Overview
Background
children's citizenship, children's rights, storytelling, arts-based methodologies
Phillips is an academic in the School of Education, where she teaches early years, arts and literacy education. Louise has more than twenty-five years of experience in early childhood education and eight years of experience researching children’s rights and citizenship. Her interest in children’s rights in education is reflected in her active membership of the European Educational Research Association Network Research on children’s rights in education and her position as one of two international partners on the Swedish Research Council grant Education as a greenhouse for children´s and young people´s human rights. Furthering research in children’s citizenship, Louise is co-principal investigator of Civic Action and Learning with Young Children: Comparing Approaches in New Zealand, Australia and the United States (funded by the US Spencer Foundation), leading the Australian investigation of preschoolers’ civic capabilities. Louise is one of eight Australians to be granted a prestigious Spencer Foundation major grant in the last ten years. Her interest in children’s citizenship has also led her to collaborate with social practice artists to explore opportunities for children’s participation in the public sphere through an innovative relational arts project titled The Walking Neighbourhood hosted by Children. The innovation of this arts-research collaboration has been awarded: The University of Queensland Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences Innovation Award (2013); and the international Walk21 Walking Visionaries Jury Prize (2015). Louise holds a national professional role as Convenor of the Qualitative Research Methodologies Special Interest Group for the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE).
Availability
- Dr Louise Phillips is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Education, Queensland University of Technology
- Doctor of Philosophy, Queensland University of Technology
Research interests
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children's citizenship
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storytelling
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arts-based research methodologies
Research impacts
The participatory art project The Walking Neighbourhood hosted by children is an arts and research collaboration that provokes rethinking of the geographies of fear (Valentine, 2004) that control children’s limited access to the public sphere (e.g., see Gill, 2007, Malone, & Rudner, 2011), and perpetuate commonly held perceptions of children as incompetent becomings (e.g., see Coady, 2008). The Walking Neighbourhood project confronts the public imaginary through public performance of child-led neighbourhood walks that foreground children’s visibility and independence in public spaces. The project supports the inclusion of children and children’s perspectives in urban participation. To date the project has taken place in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia; Old Chiang Mai City, Chiang Mai, Thailand; Bagot, Darwin, Australia; Seoul, Korea; Redfern and Kings Cross, Australia; Kuopio, Finland.
Adult audience members interviewed after experiencing a child-led walk consistently speak with delight of the experience and how it invoked them to understand children and the neighbourhood differently, cultivating (re)thinking and (re)imagining of children, childhood and public spaces, effectively cultivating public pedagogy. Two professions who have voluntarily declared the impact of The Walking Neighbourhood project on their practice are urban designers and city councillors. Urban designers intently listen to and observe the young walk hosts' interactions with urban spaces and assert the inclusion of consultation with children in their future designs. City councillors see the performance of child-led walks as a means to foreground the inclusion of children and families in council policy and plans. In sum, the project produces intergenerational civic learning and engagement which in turn builds stronger communities. Cultural exchange between participants furthers intercultural understandings and empathy nurturing social participation of young people as active citizens of urban communities today.
Works
Search Professor Louise Phillips’s works on UQ eSpace
2010
Conference Publication
Emergent motifs of social justice storytelling
Phillips, Louise (2010). Emergent motifs of social justice storytelling. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association 2010, Denver, CO, United States, 30 April - 4 May 2010. Washington, DC, United States: American Educational Research Association.
2009
Conference Publication
Provoking critical awareness and intersubjectivity through 'transformative storytelling'
Phillips, Louise (2009). Provoking critical awareness and intersubjectivity through 'transformative storytelling'. Australian Association for Research in Education International Education Research Conference 2008 (AARE 2008), Brisbane, Australia, 30 November - 4 December 2008. Deakin, ACT, Australia: Australian Association for Research in Education.
2008
Conference Publication
Young children's active citizenship inspired through transformative storytelling
Phillips, Louise (2008). Young children's active citizenship inspired through transformative storytelling. American Educational Research Association 2008 Annual Meeting, New York, USA, 24 - 28 March 2008. New York, United States: American Educational Research Association.
2000
Journal Article
Storytelling: The seeds of children's creativity
Phillips, L. (2000). Storytelling: The seeds of children's creativity. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 25 (3), 1-5.
Funding
Past funding
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Louise Phillips is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Master Philosophy
Ladies who stitch - online craft communities and what they can teach workplace Learning & Development
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Liz Mackinlay
Completed supervision
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2022
Doctor Philosophy
For the love of good stories: A narrative inquiry into a reading for enjoyment pedagogy
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Liz Mackinlay
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
Students who struggle with literacy in the print culture of high school: Exploring strategies for success
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Liz Mackinlay
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2020
Doctor Philosophy
Teacher data agency and the mediation of new ways of knowing in schools: A socio-cultural perspective of professional learning, relationships and educational change
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Bob Lingard
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Storytelling as Pedagogy to Facilitate Meaning-Making in English Learning as a Foreign Language for Young Learners
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Peter Renshaw
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Understanding Education for Sustainability through Systems Thinking and the Complex Adaptive System Approach: A Case Study at a Malaysian University
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Peter Renshaw
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2022
Doctor Philosophy
An Investigation of the Contours of Children's Perezhivaniya Arising From a Narrative-Based Environmental Education Program.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Peter Renshaw
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2018
Doctor Philosophy
An investigation of the enacted primary English language education policy in Vietnam: The experiences of teachers, students and parents
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Peter Renshaw, Associate Professor Obaid Hamid
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2017
Doctor Philosophy
Literacy, change, and globalisation: literacy practices in a rural Lao village
Associate Advisor
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2016
Doctor Philosophy
iKnow, iAm, iPad: A Reflexive Microethnographic Investigation of iPad-using High School Students
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Peter Renshaw
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2016
Doctor Philosophy
Exploring children's experiences of NAPLAN: Beyond the cacophony of adult debate
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Bob Lingard
Media
Enquiries
Contact Dr Louise Phillips directly for media enquiries about:
- children's citizenship
- children's rights
- early childhood education
- early literacy development
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