Understanding Sociological Theory for Educational Practices

Emily M. Gray, Megan Watkins, Ren Perkins, Amy Thomson, Marnee Shay, Kerry H. Robinson, Susanne Gannon, Christine Woodrow, Jacqueline D'warte, Loshini Naidoo, Zainab Mourad, Angel Chan, Jenny Ritchie

Tania Ferfolja is Associate Professor in social and cultural diversity in the School of Education and Centre for Educational Research at Western Sydney University, Australia. Tania has been teaching pre-service teachers for over twenty years. She is passionate about equity and the critical need to create change for a sustainable and regenerative future. Her teaching focusses on issues of equity, discrimination, social justice, and social and cultural inclusion. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards for this work. Tania's research focusses on gender and sexuality diverse subjectivities in education. She is well-published in the field; her most recent book is titled, Gender and Sexuality Diversity in a Culture of Limitation: Student and Teacher Experiences in Schools (Ferfolja & Ullman, 2020, Routledge). She is currently co-authoring another book based on a large Australian research study. The book is titled Understanding Parents' Perceptions of Gender and Sexuality Diversity in the Classroom. Allied. Opposed. Unsure (Ferfolja & Ullman, forthcoming, Routledge). This research has also produced a playscript, film and professional learning materials for educators. See www.westernsydney.edu.au/gsds.

Criss Jones Díaz is a Senior Lecturer in diversity studies and languages education in the School of Education at Western Sydney University and a researcher in the Centre for Educational Research. She collaborates with educators providing professional development on diversity and difference, multilingualism, early literacies and languages learning in childhood. Her research and publications are in critical and cultural studies focussing on languages, literacies and identity negotiation in contexts of diversity and difference. She has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles, book chapters and books pertaining to her area of expertise. With national and international colleagues, she is currently working on research examining home/community language retention and loss in young children from birth to five years who are attending early childhood settings in New South Wales, Australia.

Jacqueline Ullman is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Western Sydney University, where she teaches pre-service secondary teachers in the areas of sociology of education, educational psychology and research methods. Her research explores the schooling and workplace experiences of gender and sexuality diverse young people, including relevant investigations of policy and policy 'translation'. Jacqueline's Free2Be ...Yet? project (2021), her second Australian national survey of gender and sexuality diverse high school students, investigated the relationship between students' reported school climate and school wellbeing. Jacqueline's federally funded research has culminated in numerous publicly available outputs for educators, including books, journal articles, and a package of research-informed professional development resources for teachers titled, What Parents Want: Talking about Gender and Sexuality Diversity in School and available on www.westernsydney.edu.au/gsds.