PROJECTS

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF CIVIC EDUCATION AS NONVIOLENCE (2026 – present)

Lead researcher: Dr Leanne Higham, Monash University

This study expands my broader program of slow violence and nonviolence research into civic education, exploring young people’s experiences of civics education and their perspectives on misogyny, gender justice education, and social cohesion during a time of democratic decline and polarisation.

Funding source: Monash University

Co-Designing reparative principles for AI in Education (2026 – present)

Lead researcher: Dr Clare Southerton, Monash University

Researchers: Dr Stephanie Wescott, Monash University; Dr Leanne Higham, Monash University

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now ubiquitous across education settings, with rapid policy formation and implementation occurring alongside its introduction into schools. Policy has been reactive to use rather than arising from consultation and consideration of what best-practice AI use could look like in education. Notably, student perspectives on AI use in their education have not been comprehensively considered within education policy frameworks and important ethical issues remain. This project has two key aims. The first is mapping the existing state of AI policy in Victorian secondary schools to understand key values and logics. The second is to co-design a set of principles for AI use in education with recently-graduated young people (aged 18-21) who were completing their secondary education at the time of AI’s rapid ascent. Our project takes an epistemic justice lens to consider the implications of AI more holistically, including Indigenous data justice, queer and feminist critiques, climate justice and children’s rights. While ‘fairness’ is a common principle in education policies governing AI, it perpetuates ‘algorithmic idealism’, a belief that algorithmic systems such as AI will eventually overcome existing social inequality. In co-designing principles for AI use in education, we aim to move beyond broad notions of fairness towards justice and reparation for harms.

Funding source: Monash University

UNDERSTANDING AND TRANSFORMING GENDERED SCHOOL CULTURES (2023 – present)

Lead researcher: Dr Leanne Higham, Monash University

Researchers: Dr Kate O’Connor, La Trobe University; Dr Troy Potter, The University of Melbourne; Dr Kellie Sanders, La Trobe University; Dr Clare Southerton, Monash University; Assoc Prof Melissa Wolfe, University of Wollongong; Dr Rachel Finneran, Deakin University

We have been invited by a Melbourne Catholic school to investigate and examine their existing and historical gendered cultures as they transition from over a century of single-sex to co-educational schooling, and to collaborate with them in developing their new, co-educational school culture of belonging. It aims to critically examine school culture and cultural change, and to explore participatory research methodologies.

AFFECTIVE ECOLOGIES OF SCHOOL CLIMATE (2019 – 2023)

Co-researchers: Assoc Prof Melissa Wolfe, University of Wollongong, Dr Eve Mayes, Deakin University

This study is a cartography of school climate in a Melbourne government school. It aims to examine cultural change, and explore participatory and creative research methodologies.

Funding source: Southern Cross University

The Catholic Closet: An International Comparative Study of Homophobia and Transphobia in Catholic Schools (2018 – 2022)

Lead researcher: Assoc Prof Tonya Callaghan, University of Calgary

This study is a comparative cross-case analysis of Catholic school systems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom vis-à-vis sexual minority groups. It aims to uncover the causes and effects of clashes between Catholic canon law and the common laws of the aforementioned nations regarding sexual minorities – clashes which are increasingly being played out in Catholic schools.

Funding source: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)