Sally Patfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 4605869 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sally Patfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sally |
| FAMILY NAME | Patfield |
| SIGNATURE | PATFIELD S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Newcastle Australia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9591-7676 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Bolstering teacher retention through collaborative professional development
Teacher retention is a growing challenge across school sectors and regions throughout many Western nations. Workloads have expanded and accountability pressures increased, with teachers often left feeling isolated, unsupported, and with low morale. Media reports blaming teachers for poor school outcomes compound the problem. In Australia, approaches to tackling retention commonly focus on teacher supply, looking to improve initial teacher educati…
How early entry schemes can help to widen access to higher education
With widening access to higher education remaining a sought-after but elusive goal, escalating attention has been directed at alternative admissions pathways and selection methods to increase and expand enrolment. In Australia, early entry schemes are one such pathway that has risen in prominence and use in recent years, allowing Year 12 students to gain entry to university using criteria other than (or in addition to) an Australian Tertiary Admi…
Making teaching more attractive
Sustaining teaching as a respected and attractive profession is more critical than ever, particularly as teachers' work becomes increasingly shaped by standardisation and accountability—conditions that have shown minimal positive impact while eroding the professional agency essential to job satisfaction. Drawing on a 15‐year programme of research on the impact of an approach to professional development, known as Quality Teaching Rounds, including…
“We’ve got a bit of a family mantra that you don’t give up”
Numerous studies consider the reasons why students, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups, decide to depart university prior to completing their studies. Much of this attrition research focuses on the problems students encounter during their studies and the ways these issues might curtail their ability to sustain academic engagement. In this paper, we instead focus on the ways in which students, all of whom are first in the…
Problematising the ‘job-ready graduate’ ideal in Australian higher education
Employability agendas now pervade the higher education landscape of many Western nations. In Australia, employability as both a discourse and related set of practices has recently reached fever-pitch as a result of the Job-ready graduates policy reforms, which have generated an image of an ‘ideal’ job-ready graduate who selects a degree in the national interest and develops value-added industry skills throughout their studies. In this paper, we p…
Pressure to attend university
Securing stable, well-paid employment has become increasingly difficult for youth world-wide, negatively affecting their health and wellbeing. In recent years, this job insecurity has been exacerbated by compounding natural, economic, and social disasters. At the same time, young people are increasingly being encouraged to pursue higher education to secure a more viable future. This paper examines the post-school transitions of 22 Australian scho…
Shifting from distributive to recognitional social justice for rural educators through professional development
Progress towards equitable schooling and educational outcomes in Australia has been notoriously slow, with countless reports highlighting stark inequities between rural areas and urban centres. Most reforms have been grounded in distributive notions of social justice – addressing funding, staffing, and resourcing – but fail to address other domains of injustice manifest in the positioning of the rural as Other, as deficit or in need of saving. To…
New possibilities for engaging school teachers in widening participation
Access to higher education remains elusive for many young people despite substantial investment in outreach interventions, most of which target students in underrepresented equity groups. This paper explores an alternative approach to widening participation in Australia that focuses on teacher professional development to support student aspirations. We examine school teachers’ responses to a course designed to develop their conceptual understandi…
Youth Beyond the City
Youth Beyond the City
The purpose of this book is to situate the place beyond the city as an epistemological vantage point for researching youth. Existing frameworks about young people privilege large urban centres or ‘global cities’ and create forms of marginality that are at once spatial and epistemological. This book interrogates and moves beyond these boundaries, turning the margins into a unique position for understanding youth and examining forms of difference w…
Aspiring to higher education in regional and remote Australia
Students from regional and remote areas remain significantly under-represented in higher education despite decades of equity policy designed to encourage participation. One explanation is that policy initiatives often overlook the realities in local rural contexts that can make higher education less desirable. Applying the theoretical lens of ‘doxic’ and ‘habituated’ aspirations, this paper analyzes interviews with 13 students, 10 parents/carers,…
On ‘being first’
For more than three decades, Australian higher education policy has been guided by a national equity framework focussed on six underrepresented target groups: Indigenous Australians, people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, people from regional and remote areas, people with disabilities, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and women in non-traditional areas of study. Despite bringing equitable access to the forefront of univers…
Degrees of “being first”
Universities have increasingly adopted “first-generation status” as a new category for addressing equity in higher education, especially in the UK and Australia. This category targets students whose parents do not have a university degree and therefore are “newcomers” to higher education. While the category is well-intentioned, given the persistence of inequitable enrolment patterns and the need to widen participation, it has resulted in a fairly…
Scaling up effective professional development
Delivering effective professional development (PD) at scale necessitates a careful balance between program integrity and local adaptation. Drawing on qualitative case study data, this paper explores tensions in the implementation of a successful PD program, Quality Teaching Rounds, within two contrasting school communities in New South Wales, Australia. Using the theoretical distinction between ostensive and performative aspects of implementation…
Reframing first-generation entry
Despite the shift from elite to mass education, the odds of accessing university remain stacked in favour of those with a university-educated parent. Not only are first-generation students less likely to engage in higher education, but the dominant narrative surrounding their enrolment emphasises cultural deficiency, constructing individuals as ‘too different’ to succeed. Drawing on data from focus groups with 198 school-aged students in Australi…
Stratification and the illusion of equitable choice in accessing higher education
In recent decades, the Australian higher education landscape has achieved significant expansion. Initially aimed at getting more people into university, massification policies have, more recently, focused on widening participation – encouraging a more diverse array of students to ‘choose’ higher education. Paradoxically, this shift has deepened stratification, with new inequalities within and across the academy. However, this stratification is gl…
The untold story of middle-class Indigenous Australian school students who aspire to university
While university participation rates among Indigenous Australians have been on the rise in recent years, parity targets remain elusive. In this context, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how aspirations for higher education are formed and nurtured. Studies tend to focus on barriers to access, often in ways that position Indigenous Australians as a homogeneous ‘Otherised’ group. This paper counter-balances hegemonic narratives of Indi…
Stratification and the illusion of equitable choice in accessing higher education
In recent decades, the Australian higher education landscape has achieved significant expansion. Initially aimed at getting more people into university, massification policies have, more recently, focused on widening participation – encouraging a more diverse array of students to ‘choose’ higher education. Paradoxically, this shift has deepened stratification, with new inequalities within and across the academy. However, this stratification is gl…
The untold story of middle-class Indigenous Australian school students who aspire to university
While university participation rates among Indigenous Australians have been on the rise in recent years, parity targets remain elusive. In this context, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how aspirations for higher education are formed and nurtured. Studies tend to focus on barriers to access, often in ways that position Indigenous Australians as a homogeneous ‘Otherised’ group. This paper counter-balances hegemonic narratives of Indi…
Scaling up effective professional development
Delivering effective professional development (PD) at scale necessitates a careful balance between program integrity and local adaptation. Drawing on qualitative case study data, this paper explores tensions in the implementation of a successful PD program, Quality Teaching Rounds, within two contrasting school communities in New South Wales, Australia. Using the theoretical distinction between ostensive and performative aspects of implementation…
The untold story of middle-class Indigenous Australian school students who aspire to university
While university participation rates among Indigenous Australians have been on the rise in recent years, parity targets remain elusive. In this context, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how aspirations for higher education are formed and nurtured. Studies tend to focus on barriers to access, often in ways that position Indigenous Australians as a homogeneous ‘Otherised’ group. This paper counter-balances hegemonic narratives of Indi…
Reframing first-generation entry
Despite the shift from elite to mass education, the odds of accessing university remain stacked in favour of those with a university-educated parent. Not only are first-generation students less likely to engage in higher education, but the dominant narrative surrounding their enrolment emphasises cultural deficiency, constructing individuals as ‘too different’ to succeed. Drawing on data from focus groups with 198 school-aged students in Australi…
Stratification and the illusion of equitable choice in accessing higher education
In recent decades, the Australian higher education landscape has achieved significant expansion. Initially aimed at getting more people into university, massification policies have, more recently, focused on widening participation – encouraging a more diverse array of students to ‘choose’ higher education. Paradoxically, this shift has deepened stratification, with new inequalities within and across the academy. However, this stratification is gl…
Youth Beyond the City
Youth Beyond the City
The purpose of this book is to situate the place beyond the city as an epistemological vantage point for researching youth. Existing frameworks about young people privilege large urban centres or ‘global cities’ and create forms of marginality that are at once spatial and epistemological. This book interrogates and moves beyond these boundaries, turning the margins into a unique position for understanding youth and examining forms of difference w…
Aspiring to higher education in regional and remote Australia
Students from regional and remote areas remain significantly under-represented in higher education despite decades of equity policy designed to encourage participation. One explanation is that policy initiatives often overlook the realities in local rural contexts that can make higher education less desirable. Applying the theoretical lens of ‘doxic’ and ‘habituated’ aspirations, this paper analyzes interviews with 13 students, 10 parents/carers,…
On ‘being first’
For more than three decades, Australian higher education policy has been guided by a national equity framework focussed on six underrepresented target groups: Indigenous Australians, people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, people from regional and remote areas, people with disabilities, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and women in non-traditional areas of study. Despite bringing equitable access to the forefront of univers…
Degrees of “being first”
Universities have increasingly adopted “first-generation status” as a new category for addressing equity in higher education, especially in the UK and Australia. This category targets students whose parents do not have a university degree and therefore are “newcomers” to higher education. While the category is well-intentioned, given the persistence of inequitable enrolment patterns and the need to widen participation, it has resulted in a fairly…
Scaling up effective professional development
Delivering effective professional development (PD) at scale necessitates a careful balance between program integrity and local adaptation. Drawing on qualitative case study data, this paper explores tensions in the implementation of a successful PD program, Quality Teaching Rounds, within two contrasting school communities in New South Wales, Australia. Using the theoretical distinction between ostensive and performative aspects of implementation…
Shifting from distributive to recognitional social justice for rural educators through professional development
Progress towards equitable schooling and educational outcomes in Australia has been notoriously slow, with countless reports highlighting stark inequities between rural areas and urban centres. Most reforms have been grounded in distributive notions of social justice – addressing funding, staffing, and resourcing – but fail to address other domains of injustice manifest in the positioning of the rural as Other, as deficit or in need of saving. To…
New possibilities for engaging school teachers in widening participation
Access to higher education remains elusive for many young people despite substantial investment in outreach interventions, most of which target students in underrepresented equity groups. This paper explores an alternative approach to widening participation in Australia that focuses on teacher professional development to support student aspirations. We examine school teachers’ responses to a course designed to develop their conceptual understandi…
Problematising the ‘job-ready graduate’ ideal in Australian higher education
Employability agendas now pervade the higher education landscape of many Western nations. In Australia, employability as both a discourse and related set of practices has recently reached fever-pitch as a result of the Job-ready graduates policy reforms, which have generated an image of an ‘ideal’ job-ready graduate who selects a degree in the national interest and develops value-added industry skills throughout their studies. In this paper, we p…
Pressure to attend university
Securing stable, well-paid employment has become increasingly difficult for youth world-wide, negatively affecting their health and wellbeing. In recent years, this job insecurity has been exacerbated by compounding natural, economic, and social disasters. At the same time, young people are increasingly being encouraged to pursue higher education to secure a more viable future. This paper examines the post-school transitions of 22 Australian scho…
Bolstering teacher retention through collaborative professional development
Teacher retention is a growing challenge across school sectors and regions throughout many Western nations. Workloads have expanded and accountability pressures increased, with teachers often left feeling isolated, unsupported, and with low morale. Media reports blaming teachers for poor school outcomes compound the problem. In Australia, approaches to tackling retention commonly focus on teacher supply, looking to improve initial teacher educati…
How early entry schemes can help to widen access to higher education
With widening access to higher education remaining a sought-after but elusive goal, escalating attention has been directed at alternative admissions pathways and selection methods to increase and expand enrolment. In Australia, early entry schemes are one such pathway that has risen in prominence and use in recent years, allowing Year 12 students to gain entry to university using criteria other than (or in addition to) an Australian Tertiary Admi…
Making teaching more attractive
Sustaining teaching as a respected and attractive profession is more critical than ever, particularly as teachers' work becomes increasingly shaped by standardisation and accountability—conditions that have shown minimal positive impact while eroding the professional agency essential to job satisfaction. Drawing on a 15‐year programme of research on the impact of an approach to professional development, known as Quality Teaching Rounds, including…
“We’ve got a bit of a family mantra that you don’t give up”
Numerous studies consider the reasons why students, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups, decide to depart university prior to completing their studies. Much of this attrition research focuses on the problems students encounter during their studies and the ways these issues might curtail their ability to sustain academic engagement. In this paper, we instead focus on the ways in which students, all of whom are first in the…
Sociology (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Education Systems and Policy (9 works) · Higher education (9 works) · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics (8 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Social science (6 works)