Publications

Book chapter | Peer reviewed

Playing with power and being played: Collaborative gameplay as a site of connection and insight ↗

by Brendon Munge, Catherine Manathunga, Catherine Thiele, Alison L Black, Vicki Schriever, Rachael Dwyer, Shelley Davidow and Stephen Heimans

2025
Ludic Inquiries into Power and Pedagogy in Higher Education: How Games Play Us

This chapter is a response to the impact of the prevailing neoliberal discourse of corporate managerialism in universities. It contains the authors’ communal experimentation with collaborative gameplay as an intentional and collective form of arts-based activism and intervention focused on subverting and unravelling the finite and managerial games at work in their universities. As a way of giving pause to how the pandemic and related workforce crises have intensified power dynamics and precarious work, authors use arts-based and poetic offerings to reflect on the role of power operating in their work/lives. Their creative methodology provides a site for playful protest and resistance to the competitive individualism and win/lose outcomes so treasured across the academy. It also offers space for authors’ realisation that while they desire to be radical, they are mostly compliant in their academic work. Subsequent insights about their ‘playing with power relations’ but also how they are ‘being played’ by succumbing to managerial demands helps them stop and ‘ask questions’ and ‘think outside the game’.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

Questions of ‘teacher quality’: problematising myths about education in political discourse ↗

by Kairen Call, Erin Siostrom, Deborah Heck, Rachael Dwyer and Renee Morrison

2025
AER

The quality of teachers and teacher-education continues to be a contentious focus of political debate internationally. Many have identified predominantly negative discursive representations of educators in politics, perpetuating myths of sub-standard teacher and teacher-educator quality. Much research has investigated the incentives and effects of these prevailing political discourses, but less researched is how such discourses operate and the textual features that characterise them. We employ critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore some specific textual features that construct teacher quality and initial-teacher-education (ITE) quality as a problem in Australian political texts. Through a micro-level analysis of 14 political speeches, media releases, and debates spanning a ten-year period we identify several recurring presuppositions about teacher ‘quality’. These problematic assumptions include the belief that teacher quality does not meet public expectations, that ITE is inadequate and fails to appropriately select and prepare graduates, and that there is one universal form of ‘best’ teacher and best way to prepare them. We also identify and problematise representations of educators as inept, irresolute parties, dependent upon the guidance of the Government, who is positioned as steadfast and proficient, and perfectly placed to solve the ‘quality problem’. These discursive constructions perpetuate myths surrounding ‘quality’ despite counter-evidence with significant implications for teachers, teacher-educators, and public confidence in the profession.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

Schools as inclusive workplaces: understanding the needs of a diverse teaching workforce in Australian schools ↗

by Rachael Dwyer, Rachael Jacobs, Jiao Tuxworth, Jing Qi, Daniel X. Harris and Catherine Manathunga

2025
AER

This paper draws together academic and policy literature around the value of a culturally, linguistically and racially diverse (CLRD) teacher workforce in Australia. While Australia's population is becoming more diverse, the teaching population is significantly less so, with far fewer teachers born overseas and/or speaking a language other than English at home. This paper seeks to address some reasons for this lack of diversity, and the lived experiences of teachers from diverse backgrounds, including the unique contributions CLRD teachers make to their school communities and the challenges they face. We begin by describing how CLRD experiences are understood within the Australian education context, and the contributions made by CLRD teachers to their school communities, the barriers to entry, and the experiences of exclusion and discrimination faced by many CLRD teachers in Australian schools. We conclude by highlighting the critical need to support CLRD teachers, by ensuring that schools are culturally safe and inclusive workplaces for teachers, as a necessary precursor to ensuring the same for students.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

The benefits and pitfalls of social media for teachers' agency and wellbeing ↗

by Alison Willis, Peter Grainger, Catherine Thiele, Rachael Dwyer, Susan Simon and Stephanie Menzies

2023
Technology, Pedagogy and Education

The authors investigated the benefits and pitfalls of social media use for schoolteachers. The benefits included opportunities for teacher agency, a resource for teacher wellbeing, and an efficacious communications and marketing tool for schools. However, along with these benefits were associated pitfalls including challenges to esteem and threats to authenticity in the profession. This study employs hermeneutic phenomenology, investigating teachers' lived experiences in the world of social media, and generates theory around how teachers make meaning in social media contexts. A key finding of this study is teachers' desires to be in a professional community outside their employment system. Teachers actively exert agency and professional identity on social media platforms to help and support each other. In this way, social media is shaped by teacher agency and used as a tool for social good.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

The crucial need to support culturally diverse students in Australian music classrooms ↗

by Jiao Tuxworth and Rachael Dwyer

2023
Australian Journal of Music Education

Australia's cultural and ethnic diversity raises many opportunities, but also challenges, for school music education. There is widespread recognition that the educational needs of all students need to be considered in the educational environment, however there is a paucity of empirical studies that consider the experiences of culturally diverse students in Australian music classrooms. This paper draws attention to the need for a deeper understanding of ways to support culturally diverse students, in the hope of identifying ways forward for music education to become more inclusive. This includes looking at the impacts of the population mismatch between diverse students and an ethnically homogeneous teaching population, the need for a musically broad and inclusive pre-service music teacher education, and the importance of a culturally inclusive music classroom. Key words: cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD), cultural inclusion, music education, music teacher education.

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Explore all Rachael Dwyer's publications in UniSC Research Bank

Grants

1 August 2025

Scaling up evidence-based interventions and professional learning in education

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. 0980030668.

Isaac Coffie, Vicki Schriever, Rachael Dwyer and Kate Williams

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25 June 2025

Sunshine Coast First Nations Creative Arts Strategic Plan

Sunshine Coast Council (Australia)
Grant no. 0980030567.

Maria Raciti, Catherine Manathunga, Harriot Beazley, Clare Archer-Lean, Leah Barclay and Rachael Dwyer

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15 June 2023 - 30 June 2024

Building Voice, Identity and Social Justice Research in Education

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. 0980028335.

Alison Willis, Aruna Devi, Deborah Heck, Rachael Dwyer and Catherine Manathunga

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1 December 2023

Singing Indigenous Languages Collective (SILC) Connecting communities through song-creation across Australia

Agrigento (United Kingdom)
Grant no. 0980029265.

Clare Hall, Thomas Fienberg, Gillian Howell, Candace Kruger, Aron Stevens and Rachael Dwyer

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31 May 2022 - 31 August 2023

Understanding the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse teachers in Australian schools

University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia, Sunshine Coast) - UniSC
Grant no. 0980027421.

Rachael Dwyer

Supervision

Doctoral Thesis Supervision - Completed

The Experiences of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Music Teachers in Australian Schools ↗

Students: Tuxworth, Jiao (Mengjiao Wang)

Associated Researchers: Rachael Dwyer, Maria Raciti and Catherine Manathunga

2021 - 2025

This study investigates the experiences of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) music teachers in Australian schools, focusing on their transcultural experiences and how their life histories influence their professional experiences. Australia, with its significant culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse population, holds rich resources for developing multicultural music education. However, school music education in Australian schools remains predominantly monocultural and monolingual, with the overwhelming majority of teachers from Anglo-cultural backgrounds, a pattern also found in other settler-colonial countries with consistently high immigration rates. This study examines the issues within Australian school music education as a microcosm, to reveal the deep-seated institutional and systemic barriers that impede diversification of the teacher workforce and, in turn, diverse cultural and linguistic representation in music education curriculum and pedagogy. The thesis begins by reviewing existing literature addressing the influence of Western colonisation on global music education, the development of school music education in Australia along with its demographic shifts, and the importance and challenges involved in diversifying the teaching workforce. As there is limited relevant research within Australia, the literature reviewed also draws on studies from other Anglosphere countries. To provide nuanced understanding of the systemic and institutional issues embedded in current school education, this study applies a postcolonial/decolonial theoretical framework to critically analyse how colonial legacies continue to shape the educational environment, and impede cultural diversity and equity. Qualitative methods, including multisensory time mapping and semi-structured life history interviews, were employed to explore the lived experiences of 15 CALD music teachers in Australia, highlighting the strengths that they can bring to education and the challenges encountered by them during their journey. Listening to their micro-histories and perspectives within an Anglo-culture-dominated society enriches the knowledge base which, at present, is largely dominated by Eurocentric discourses. The methodological approach also enhances understandings of the entangled relationship between individual narratives and institutional/social contexts. Through thematic analysis, this study found that CALD music teachers, particularly overseas-qualified CALD teachers, experience numerous challenges during accreditation, job seeking, employment, and introducing the music from their culture of origin into schools. Despite the Australian curriculum's objective to implement cultural and linguistic diversity, CALD music teachers are often overlooked in discussions on diversity in school music education. They are frequently misinterpreted as ‘others’ and feel compelled to hide their expertise in diverse musics and languages. In this study, all participants reported that teaching music itself is not a challenge, but the issues of Whiteness, covert racism, linguistic and cultural discrimination and bias embedded in the school system and/or music teacher education presented significant barriers. These social issues negatively impact their employment, restrain their career advancement, and lead to psychological and physical harms. Additionally, systemic barriers prevent skilled CALD music teachers from participating in school education, potentially leading to the loss of valuable educators who could enrich the learning and teaching environment. The lack of targeted recruitment and employment strategies for CALD teachers may limit the global competitiveness of Australian school education. This study yields several scholarly contributions to the field of education, including theory, policy, and practice. First, it extends postcolonial/decolonial perspectives to music education, highlighting how colonial legacies continue to shape contemporary music education systematically. Drawing on the lived experiences of CALD music teachers, the study provides practical recommendations for aligning music education with the identities and needs of current students in Australian schools. Second, the research offers a critical theoretical contribution by uncovering how postcolonialism is embedded in teacher accreditation and training, influencing professional inclusion and shaping educational practices. This analysis offers a fresh perspective on the unique positioning of CALD teachers, advocating for educational reform to address systemic inequities. Finally, the study proposes key interventions to foster inclusion in schools, diversify the teacher workforce and provide targeted support for CALD educators and students. It presents a comprehensive roadmap for educational stakeholders to advance diversity and inclusion beyond tokenism, building an educational system that reflects Australia’s complex cultural dynamics. By providing actionable insights for reforming educational policies and practices, the study underscores the critical importance of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within school education, with implications extending to wider social contexts in Australia and beyond.

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Masters Thesis Supervision - Current

Enhancing Local Curriculum Development in Nepalese Municipalities: A Path to Quality Education in Nepal

Students: Research student (name withheld)

Associated Researchers: Rachael Dwyer, Catherine Manathunga and Jessica O'Bryan

2025

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Thesis Supervision - Completed

Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers During the Early Stages of Implementation: A Case Study ↗

Students: Kairen Call

Associated Researchers: Susan Simon, Rachael Dwyer, Catherine Manathunga and Vicki Schriever

2015 - 2024

In 2015, the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) called for greater quality assurance and regulation of Australian Initial Teacher Education (ITE), prompting ITE providers to participate in rigorous program accreditation of preservice teachers’ professional learning aligned with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). Whilst the APST was established, in part, as a mechanism to guide both formal professional learning aligned with regulated program content and informal professional learning developed from experiences, the increased regulation created tension in their regulatory and developmental application. This situation presented significant challenges for stakeholders who were learning to manage the complexity of this duality, one such group being preservice teachers. At this time, whilst there was general agreement that the APST were here to stay, there was scant literature to inform how teacher educators could enable preservice teachers’ sustained use of the APST for their formal and informal professional learning, not only as preservice teachers but long into their careers. This situation presented an opportunity to significantly add to the body of knowledge of preservice teachers’ APST use, and document on-the-ground policy implementation perceptions, during this important period of implementation change. Employing what Yee and Niemeier (1996) characterise as pseudo-longitudinal Case Study Research (CSR), the study presented in this thesis with publication applied repeated cross-sectional design from 2015 through 2017. With a keen, yet pragmatic eye on the policy context, this thesis presents a historical capture of preservice teachers’ perspectives of the APST and their use of it during this critical post-TEMAG period of APST implementation. Applying Zimmerman’s (2000) psychological empowerment theory to the methodology, 303 responses to three annual surveys (2015-2017) and focus group data from 15 preservice teachers (2016-2017) were gathered and analysed. The research presented here identified that this group of preservice teachers believed in the necessity of the APST for the profession, and that it was tangible in their assessments, but its dominance in assessment resulted in them feeling judged by it. They also perceived the APST to be visible in their course content, but they struggled to understand and decode the content and its relevance to them, leaving them confused by it and pushed away from using it. Additionally, three-quarters of participants also perceived they did not use the APST in lectures or tutorials, and just half perceived they used the APST in their professional experiences in schools. Yet, those who perceived the presence of the APST in these contexts, did not feel their teacher educators and supervising teachers, who were also new to working with the APST, applied it cohesively, leaving preservice teachers frustrated with its application. This group of preservice teachers desired explicit support to understand the APST and increase their autonomy with it from the start of their preservice teacher journey.

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Doctoral Thesis Supervision - Current

How can strategic communication of the importance of music education initiate change to improve student outcomes in Australian schools?

Students: Research student (name withheld)

Associated Researchers: Rachael Dwyer, Peter Grainger and Vicki Schriever

2022