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Research
Domain 02

Humanitarian Education

The Barker Institute will undertake research projects that will provide research-informed practical advice and guidance to educational practitioners and leaders about Humanitarian Education.

Our Purpose

The aim of projects within this domain is to contribute to the capacity of educational practitioners and leaders to develop learning environments where linguistically and culturally diverse students, such as those with First Nations Australians or refugee backgrounds, can access meaningful learning from within the safety and security of their own cultural heritage and identity.

Rationale

With a concern for our shared humanity, Barker College seeks to be a school where students learn about and engage with diverse cultures in ways that recognise commonalities and differences, create connections with others, and cultivate mutual respect.

Barker seeks a culturally responsive education, where a student’s cultural strength and purpose sit alongside the academic expectations of the Australian curriculum. This aligns with Barker’s belief that education is an empowering and enabling right for First Nations Australians students and children and young people with a refugee background. This presents an opportunity to further investigate approaches to schooling that best meet the educational needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students, including those with First Nations Australians or refugee backgrounds. It also opens avenues for research to take place on how intercultural learning and understanding can be explicitly valued and taught with greater intentionality, in the context of supporting schools to have a transformative global impact framed by social cohesion, justice and hope.

Research Questions

  • How might learning and teaching inspire and empower linguistically and culturally diverse students, including those with First Nations Australians or refugee backgrounds, to achieve goals relating to their studies, their identity, and their life after school?
  • How might intercultural learning and understanding help prepare young people to have a transformative global impact framed by social cohesion, justice, and hope?
  • How might schools best design, implement, and evaluate authentic and impactful intercultural learning in the context of humanitarian education?

Selected Projects & Writings