Barry Down
Biographic Data
| ID | 765351 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Barry Down |
| GIVEN NAMES | Barry |
| FAMILY NAME | Down |
| SIGNATURE | DOWN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Murdoch University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4843-0563 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
How policies of school exclusion frame practice
This article reports on a comparative policy analysis which examined education policy guiding the use of exclusionary discipline practices across four Australian states (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland). Exclusionary practices, such as suspensions and exclusions, are commonly used to respond to problematic student behaviour, yet their effectiveness as a behaviour management strategy remains unsupported by research. Th…
What is missing in policy discourses about school exclusions
This article reports on a critical policy analysis of discourses related to school exclusions. The management of problematic student behaviour is one of the intractable problems facing education systems today. Despite being ineffective, school suspensions and exclusions are commonly used in many countries as a discipline strategy to manage student behaviour. We adopted a critical policy analysis approach in a case in Australia to examine what is …
Social class and streaming in contexts of educational disadvantage
This article critically examines the everyday practices of streaming working-class students into vocational education and training pathways in public high schools in Western Australia. It challenges existing beliefs, assumptions and practices underpinning the ways in which students are artificially divided into academic and non-academic forms of school knowledge at a young age. In a country that prides itself on the myth of egalitarianism, we arg…
Letter Writing and Critical Self-Reflection
Sharing the lived experience of academic casualisation is challenging, based on a power imbalance with many oppositional points, including cost savings versus fair wages, precarity versus security. As researcher/participant, Jennifer initially struggled with sharing experiences emotionally and academically without stripping humanity and affect from her writing. Drawing on the tradition of critical autoethnography, this article uses letter writing…
Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling
This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it…
The SAGE Handbook of Critical Pedagogies
Shaking up’ neoliberal policy in schools
Our research is driven by a strong belief that the stories of young people gathered through ethnographic interviews can generate awareness not only of the complexities, uncertainties and possibilities of young people’s lives but also the ways in which their identities and life chances are shaped by broader structural, institutional and historical forces beyond their control. In this article, we introduce Jacinta, a young person who describes the …
Problematising vocational education and training in schools
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the…
Promoting early career teacher resilience
In this paper, we undertake a brief review of the ‘conventional’ research into the problems of early career teachers to create a juxtaposed position from which to launch an alternative approach based on resilience theory. We outline four reasons why a new contextualised, social theory of resilience has the potential to open up the field of research into the professional lives of teachers and to produce new insights into the social, cultural and p…
Scaffolding young Australian women's journey to motherhood
Pregnant and young mothers' stories often go untold within community social and health service policy, planning and practice. Consequently, there is a significant gap between young women's experiences of motherhood and current service provision. This study was undertaken in response to a paucity of observational and contextually rich research that explores young women's experiences of pregnancy and motherhood, including the role a community servi…
Arts practice and disconnected youth in Australia
Background : This paper describes research conducted with Big h ART, Australia's most awarded participatory arts company. It considers three projects, LUCKY, GOLD and NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI across separate sites in Tasmania, Western NSW and Northern Territory, respectively, in order to understand project impact from the perspective of project participants, Arts workers, community members and funders. Methods : Semi-structured interviews were conduct…
Critically re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience
In this paper, we describe how and why we adopted a socially critical orientation to early career teacher resilience. In re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience, we expose the normative components of resilience by revealing the implicit values, beliefs and assumptions that underpin most traditional conceptions of resilience. We argue against the hyper-individualisation of the concept because it leads to a diminution of the influence of…
Getting a job’
This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that…
‘Coming to a place near you?’ The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based education
It may seem something of a paradox that in a globalised age where notions of interdependence, interconnectedness and common destinies abound, the ‘local’, with its diversity of cultures, languages, histories and geographies, continues to exercise a powerful grip on the human imagination. The ties that bind us have global connections but are anchored in a strong sense of locality. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based educ…
Schooling, productivity and the enterprising self
This paper argues that under the influence of neoliberalism the role of schooling has been narrowly redefined as helping students to gain the knowledge and skills to 'get a job'. Drawing on the recent policy pronouncements of the new Rudd Labor Government in Australia, the paper examines how the advocates of human capital theory have effectively articulated the linkage between productivity, education and global competitiveness. The paper problema…
Policy Decisionmaking Models in Practice
While there is an extensive body of literature on a range of policy decisionmaking models, there is a lack of supporting case studies about the lived experiences of policymakers and the usefulness of various decisionmaking models in practice. This article examines two traditional models of decisionmaking, namely crisis theory and the rational comprehensive model, to assess their strengths and limitations in explaining the introduction of the cont…
What are teachers saying about new managerialism
Since the mid-1970s, successive federal and state governments have redefined the governance structure of Australian schooling in accordance with the principles of the market and its corollary new managerialism (Hartley 1997; Marginson 1997; Robertson 2000; Yeatman 1990). Morley and Rassool (1999, p 61) argue that ‘the introduction of markets and managers has been a generic transformational device designed to restructure and reorient public servic…
Schooling, productivity and the enterprising self
This paper argues that under the influence of neoliberalism the role of schooling has been narrowly redefined as helping students to gain the knowledge and skills to 'get a job'. Drawing on the recent policy pronouncements of the new Rudd Labor Government in Australia, the paper examines how the advocates of human capital theory have effectively articulated the linkage between productivity, education and global competitiveness. The paper problema…
Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling
This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it…
Critically re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience
In this paper, we describe how and why we adopted a socially critical orientation to early career teacher resilience. In re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience, we expose the normative components of resilience by revealing the implicit values, beliefs and assumptions that underpin most traditional conceptions of resilience. We argue against the hyper-individualisation of the concept because it leads to a diminution of the influence of…
Arts practice and disconnected youth in Australia
Background : This paper describes research conducted with Big h ART, Australia's most awarded participatory arts company. It considers three projects, LUCKY, GOLD and NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI across separate sites in Tasmania, Western NSW and Northern Territory, respectively, in order to understand project impact from the perspective of project participants, Arts workers, community members and funders. Methods : Semi-structured interviews were conduct…
Policy Decisionmaking Models in Practice
While there is an extensive body of literature on a range of policy decisionmaking models, there is a lack of supporting case studies about the lived experiences of policymakers and the usefulness of various decisionmaking models in practice. This article examines two traditional models of decisionmaking, namely crisis theory and the rational comprehensive model, to assess their strengths and limitations in explaining the introduction of the cont…
What is missing in policy discourses about school exclusions
This article reports on a critical policy analysis of discourses related to school exclusions. The management of problematic student behaviour is one of the intractable problems facing education systems today. Despite being ineffective, school suspensions and exclusions are commonly used in many countries as a discipline strategy to manage student behaviour. We adopted a critical policy analysis approach in a case in Australia to examine what is …
Social class and streaming in contexts of educational disadvantage
This article critically examines the everyday practices of streaming working-class students into vocational education and training pathways in public high schools in Western Australia. It challenges existing beliefs, assumptions and practices underpinning the ways in which students are artificially divided into academic and non-academic forms of school knowledge at a young age. In a country that prides itself on the myth of egalitarianism, we arg…
Problematising vocational education and training in schools
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the…
Scaffolding young Australian women's journey to motherhood
Pregnant and young mothers' stories often go untold within community social and health service policy, planning and practice. Consequently, there is a significant gap between young women's experiences of motherhood and current service provision. This study was undertaken in response to a paucity of observational and contextually rich research that explores young women's experiences of pregnancy and motherhood, including the role a community servi…
Getting a job’
This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that…
Policy Decisionmaking Models in Practice
While there is an extensive body of literature on a range of policy decisionmaking models, there is a lack of supporting case studies about the lived experiences of policymakers and the usefulness of various decisionmaking models in practice. This article examines two traditional models of decisionmaking, namely crisis theory and the rational comprehensive model, to assess their strengths and limitations in explaining the introduction of the cont…
Schooling, productivity and the enterprising self
This paper argues that under the influence of neoliberalism the role of schooling has been narrowly redefined as helping students to gain the knowledge and skills to 'get a job'. Drawing on the recent policy pronouncements of the new Rudd Labor Government in Australia, the paper examines how the advocates of human capital theory have effectively articulated the linkage between productivity, education and global competitiveness. The paper problema…
‘Coming to a place near you?’ The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based education
It may seem something of a paradox that in a globalised age where notions of interdependence, interconnectedness and common destinies abound, the ‘local’, with its diversity of cultures, languages, histories and geographies, continues to exercise a powerful grip on the human imagination. The ties that bind us have global connections but are anchored in a strong sense of locality. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based educ…
Getting a job’
This article examines the highly disputed policy nexus around what on the surface appears to be the helpful field of vocational education and training. Despite the promises of vocational education and training to deliver individual labour market success and global competitiveness, the reality is that it serves to residualise unacceptably large numbers of young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, by reinforcing the myth that…
Arts practice and disconnected youth in Australia
Background : This paper describes research conducted with Big h ART, Australia's most awarded participatory arts company. It considers three projects, LUCKY, GOLD and NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI across separate sites in Tasmania, Western NSW and Northern Territory, respectively, in order to understand project impact from the perspective of project participants, Arts workers, community members and funders. Methods : Semi-structured interviews were conduct…
Critically re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience
In this paper, we describe how and why we adopted a socially critical orientation to early career teacher resilience. In re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience, we expose the normative components of resilience by revealing the implicit values, beliefs and assumptions that underpin most traditional conceptions of resilience. We argue against the hyper-individualisation of the concept because it leads to a diminution of the influence of…
Promoting early career teacher resilience
In this paper, we undertake a brief review of the ‘conventional’ research into the problems of early career teachers to create a juxtaposed position from which to launch an alternative approach based on resilience theory. We outline four reasons why a new contextualised, social theory of resilience has the potential to open up the field of research into the professional lives of teachers and to produce new insights into the social, cultural and p…
Scaffolding young Australian women's journey to motherhood
Pregnant and young mothers' stories often go untold within community social and health service policy, planning and practice. Consequently, there is a significant gap between young women's experiences of motherhood and current service provision. This study was undertaken in response to a paucity of observational and contextually rich research that explores young women's experiences of pregnancy and motherhood, including the role a community servi…
Problematising vocational education and training in schools
In Australia, like many western countries, there has been a convergence of education policy around a set of utilitarian and economistic approaches to vocational education and training in schools. Such approaches are based on the assumption that there is a direct relationship between national economic growth, productivity and human capital development resulting in the persuasive political argument that schools should be more closely aligned to the…
Shaking up’ neoliberal policy in schools
Our research is driven by a strong belief that the stories of young people gathered through ethnographic interviews can generate awareness not only of the complexities, uncertainties and possibilities of young people’s lives but also the ways in which their identities and life chances are shaped by broader structural, institutional and historical forces beyond their control. In this article, we introduce Jacinta, a young person who describes the …
The SAGE Handbook of Critical Pedagogies
Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling
This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it…
Letter Writing and Critical Self-Reflection
Sharing the lived experience of academic casualisation is challenging, based on a power imbalance with many oppositional points, including cost savings versus fair wages, precarity versus security. As researcher/participant, Jennifer initially struggled with sharing experiences emotionally and academically without stripping humanity and affect from her writing. Drawing on the tradition of critical autoethnography, this article uses letter writing…
Social class and streaming in contexts of educational disadvantage
This article critically examines the everyday practices of streaming working-class students into vocational education and training pathways in public high schools in Western Australia. It challenges existing beliefs, assumptions and practices underpinning the ways in which students are artificially divided into academic and non-academic forms of school knowledge at a young age. In a country that prides itself on the myth of egalitarianism, we arg…
What are teachers saying about new managerialism
Since the mid-1970s, successive federal and state governments have redefined the governance structure of Australian schooling in accordance with the principles of the market and its corollary new managerialism (Hartley 1997; Marginson 1997; Robertson 2000; Yeatman 1990). Morley and Rassool (1999, p 61) argue that ‘the introduction of markets and managers has been a generic transformational device designed to restructure and reorient public servic…
What is missing in policy discourses about school exclusions
This article reports on a critical policy analysis of discourses related to school exclusions. The management of problematic student behaviour is one of the intractable problems facing education systems today. Despite being ineffective, school suspensions and exclusions are commonly used in many countries as a discipline strategy to manage student behaviour. We adopted a critical policy analysis approach in a case in Australia to examine what is …
How policies of school exclusion frame practice
This article reports on a comparative policy analysis which examined education policy guiding the use of exclusionary discipline practices across four Australian states (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland). Exclusionary practices, such as suspensions and exclusions, are commonly used to respond to problematic student behaviour, yet their effectiveness as a behaviour management strategy remains unsupported by research. Th…
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Pedagogy (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Economics (4 works)