LPLC People
The Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures (LPLC) consists of a core team of eleven researchers. The centre's capacity to provide a focus for cross and interdisciplinary research is reflected in its associate, affiliate and adjunct membership, with active collaboration across schools, divisions and institutions, both local and international.
- Staff Members
- Key Researchers
- Researchers
- Associate Members
- Affiliate Members
- Adjunct Members
- Project Research Staff
Our Graduates
Staff Members
Phil Cormack, Director
Associate Professor
Phil Cormack is Director of the Centre for Studies in Literacy,
Policy and Learning Cultures at the University of South Australia. His
current work involves research on the history of adolescence, schooling
and literacy; on literacy and place; on middle school pedagogies; and on
boys and literacy. He has experience as a school system manager,
curriculum adviser, curriculum writer and teacher in primary, secondary
and middle school settings.
Helen Nixon,
Deputy Director
Helen Nixon is Associate Professor of Education. Her teaching and research
are in the field of literacy studies, in the areas of literacy and
social justice, literacy and popular culture, and literacy and
information and communications technologies (ICT). With colleagues she
is Chief Investigator on two ARC Linkage projects: Literacy
and the environment: A situated study of multimediated literacy,
sustainability, local knowledges and educational change, and Reinvigorating middle years pedagogy in 'rustbelt' secondary schools.
With colleagues in Education, Journalism and Architecture she was Chief
Investigator on a Myer Foundation funded project (2004-2005) Urban
renewal from the inside-out: Students and community involvement in
re-designing and re-constructing school spaces in a poor neighbourhood.
And is currently Chief Investigator along with Sue Nichols and Jennifer
Rowsell (Rutgers University) on the ARC funded project Parents'
networks: the circulation of knowledge about children's literacy
learning.
Sarah Rose,
Centre Research Assistant/Office manager
Sarah provides research assistance for members of the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures. She completed a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education with the University of South Australia in 1997 and a masters of Education with the University of Southern Queensland in 1998. She has worked for the University for seven years on various projects including the Socio-economically disadvantaged students and the development of literacies in school project (1998-2001) and the Children of the new millennium project (2002-2004).
Key Researchers
Victoria Carrington,
Research Chair
Professor Victoria Carrington joins the LPLC team as Research Chair. She brings with us her expertise
in many areas of education with a focus on new technologies and new literacies. Victoria has worked with universities
in Queensland, Tasmania and more recently the University of Plymouth in
the UK. Victoria writes extensively in the fields of sociology of literacy
and education and has a particular interest in the impact of new digital
media on literacy practices both in and out of school. She is on the
editorial boards of a range of journals and is an editor of the
international journal Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of
education. Recent publications include co-editing a Special Edition of
Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education on digital
literacies with Dr. Jackie Marsh (2005); Carrington, V. (2005) 'Txting: The
end of civilization (again)', Cambridge Journal of Education, 35(2); Carrington, V. (2006) 'The uncannny, digital texts and literacy' in
Language and Education, and the monograph Rethinking middle years: Early
adolescents, schooling and digital cultures (2006) Sydney: Allen and
Unwin.
Barbara Comber
Professor Barbara Comber is a key researcher in the Hawke Research
Institute and the Centre for Studies in Literacy,
Policy and Learning Cultures, and Professor in the School of Education.
Her research interests include literacy, teachers' work, social justice,
critical literacies, popular culture, poverty and education, and
school-based collaborative research. She has recently co-edited three
books: Turn-around pedagogies (Comber & Kamler, 2005) Look again:
longitudinal studies of children's literacy learning (Comber & Barnett,
2003) and Negotiating critical literacies in classrooms (Comber &
Simpson, 2001). She is currently working on a number of research
projects with teacher-researchers in different locales. These include
Urban renewal from the inside out: students and community involvement
in re-designing and re-constructing school spaces in a poor
neighbourhood (with Helen Nixon, Jackie Cook and Stephen Loo) and
River Literacies (an ARC Linkage Grant with Phil Cormack, Helen Nixon,
Bill Green and JoAnne Reid [Charles Sturt University] and Andrew
Connolly [PETA].
Phil Cormack
Associate Professor Phil Cormack is Director of the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures. His current work involves research on the history of adolescence, schooling and literacy; on literacy and place; on middle school pedagogies; and on boys and literacy. He has experience as a school system manager, curriculum adviser, curriculum writer and teacher in primary, secondary and middle school settings.
Rob Hattam
Rob Hattam is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of South Australia. He has had extensive experience in co-directing interdisciplinary educational research projects in multi-sited ethnographic studies in over 100 schools that have focused on teachers’ work, the cultural dimension of schools, and teaching and learning practices. He has been involved in Australian Research Council funded projects on teachers’ learning in the devolving school; early school leaving; and middle schooling; and with other colleagues is presently working on projects entitled: Re-thinking Reconciliation and Pedagogy in Unsettling Times; Redesigning pedagogies in the North and Schooling, Globalisation and Refugees in Queensland. He has published in a range of journals including Pedagogy, Culture and Society, British Journal of Sociology of Education, British Educational Research Journal, and Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education. He has been involved in book projects with others that include Schooling for a Fair Go, Teachers' Work in a Globalising Economy, and Dropping Out, Drifting Off, Being Excluded: Becoming Somebody Without School. Recently he published a book entitled Awakening-Struggle: Towards a Buddhist critical theory.
Susan Nichols
Sue Nichols is an experienced educational researcher whose work spans the early years, schooling and higher education. Her diverse portfolio of research and publication covers the fields of literacy, pedagogy, learning difficulties, parent involvement and teacher research and is informed by theories of discourse, subjectivity, gender, and sociolinguistics. She has written chapters in several internationally published books including Travel Notes from the New Literacy Studies as well as articles for Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy and Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities. Her research in the field of parents and literacy broke new ground in its focus on mothers’ and fathers’ negotiation of their literate labour and understandings of their children’s literacy development. She is currently exploring the notion of parents’ learning networks: textual, social, physical and digital and is Chief Investigator with Helen Nixon and Jennifer Rowsell (Rutgers University) on the ARC funded project Parents' networks: the circulation of knowledge about children's literacy learning.
Helen Nixon
Helen Nixon is Associate Professor of Education. Her teaching and research
are in the field of literacy studies, in the areas of literacy and
social justice, literacy and popular culture, and literacy and
information and communications technologies (ICT). With colleagues she
is Chief Investigator on two ARC Linkage projects: Literacy
and the environment: A situated study of multimediated literacy,
sustainability, local knowledges and educational change, and Reinvigorating middle years pedagogy in 'rustbelt' secondary schools.
With colleagues in Education, Journalism and Architecture she was Chief
Investigator on a Myer Foundation funded project (2004-2005) Urban
renewal from the inside-out: Students and community involvement in
re-designing and re-constructing school spaces in a poor neighbourhood.
And is currently Chief Investigator along with Sue Nichols and Jennifer
Rowsell (Rutgers University) on the ARC funded project Parents'
networks: the circulation of knowledge about children's literacy
learning.
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Researchers
Marie Brennan
Professor Marie Brennan is Professor of Education at the University of South Australia, where she has recently finished a five year term as Dean of Education and Head of School at the University of South Australia. Her previous academic jobs were at the University of Canberra, Central Queensland University and Deakin Universities. Prior to being an academic, Marie worked for almost twenty years in the Victorian Education Department in a range of positions. Marie is on the Board of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, and is active nationally in promoting the education sector, as well as conducting research, supervising doctoral students and providing leadership in the School of Education.
Pat Grant
Pat Grant teaches in the undergraduate and graduate entry education programs at the University of South Australia. Her teaching interests include English language and literacy and Teacher Research. She currently coordinates and teaches a core course for all undergraduate students, Language and Multiliteracies. Her research interests include literacy in primary schools, teacher research, and the history of primary teacher education and English curriculum. Her interest in historical research is reflected in her current PhD work. In the past she has worked as a Program Director, a curriculum adviser and as a primary teacher.
Katherine Hodgetts,
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Katherine Hodgetts is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the LPLC. Her recently completed doctoral thesis investigated the social construction of the ‘crisis’ in boys’ education. Katherine’s background is in social psychology, and her research applies discursive methods to the analysis of masculinity construction, educational gender equity and teachers’ negotiation of gendered identities. Her more recent work on the ARC Linkage Project Pathways or cul de sacs? The causes, impact and implications of part-time senior secondary study investigated the relationship between part-time study and disadvantage, and students’ experience of learning dispersed across time and place.
Rosie Kerin
Rosie completed her Doctor of Education Research Portfolio in September 2006 and as such has begun her research career in education. While undertaking her doctorate, Kerin was employed as a Literacy Consultant for Catholic Education in South Australia (2001-2006), working with teachers in classrooms and professional learning contexts. Prior to that appointment she was employed as a research assistant across a number of projects at the University of South Australia and has worked as an independent literacy consultant in Adelaide, Alice Springs and Singapore.
David Lloyd
David Lloyd is a lecturer in the School of Education in science and mathematics education. He teaches in the undergraduate program, B ED (Primary and Middle) and in the Graduate Certificate of Education. David coordinates a general study, Local and Global Environments, that draws on many areas of learning including science, mathematics and environmental studies. His current research is in improving pedagogies in middle schooling. Other research interests include Science education; Middle schooling; Conceptual Mediation Program; Futures Education; Environmental Education and Transpersonal studies.
Brenton Prosser
Brenton Prosser is a lecturer in the School of Education, working primarily in Middle Years teacher education. He is also a researcher in the Hawke Institute for Sustainable Societies, where he works with students and teachers to design new middle schooling pedagogy. An ex-teacher and youth worker, he specialises in supporting young people with ADHD, challenging behaviours and low levels of literacy. Previously, he has worked as a media and policy advisor on the education and higher education portfolios in State Parliament.
Sue Shore
Sue Shore teaches in the areas of theory and practice in education and research methods. She is currently supervising a number of of PhD and professional doctorate (EdD) students interested in whiteness, issues of culture and race, and social justice. Sue is particularly interested in exploring theory-practice relations and how these complex issues are worked through ‘in the flesh’. She has undertaken research projects in vocational education and training contexts and community settings exploring ideas about ‘inclusive curriculum practice’ and decision making in community education programs. More recently Sue completed a project on TAFE managers' understandings of whiteness in relation to their decision making and management practices in postschool education and is particularly interested in using whiteness as a theoretical tool to understand the nature of racialised discourse in theory building and policy making.
John Walsh
Dr John Walsh is the Program Director for the Doctor of Education Program, a position created via a partnership between UniSA and the Department of Children’s Services (DECS). His doctorate was in child language development and he has a focus on linguistics and its links to education. He is particularly interested in first and second language development, and also the relationship between language, literacy and educational outcomes for school students.
Lew Zipin
Lew Zipin is a ‘critical sociologist’ of education with a PhD (1999) from the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a teacher and scholar, he is versed in critical social theories and their use in analysing how power inequalities operate in educational institutions and policies. As a researcher and activist, Lew pursues socially just educational change, including through two current LPLC-based funded projects involving collaborations with schools in Adelaide’s northern suburbs: a project on boys’ literacies and identities in relation to curriculum; and a project on redesigning middle school curriculum and pedagogy to incorporate students’ ‘lifeworld funds of knowledge’. Lew engages in similar projects as a consultant with the Adelaide branch of the Australian Education Union. He has authored chapters in internationally published books as well as articles in journals such as Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education; Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies; International Journal of Leadership in Education; and Australian Educational Researcher.
Associate Members
(University of South Australia)
Di Bills
Lynne Badger
Jenny Barnett
Peter Bishop
Gerry Bloustien
Jill Burton
Mike Chartres
Jackie Cook
Vicki Crowley
Margaret Hicks
Virginia Hussin
Bruce Johnson
Zheng Lin
Betty Leask
Kathy Paige
Alan Reid
Greg Restall
Dale Wache
Affiliate Members
(University of South Australia)
Ted Nunan
Ronda Schloithe
Lyn Tonkin
Adjunct Members
Blye Frank
(Dalhousie University, Canada)
Bill
Green (Charles Sturt University, NSW)
Andy Manning (Mt St Vincent University, Nova Scotia)
Hilary Janks
(University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Jo-Anne
Reid (Charles Sturt University, NSW)
Von Sanderson (University of South Australia)
Julian Sefton-Green
Project Research Staff
Stephen Atkinson,
Research Assistant
Dr Stephen Atkinson is a researcher at the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures. He is currently engaged in research for two projects at the Centre: Boys’ Literacies and Identities: Redesigning pedagogies across schools and communities and Rethinking Reconciliation and Pedagogies in Unsettling Times. His other research interests include the digital media and ICT in education, the political uses of horror, local television histories, and the function of memory and amnesia in film. He has previously worked as a lecturer in Southeast Asian media at the Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) and as a sessional lecturer at the Department of International Studies and Politics at the Flinders University of South Australia.
Andrew Bills,
Research Fellow
Andrew Bills is a Research Fellow with the LPLC working on the Australian Research Council's (ARC) funded Redesigning Pedagogies in the North (RPiN) project, the largest of its kind in Australia which aims to join teacher researchers, students as researchers and university researchers to investigate building new forms of pedagogic practice in the middle years of schooling. Andrew is also a State Coordinator for the Australian National Schools Network (ANSN) and a secondary school teacher and counsellor. His teaching career has been devoted to developing and then managing innovative educational programs that offer new approaches to engagement and support for some of our schools' most marginalised young people. These include the Adelaide Hills Vocational College, at the Mount Barker TAFE campus, the Twilight School at Windsor Gardens Vocational College, and the Murray Bridge High School Special Education program.
Lyn Kerkham,
Research Assistant/Lecturer
Lyn teaches in under-graduate and post-graduate teacher education courses and has a particular interest in literacies education. She has been involved as a research assistant in a 3-year project Teachers investigate unequal outcomes: cross-generational perspectives, and is currently working on Literacy and the Environment: A situates study of multi-mediated literacy, sustainability, local knowledges and educational change. Her interest in place-based education and teachers’ multiple identities are reflected in her recent work towards a PhD.
Philippa Milroy, Research Assistant
Pippa joined us in 2006 as part of the 3-year project Redesigning Pedagogies in the North, where she works with a large group of university researchers and thirty teachers across ten middle schools in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. She also teaches secondary English, Science and Biology. Her education interests include regenerating middle schooling and effective communication of teacher knowledge.
Sophie Rainbird, Research Assistant
Sophie is a research assistant working on the ARC discovery project Parents' Networks: the circulation of knowledge about children's literacy learning in the LPLC. Sophie has a background in anthropology and has conducted fieldwork in the UK and Australia. Her research areas include refugee studies, organisational studies, educational and welfare needs, and English as a second language. She is particularly interested in issues surrounding narrative, race, ethnicity, whiteness, and social justice. Sophie has worked with several NGO’s both in Australia and in the UK providing consultancy, research, case work, and community education.
Sam Sellar
Sam Sellar is a PhD student attached to the Redesigning Pedagogies in the North (RPiN) project through an APAI scholarship. His supervisors are Dr Lew Zipin and Associate Professor Robert Hattam and his thesis title is Researching the researchers: a critical analysis of a University-school-community partnership. His research focus is on analysing our current times, and the possibilities that emerge from the RPiN project for pedagogies capable of engaging these times in ways that interrupt socially reproductive mechanisms.