Exploring Equity, Inclusion and Agency in Education by Marcelle Cacciattolo

Exploring Equity, Inclusion and Agency in Education by Marcelle Cacciattolo

This book focuses on themes such as inclusion in action, schooling during challenging times, engaging teaching spaces, social justice standpoints, student/teacher agency, preservice teacher voices, criticality in educative spaces and children and agency. It provides a lens into educational contexts that fuel or hinder human flourishing. This book explores a range of social justice themes through the power of learning spaces, institutional educative standpoints and teaching approaches. Cultural, social and economic injustices that perpetuate cycles of disadvantage and oppressive narratives are also examined and discussed. This book celebrates, critiques, and reimagines different theoretical frameworks that underpin equitable and inclusive educative landscapes. Attention is directed towards building the capacities of educators to understand and respond to national and global factors that impact on emancipatory education. This book is a ‘Call to Action’ for educators to stand in the shoes of our least advantaged learners and communities, and the chapter authors embody and enact a political and moral mindset that privileges all voices in respectful and proactive ways. It highlights how transformative learning spaces are made up of educators who understand the importance of engaging in scholarly reflection and practice.

Marcelle Cacciattolo is a sociologist and a professor in the College of Arts and Education at Victoria University, Australia. Marcelle is an associate director of Research Training in the Institute of Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities. Her research is cross-disciplinary, involving health sciences and education-based research, and currently focuses on trauma-informed teaching and learning approaches.

Professor Jenene Burke is the Deputy Dean in the Institute of Education, Arts and Community at Federation University Australia. As a teacher educator and academic, Jenene’s research has centred on children’s play in inclusive play spaces and learning in inclusive contexts. Jenene is the Immediate Past President of the World Federation of Associations for Teacher Education (WFATE).