Kevin Lowe (kevin.lowe@unsw.edu.au) is a Gubbi Gubbi man from southeast Queensland. He is a Scientia Indigenous Fellow at UNSW, working on a community and school focused research project on developing a model of sustainable improvement in Aboriginal education. Kevin has had experience in education as a teacher, administrator and lecturer. He has expertise in working with Aboriginal community organisations on establishing Aboriginal language...view more
Kevin Lowe (kevin.lowe@unsw.edu.au) is a Gubbi Gubbi man from southeast Queensland. He is a Scientia Indigenous Fellow at UNSW, working on a community and school focused research project on developing a model of sustainable improvement in Aboriginal education. Kevin has had experience in education as a teacher, administrator and lecturer. He has expertise in working with Aboriginal community organisations on establishing Aboriginal language policy and school curriculum implementation. Recently Kevin has worked with colleagues to review research across key areas of schooling and established the Aboriginal Voices a broad-base, holistic project which is developing a new pedagogic framework for teachers.
My Grants
ARC Discovery Indigenous 2020 (IN210100038)
Title: A qualitative and quantitative study of the issues affecting the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the Australian Curriculum: Problems and Solutions.
The Indigenous curriculum content in the Australian Curriculum is tasked as the latest attempt to improve outcomes for Indigenous students. This project aims to investigate how teachers approach this cross-curriculum mandate, consider teachers’ attitudes regarding the teaching of Indigenous content, and identify the complex factors that act as barriers to the success of teaching this content. Employing an innovative design that combines policy analysis, survey research and qualitative research to consider the structural, epistemic and curriculum factors impacting on the success of this policy mandate. This will illuminate the affordances and constraints of new ways of understanding the inclusion of Indigenous content into the curriculum.
Award: $330,000
NSW Department of Education: Strategic Funding Grant 2020 (RG203639)
Title: Aboriginal-led teacher professional learning to improve teaching and learning
The primary aim of the Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project is to affect structural, sustainable change in Aboriginal education through local Aboriginal community-led teacher professional learning programs. Such an undertaking is urgently required, as was reiterated earlier this year with the launch of the revised ‘closing the gap’ policy as many Aboriginal students are not well served by Australian schooling. The proposed project is a collaborative undertaking between local Aboriginal communities, educators, and University researchers in 5 city/regional/rural NSW secondary schools. It forms part of an initiative known as the Aboriginal Voices: Transforming Indigenous Education (AV) program based on the researchers’ rigorous systematic analysis and synthesis of a decade of research in Indigenous education.
Award: $583,000
My Qualifications
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Ph.D:
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Newcastle University
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2016
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M.Ed.
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Australian Catholic University
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2008
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M Litt. (Preliminary) Politics:
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University of New England
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1995
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Graduate Certificate Public Service Management: 2003
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University of Western Sydney
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2003
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Associate Diploma Horticulture:
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University of New England - Orange
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1992
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Graduate Dip. Teacher Librarianship
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Kur-ring-gai CAE
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1988
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BA Dip. Education:
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Macquarie University
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1975
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My Awards
- Equity Award – Public Service Medal - 2003
- Silver Award – NSW Premier’s Public Sector Award 2008
- Colin Marsh Award Australian Curriculum Studies Association 2013
- AARE – Best Paper 2018
My Research Activities
The failure of the Close the Gap strategy and the systemic nature of Aboriginal student underachievement indicates the critical need for a new educational paradigm.The Aboriginal Voices project aims to transform the schooling experiences of Aboriginal students by developing and trialling a model that promotes high quality education outcomes with the active acknowledgement of Aboriginal cultures. The significance of this research is that it moves beyond policy current rhetoric to analyse the educational experiences of Aboriginal communities, its impact on engagement, and build a whole-of-school model of sustainable success. The key outcome is an evaluated model of education for NSW schools.The research to date has completed a series of systematic reviews of recent educational research in Australia across 11 areas of education endeavour where Aboriginal students and their schooling have been researched. A second phase of the project has seen 5 papers written an aspects of Culturally Nourishing Schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.The current phase of the project will see the development of an overarching framework for an Australian model of Culturally Nourishing Schooling, with concurrent work being undertaken in school leadership, pedagogic practice, community engagement and student aspirations.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2982-6565