Deakin University education researchers have secured more than $1.5 million in Australian Research Council (ARC) grant funding to support research projects that will help shape the future of our communities. From tackling gender-based violence to understanding how young people see our cities and improving education planning, these projects will deliver insights that matter.
The funded projects include one Deakin-led project and two projects based at other universities (RMIT and UNSW) that include Deakin researchers. This success highlights the University’s leadership in educational research and its impact on policy and practice. It also demonstrates a commitment to addressing complex challenges through collaboration and community engagement.
The successful projects are:
Addressing gender-based violence in volatile and polarising times ($489,207 Deakin)
This project explores how young people interpret and respond to public and media discourse on gender-based violence. It tackles the critical challenge of volatile and polarising narratives, which can alienate certain groups and overlook diverse perspectives. The project seeks to generate actionable insights to enhance the effectiveness of gender-based violence prevention strategies, public campaigns and educational programs.
Project team: Professor Amanda Keddie (chief investigator, Deakin Centre for Research for Educational Impact), Dr Claire Charles (Deakin Centre for Research for Educational Impact), Dr Stephanie Wescott, Professor Steven Roberts
Making histories: Young people as visual historians of changing cities ($572,916 RMIT)
This project aims to address the growing gap between young people’s experiences of urban change and authorised histories of Australian cities. The project expects to produce more inclusive knowledges and understandings of urban change using an innovative approach which engages diverse young people as documentary photographers and historians of life in Melbourne and Geelong.
Deakin University will receive funding for a Research Fellow and will provide a PhD scholarship that will be administered through Deakin and supervised by members of the project team.
Expected outcomes include entry of young people’s photographs into national records as historical evidence and an educational model for museums that centres youth voice and agency. This should provide significant benefit by improving public understandings of diverse visual cultures and histories as called for by the Australian Government’s cultural inclusion priorities.
Project team: Dr David Rousell, Dr Eve Mayes (Deakin Centre for Research for Educational Impact), Dr Kelly Hussey-Smith, Professor Julianne Moss (Deakin Centre for Research for Educational Impact), Dr Gideon Boadu, Dr Merinda Kelly (Deakin University)
Estimating Australian school commutability for improved workforce planning ($673,972 UNSW)
This project aims to develop ground-breaking insights on the intersection of the teacher shortage and housing crisis to improve workforce planning. Combining education, data, and urban sciences, this project expects to provide new capacity for rapid integrated modelling and assessment of complex problems, dramatically reducing time to deliver robust evidence to inform decision making.
Planned outcomes include: new estimates of workforce distribution and school commutability, and state-of-the-art models of the commutability of Australian schools.
This research has the potential to reduce the substantial costs of staffing issues and provide more certainty and efficiency in the design of interventions to attract and retain teachers.
Project team: Professor Scott Eacott, Professor Christopher Pettit, Professor Hoon Han, Dr Catherine Gilbert, Dr Katrina MacDonald (Deakin Centre for Research for Educational Impact)
Share