History of Education Review: Volume 48 Issue 2

Tracing the radical, the migrant, and the secular in the history of Australian schooling: Contrapuntal historiographies

Remy Low, Eve Mayes, Helen Proctor

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a broad theoretical orientation for the themed section of History of Education Review, “Unstable concepts in the history of Australian…

The hidden historiography of migration and Australian schooling

Helen Proctor

Despite Australia’s history as an exemplary migrant nation, there are gaps in the literature and a lack of explicit conceptualisation of either “migrants” or “migration” in the…

Radical reform and reforming radicals in Australian schooling

Eve Mayes

The purpose of this paper is to consider historical shifts in the mobilisation of the concept of radical in relation to Australian schooling.

Secularism, race, religion and the Public Instruction Act of 1880 in NSW

Remy Low

Through a political genealogy, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the institutionalisation of the so-called “secular principle” in NSW state schools in the…

The Margaret Bailey case: High school activism, the right to education and modern citizenship in late 1960s Australia

Isobelle Barrett Meyering

In March 1969, Brisbane student and political activist Margaret Bailey was suspended from Inala High School – ostensibly for “undermining the authority” of her teacher – prompting…

Clarice Irwin’s visions for education in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s: “what might be”

Dorothy Kass

The paper is a study of Clarice McNamara, née Irwin (1901–1990), an educator who advocated for reform in the interwar period in Australia. Clarice is known for her role within the…

Memory objects and boarding school trauma

Christine Trimingham Jack, Linda Devereux

The purpose of this paper is to provide language and meaning to open up silence around traumatic boarding school memories through the symbolic aura (Nora 1989) surrounding key…

Henry Caldwell Cook, creativity and democratic learning

John Howlett

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the life and work of a forgotten progressive educator – (Henry) Caldwell Cook who was an English and drama teacher at the Perse School…

Histories of teachers in Australia and New Zealand from the 1970s to the present

Kay Whitehead

Commencing with publications in the 1970s, the purpose of this paper is to review the historical writing about Australian and New Zealand teachers over the past 50 years.