Lucas Walsh

This book provides education professionals with an accessible and actionable guide to using research well in real-world contexts. Using research evidence to improve education is critically important but often poorly supported. There is little or no guidance for educators and leaders about how to do it well. Through practical examples, school case studies, improvement activities and practice checklists, this book unpacks what using research well involves, and shows you how to develop it as an action-based practice within your work. The book’s easy-to-read chapters guide you through the process of: identifying your purpose for using research and finding appropriate research, engaging with the research thoughtfully and implementing it effectively, and modelling and supporting quality research use within your organisation. Written for teachers and leaders across all stages of education who are wanting to use research evidence better within their work, this is an indispensable addition to the professional library.

This book provides education professionals with an accessible and actionable guide to using research well in real-world contexts. Using research evidence to improve education is critically important but often poorly supported. There is little or no guidance for educators and leaders about how to do it well. Through practical examples, school case studies, improvement activities and practice checklists, this book unpacks what using research well involves, and shows you how to develop it as an action-based practice within your work. The book’s easy-to-read chapters guide you through the process of: identifying your purpose for using research and finding appropriate research, engaging with the research thoughtfully and implementing it effectively, and modelling and supporting quality research use within your organisation. Written for teachers and leaders across all stages of education who are wanting to use research evidence better within their work, this is an indispensable addition to the professional library.

This book focuses on the question of how to understand quality use of research evidence in education, or what it means to use research evidence well. Internationally there are widespread efforts to increase the use of research evidence within educational policy and practice. Such efforts raise important questions about how we understand not just the quality of evidence, but also the quality of its use. To date, there has been wide-ranging debate about the former, but very little dialogue about the latter. Based on a five-year study with schools and school systems in Australia, this book sheds new light on: why clarity about quality of use is critical to educational improvement; how quality use of research evidence can be framed in education; what using research well involves and looks like in practice; what quality research use means for individuals, organisations and systems; and what aspects of using research well still need to be better understood. This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals within and beyond education who want to better understand what using research evidence well means and involves and how it can be supported.

This book focuses on the question of how to understand quality use of research evidence in education, or what it means to use research evidence well. Internationally there are widespread efforts to increase the use of research evidence within educational policy and practice. Such efforts raise important questions about how we understand not just the quality of evidence, but also the quality of its use. To date, there has been wide-ranging debate about the former, but very little dialogue about the latter. Based on a five-year study with schools and school systems in Australia, this book sheds new light on: why clarity about quality of use is critical to educational improvement; how quality use of research evidence can be framed in education; what using research well involves and looks like in practice; what quality research use means for individuals, organisations and systems; and what aspects of using research well still need to be better understood. This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals within and beyond education who want to better understand what using research evidence well means and involves and how it can be supported.

This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both ‘young people’ and ‘the digital’ continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people’s digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12–25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications.

Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement provides a primer for exploring hard questions about how young people understand, experience and enact their citizenship in uncertain times and about their senses of membership and belonging. It examines how familiar modes of exclusion are compounded by punitive youth policies in ways that are concealed by neoliberal discourses. It considers the role of key institutions in constructing young people’s citizenship and looks at the ways in which some young people are opting out of established enactments of citizenship while creating new ones. Critically reflecting on recent scholarly interest in the geographical, relational, affective and temporal dimensions of young people’s experiences of citizenship, it also reinvigorates the discussion about citizenship rights and entitlements, and what these might mean for young people. The book draws on global research and theories of citizenship but has a particular focus on Australia, which provides a unique example of a country that has fared well economically yet is mimicking the austerity measures of the United Kingdom and Europe. It concludes with an argument for a rethinking of citizenship which recognises young people’s rights as citizens and the ways in which these interact with their lived experience at a time that has been characterised as ‘the end of the age of entitlement’.

This book offers a much-needed analysis of how young people understand and navigate their lives as workers, family members and political actors in an era of uncertainty, Brexit and Trump. Drawing on the latest and most seminal international research and the unique stories of 30 young university students from Australia, France and Britain, it explores the nature of higher education and post-education trajectories for young people facing a ‘post-truth’ world in which opportunities for home ownership, work security and the formation of committed relationships have been thoroughly eroded. It also presents a timely reflection on young people’s hopes and concerns in the wake of global political upheaval, demographic change, financial crises, labour market uncertainties and unprecedented human mobility. Imagining Youth Futures makes a unique contribution to the fields of youth studies, transitions to university, and contemporary youth patterns in the areas of work, family, politics and mobility.

Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement provides a primer for exploring hard questions about how young people understand, experience and enact their citizenship in uncertain times and about their senses of membership and belonging. It examines how familiar modes of exclusion are compounded by punitive youth policies in ways that are concealed by neoliberal discourses. It considers the role of key institutions in constructing young people’s citizenship and looks at the ways in which some young people are opting out of established enactments of citizenship while creating new ones. Critically reflecting on recent scholarly interest in the geographical, relational, affective and temporal dimensions of young people’s experiences of citizenship, it also reinvigorates the discussion about citizenship rights and entitlements, and what these might mean for young people. The book draws on global research and theories of citizenship but has a particular focus on Australia, which provides a unique example of a country that has fared well economically yet is mimicking the austerity measures of the United Kingdom and Europe. It concludes with an argument for a rethinking of citizenship which recognises young people’s rights as citizens and the ways in which these interact with their lived experience at a time that has been characterised as ‘the end of the age of entitlement’.

Is the current industrial model of schooling capable of preparing young people for modern working life? This book provides an unsettling picture of the challenges young people face following the uncertainty of the Global Financial Crisis. It asks whether teachers and schooling are able to provide the skills needed in a contemporary global economy.

This book will explore the ways in which children and young people’s participation in society operates as a good in itself. It will also explore the ways in which social participation and change making by children and young people have positive outcomes for other domains that are central to their wellbeing as well as to the wider social good.