Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling: activist teaching and pedagogically driven reform

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it is at the local school-level that reform agendas can and should be directed by the pedagogical and innovative work of educators. We focus on ‘relational pedagogy’ because it offers opportunities to enact school-wide reform and enhance the professional capacities of educators as pedagogical innovators. Contemporary education reform agendas are best situated and registered within school sites and relational pedagogy stands as a deeply contextualised provocation for enacting school renewal.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational pedagogy
• teacher activism
• educational reform
• educational policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey is an Associate Professor in Communications in the School of Humanities and Communication at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Andrew is also Chair of the University of Southern Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee and a Past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia.

Stewart Riddle

Stewart Riddle is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. His research examines the democratisation of schooling systems, increasing access and equity in education and how schooling can respond to critical social issues in complex contemporary times.

Janean Robinson

Janean Robinson is a Research Associate, School of Education, Murdoch University. She is an experienced secondary school teacher whose research shares ethnographic lived experiences that advocate for those in education for whom mandated reform policy and practices are becoming increasingly silenced. Janean was assistant to the Editors (Steinberg & Down) of The Sage International Handbook of Critical Pedagogies (2020).

Barry Down

Barry Down is Professor of Education at Murdoch University, Perth Western Australia. His research focuses on young people’s lives in the context of shifts in the global economy, class, poverty and dis/re/engagement in education.

Robert Hattam

Robert Hattam is the Professor for Educational Justice in the School of Education and the Convenor of the Pedagogies for Justice Research Group. His research has focused on teachers’ work, critical and reconciliation pedagogies, refugees, and socially just school reform.

Alison Wrench

Alison Wrench is Senior Lecturer in Education Futures at the University of South Australia. Her research interests include socio-critical pedagogies for HPE, as well as inclusion and justice outcomes for schooling more broadly.