Sherridan Emery

Pride groups are widely recognised in international literature as fostering inclusion, improving school climate, and reducing bias-based bullying for LGBTIQA + youth. This qualitative study explores how leadership of school-based pride groups in Tasmanian public schools is understood and practised by key stakeholders. Drawing on the thematic analysis of interviews with school staff and focus groups with pride group participants, the research highlights the transformative potential of these student-led groups. Our findings affirm this outcome in the Tasmanian context, with students describing pride groups as essential spaces of safety, belonging, and affirmation in school environments that often remain hostile or unsupportive. At the same time, the findings highlight the structural limitations that constrain these groups. Pride groups are frequently hampered by reliance on voluntary staff labour, inconsistent institutional recognition, and narrow policy framings that valourise visible, student-led leadership while overlooking the relational and emotional labour young people perform. The findings caution against responsibilising LGBTIQA+ students to lead cultural change without adequate support, and foreground the need to recognise care-based, relational forms of leadership that are central to how these groups operate. This study contributes to a growing body of research that calls for a more nuanced understanding of student leadership and systemic responsibility in fostering inclusion in schools. Ensuring that pride groups serve both as refuges from hostile environments and platforms for agency will require sustained institutional commitment, recognition of diverse leadership practices, and structural support for the staff and students who carry the important work of pride group leadership.

Introduction: The school‐to‐work transition (SWT) is complex for young people. The postpandemic era, characterized by rapidly evolving economies and technologies, has augmented the complexity of negotiating such pathways. Despite this, young people—understood here through the lens of emergent adulthood—are often positioned as wholly responsible for navigating their own pathways beyond school. Methods: A pragmatic case study approach was used to analyze qualitative data collected from three SWT partnership programs (UniHub, Australian School‐based Apprenticeships [ASbAs], and Regional Learning Pathways [RLPs]) aimed at young people (2018–2023) in regional areas of Tasmania, Australia. For each program, participants were interviewed ( N = 6 [UniHub]; N = 23 [ASbAs]; N = 44 [RLPs]) and surveyed ( N = 350 [UniHub]; N = 21 [ASbAs]), and data were thematically analyzed to identify the role of boundary‐crossers in SWT partnerships. Results: Boundary‐crosser work emerged as a key component of the sampled SWT partnerships. Enabling features of boundary‐crossing work in partnerships include accessibility, support contextualized to the region and individual—like reducing barriers to equity—and using clear communication approaches. This role redistributed responsibility in the SWT to a partnership between schools, pathways, and young people. Conclusions: Whereas literature and policy underscore the economic and developmental importance of SWT, the contribution of this article is research and data that nuance understanding of how SWT partnerships can share the responsibility of the SWT by designing in the program a boundary‐crosser role. The concept of boundary‐crosser work in SWT partnerships offers a novel approach for policymakers in policy and practice to rethink how the SWT is supported.

This chapter explores the assessment experiences of mature-aged undergraduate university students in regional and remote Australia by analysing 51 student interviews and open-ended survey questions from a national mixed-methods study. The qualitative data analysis found that students did not always understand what was required in assessment tasks; experienced difficulties in receiving timely clarification of such tasks; and had practical concerns around deadlines and challenges with receiving extensions. These experiences exacerbated the stress experienced in undertaking assessment tasks. Positive experiences were also reported – particularly, receiving support from academic staff, as well as assessment tasks being contextualised for a student's regional/remote location. The themes are interpreted from the perspective of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to identify the layers of the ecological system and the array of influences that impact on the students’ experiences of assessment. These include the neoliberalisation of higher education, the strain on higher education budgets, and the resultant casualisation of the university teaching workforce, as well as university rules and regulations that are at odds with students’ needs and experiences. The chapter concludes by proposing some approaches to moving towards more inclusive assessment.

The study reported in this paper sought to explore whether and how social capital resources were generated on online peer support mental health forums, and how they were used by rural users to influence mental health outcomes. Interviews with rural users of three Australian online peer support mental health forums were analysed to identify interactions that accessed social capital resources and mental wellness outcomes that flowed from these. Analysis drew on a model of simultaneous building and using of social capital to uncover the nature of the social capital resources present on the forum and how they were built. Findings show that forums were sites for building ‘knowledge resources’ including archives of users’ experiences of navigating mental illness and the mental health service system; and ‘identity resources’ including a willingness to contribute in line with forum values. The knowledge and identity resources built and available to rural users on the forums are facilitated by forum characteristics, which can be viewed as affordances of technology and institutional affordances. Operation by trusted organisations, moderation, a large network of users and anonymity created a safe space that encouraged reciprocity and where users exchanged information and social support that helped them maintain better mental wellness.

While fostering a sense of belonging among university students is an objective of many universities, the landscape of belonging is complex and multifaceted. It is worthy of deeper interrogation, particularly for “non-traditional” students. This article draws on data from a national mixed-methods study that explored proactive ways of supporting the mental wellbeing of mature-aged students in regional and remote Australia. One of the overarching findings was students feeling invisible, misunderstood and undervalued. While this theme was relevant for many participants, it was also the case that other participants reported feeling visible, known and a sense of belonging. These inconsistencies prompted us to conduct further analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data, which were collected from a cross-sectional online survey of 1,879 mature-aged undergraduate students in regional and remote Australia and 51 interviews. We employed Yuval-Davis’s analytical framework for the study of belonging. In the quantitative analyses, several variables were found to have a significant association with inclusion/connection/belonging. They included: study mode; socio-economic status; having a diagnosed mental health condition; and supports. In the qualitative analysis, we explored students’ experiences in greater depth to gain insights into why some students experience belonging and others do not. Connections and relationships with university staff; familiarity with university systems and places; and feeling included and “part of” a subject/course/campus manifested in students feeling understood, known and a sense of belonging. Due to certain entrenched institutional approaches, in many cases, students’ experiences fell short of the supportive and caring learning communities that pedagogical approaches advocate.

Inclusive school environments have been shown to improve educational outcomes, retention, mental health and overall wellbeing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students. Anti-bullying approaches have been common strategies used in schools to promote safety for all students, yet a well-established critique among scholars and educators suggests such approaches by themselves are insufficient. Little research exists investigating the spatial aspects of forming LGBTQ-inclusive school cultures. This article reports on an Australian study exploring teachers’ and school staff understandings of how space influences inclusion and how they negotiateed or established ‘safe spaces’ for LGBTQ students. Drawing on the work of Edward Soja, we explored how participants constituted safety in conceived and perceived spaces, and how this informed the ways in which physical environments were established in the lived space to promote inclusion. We reveal the role of physical, discursive and curriculum spaces in everyday schooling activities and practices to promote LGBTQ inclusion.

This article shines a light on a little-known cohort of higher education participants, mature-aged students in, and from, regional and remote Australia – the focus of a National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education mixed-methods study. Notable patterns were found in the quantitative data; for instance, compared to their metropolitan counterparts, higher proportions of regional and remote students were older, female, from low socio-economic status areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and studied online and/or part-time. The presentation of four vignettes from the interviews uncovers the stories behind the numbers, revealing students’ diverse and complex circumstances; two of the students shared experiences of facing systemic obstacles, while the other two described receiving invaluable institutional support. The obstacles can be attributed to systems designed for “ideal”, “implied” and “traditional” students, and entrenched attitudes that privilege some “types” of students over others and limit the aim of full participation for all students.