Bio

Sheelagh is a Kamilaroi woman originally from north-western New South Wales. She joined the Sydney School of Education and Social Work in 2017 as a Fellow in the Wingara Mura Leadership Program. In 2016, Sheelagh completed her doctorate titled: Culturally Responsive Pedagogies of Success: Improving educational outcomes for Australian Aboriginal students, at the University of South Australia. She has studied in the areas of education, criminology and psychology and has worked for academia, government and community agencies across a range of diverse areas including disability, homelessness, health promotion and community development.

Sheelagh’s research utilises the scholarship of culturally responsive pedagogy infused with Critical Colonial Race Theory modified from the wider scholarship of Critical Race Theory to work towards improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal students. Sheelagh is particularly interested in the area of racism in education and schooling and is currently focusing on pre-service teacher training.

Project

My time at Faber will enable me to have the opportunity to critically reflect upon the findings of my doctoral research. In this way, I hope to be able to extend the findings into future research so that they can be practically investigated and ultimately applied in pre-service teacher training. Furthermore, my time at Faber will be spent writing, collaborating and exploring what is happening globally in the field of education as a social justice imperative. This residency will give me the opportunity to develop strategies and responses to pre-existing racialized educational systems that, in Australia, have been borne out of two centuries of colonization.