educational leadership, the principalship and social justice in education. He has published his research in a number of peer reviewed journal and books. His latest book (co-edited with Dr Amanda Heffernan) is Theorising Identity and Subjectivity in Educational Leadership Research published with Routledge.

Brad Gobby

Brad Gobby is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at Curtin University, Western Australia. He has published widely on the topics of education policy, politics and school autonomy in international journals and edited books, is an editorial board member of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.