Our Purpose
Rationale
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
- Scott, T. (2023) Towards a Pedagogy for Radical Hope: Developing a whole school approach to refugee education. Supplementary Volume. Learning in Practice. Barker Institute: Hornsby.
- Scott, T (2023) Three comments on a whole school approach to refugee education. Learning in Practice 7 (1), pp.61-68.
- Pitkin, L. and Scott, T. (2023) Nurturing Cultural Responsiveness: A snapshot of professional learning initiatives improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students. Learning in Practice 7 (1), pp.83-92.
- Pitkin, L (2022) The Garma Experience - Connecting to Community and Country. Learning in Practice 6 (1), pp.67-74.
- Mynott, S. & Glendenning, M. (2020) Exploring education environments for First Nations students: Learning on Country Learning in Practice 4 (1), pp. 65-70.
Publications
Term 3... and that’s a wrap!
(Or four highlights from a very active term)
- Dr Timothy Scott
- 27 September 2024
Talking research over tea.
It was a small group of staff that came together yesterday afternoon for the Barker Institute’s very first ResearchMeet. Here are some quick reflections on this event.
- Dr Timothy Scott
- 20 September 2024
News from Dhupuma Barker
Recent news, 2024, from the School on County in North East Arnhem land. Launch of a student YouTube channel.
- 24 May 2024
Fostering and supporting refugee education – the first part of the story.
Engaging in school-based educational research is not merely about observing positive impacts on teaching and learning; it's about actively contributing to transformative changes.
- Dr Timothy Scott
- 22 February 2024
International Human Rights Under Pressure - What can Barker do?
Patricia Garcia AO, international human rights advocate and Partnership Development Manager at the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), opened the final Barker Institute event for 2023.
- Dr Timothy Scott, with Bianca and Lachlan (Social Justice Captains)
- 10 November 2023
Truth Telling: Stories from the Kinchela Boys Home
As part of Reconciliation Week 2023 at Barker two survivors from the Kinchela Boys Home visited the school to share firsthand voices of those remaining from the stolen generation.
- 29 May 2023
Publication of the 6th Edition of Learning in Practice: The Barker Institute Journal
Publishing the close-to-practice research that takes place within the Barker community is an important part of the Barker Institute’s role within the school. We are keen to share what has been learnt by experts in education, be those expert classroom practitioners, pastoral care and wellbeing leaders, or school leaders. Learning in Practice is a published conversation in which reflections on practice take place, and professional learning and development benefit.
- Dr Timothy Scott, Dr Matthew Hill
- 20 February 2023
Phillip Heath in Conversation with Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM
A conversation with Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM, leading actor, politician and activist
- 10 April 2018