EDF5694 - Taking a stand in education debates

This unit positions postgraduate students in education as future leaders in contemporary debates in education. The unit demonstrates how key debates can be identified and apprehended through different research frames. A contemporary issue (for example, school funding; education and employability; international benchmarking; defining evidence and quality in educational research; selective schools) is used as an example of where and how education debates are constructed in Australia and internationally. Attention is paid to the intellectual trends and traditions on which commentators/researchers draw and to the ways in which people come to be positioned as critical in the debate. This supports students to take their own critical stand in educational debates of relevance to them and position them so that they can make a contribution to ongoing intellectual debate in an area of their interest.