Daniel McKinnon

How do mob conceive of and enact success is schools?

We invite expressions of interest from prospective HDR students to join a community-led research project exploring the question: How do Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities conceive of and enact success in schools?

This project critically engages with prevailing definitions of educational "success" and instead centres community understandings, practices, and aspirations across diverse school settings. Using a mixed-methods, longitudinal case study approach, this research will foreground Indigenous voices and experiences, working in partnership with families, schools, and local knowledge holders.

Methodology Overview

1. A mixed-methods, longitudinal case study design to explore how success is defined and enacted in three community school sites.

2. At least 300 surveys will be conducted with school leaders, teachers, and parents, with the option for follow-up interviews involving students, families, and educators.

3. Survey data will be statistically analysed, while interviews will be thematically analysed to surface nuanced, relational understandings of success.

We strongly encourage applicants to develop their own methodological approaches within the broad framework of the project. Creative, community-embedded, and decolonial methodologies—including visual, participatory, or digital methods—are welcome. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are especially encouraged to apply and will be supported to shape the research in culturally safe and meaningful ways.

If you’re interested in working at the intersection of Indigenous sovereignty, education justice, and community-engaged research, we’d love to hear from you.

Digital Infrastructure for Indigenous Knowledge Data Sovereignty

We are seeking Higher Degree by Research (HDR) candidates to join a groundbreaking research project on Digital Infrastructure for Indigenous Knowledge Data Sovereignty. This project critically investigates how digital systems can be reimagined through Indigenous epistemologies, protocols, and governance structures, centring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty over data, design, and infrastructure.

Rather than imposing extractive or universalised systems, this project will prototype digital infrastructures grounded in Indigenous worldviews—relational, custodial, and contextually specific. It examines how community-led design and self-determined methods can challenge dominant technocratic paradigms and instead create platforms for knowledge sharing, cultural validation, and practical utility on Indigenous terms.

We strongly encourage applicants to develop their own methodological approaches within this framework. This may include participatory, speculative, or practice-based methods—especially those drawing from Indigenous research paradigms, design justice, or critical data studies.

We strongly encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to apply. You will be supported to shape the research in ways that honour Indigenous self-determination, cultural authority, data sovereignty and future-making.

This project will suit candidates interested in Indigenous sovereignty, critical infrastructure studies, digital design, and decolonial research practice. If you are passionate about co-creating Indigenous futures beyond the logics of Western systems, we would love to hear from you.