With a rural NSW upbringing and a background in teaching, Dr Sally Patfield knows first-hand the inequalities of the education system. Today, through her research, she’s working hard to change thinking and policy to make it fairer for all.

Sally Patfield standing in a lecture theatre

“My research is situated within the sociology of education and specifically focuses on issues of equity and social justice,” says Sally.

While schools and universities purport to embody equality for students who experience marginalisation and forms of disadvantage, different layers of inequality exist.

These students include those who are the first in their family to attend university, those living in regional and remote Australia, and those from working-class and low socio-economic circumstances.

The inequality is systematic, institutional and embodied. It encompasses broader policy conditions, processes of marginalisation in schools and universities, and the effects of marginalisation/disadvantage, particularly in terms of how individuals see themselves – and how others see them.

“My work aims to analyse and critique different kinds of structural inequalities that shape young people’s experiences of schooling, their post-school educational transitions and their participation in higher education.

“I’m also working to understand and unpack the role of institutions like schools and universities in (re)producing inequality.”

However, she’s not just working to understand it. She’s also looking at ways in which we can enhance teaching and learning to achieve more equitable outcomes, from the school system to higher education.

Personal experience in the system

Sally was initially drawn to this work due to her own experience growing up in Scone, a small community in rural NSW, and being the first in her family to go to university.

“Higher education can be a profoundly transformative experience, but universities are still primarily geared towards those from more advantaged backgrounds.”

She’s also motivated by her time as a primary school teacher in NSW public schools.

“Teachers do an amazing job, but sadly, the system tends to fail those working in the most disadvantaged contexts – and, by extension, fails our most vulnerable young people.

“One of the core principles of the Australian education system is equity, yet we have one of the most inequitable education systems in the Western world and a higher education sector where your chances of getting in and succeeding are still heavily dependent on your background.

“Life chances and opportunities shouldn’t be determined by an individual’s circumstances or the unfair advantages embedded in a system that favours those who are already advantaged.”

Today, she loves hearing people’s stories – it resonates with her personally and professionally and makes her feel like her work is making a difference.

Reframing pathologising equity policy

While the government has attempted to alleviate skills shortages and address the under-representation of marginalised groups through an agenda of participation targets, funding allocations and institutional responsibilities, equity policy has often been pathologising.

It inherently blames young people from disadvantaged backgrounds for lacking aspiration and is often focused on rectifying perceived deficits in individuals and their families rather than making the system more inclusive and equitable.

“For example, millions of dollars are funnelled into outreach initiatives to help young people learn about university, understand the degrees on offer, and demonstrate what kinds of jobs they can get through higher education,” says Sally.

In and of themselves, these aren’t bad programs. But attention is more often directed at these kinds of initiatives rather than thinking about the way different practices within the education system, such as streaming, unfair school funding, and the perpetuation of ‘school choice’ models, can foreclose direct entry to university.

“They also misdirect attention away from the fact that students from certain backgrounds may be pushed into vocational education (both implicitly and explicitly) and the way particular discourses in society position students as unsuitable or undeserving of university because of their grades and/or background.”

Addressing the non-inclusive challenge

Sally’s work addresses these policy deficits and the challenge of creating inclusive pedagogical environments.

Part of this is about ensuring we continue to value the broad role of universities as places of knowledge and learning, not just as pathways to employment.

But this is a complex challenge because universities aren’t necessarily places which simplistically alleviate inequality – they can also reproduce inequality, says Sally.

“There are structures and practices within universities that can continue to exclude students from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds.

“For example, there’s an expectation now for students to ‘build up their resume with extracurricular activities to compete for jobs, while universities are increasingly focused on making students ‘job ready’.

“However, this situation isn’t so straightforward for students who need to work during their study or for those who are parents and caregivers.”

Enacting change and interventions

Sally is particularly passionate about communicating her research findings beyond academic channels to enact change and translate her findings into actionable interventions.

To date, she’s played a major role in developing and executing several novel equity interventions.

One of these is a large-scale professional development course called Aspirations: Supporting Student Futures, currently completed by 1,500 Australian teachers, which helps people develop a critical understanding of issues impacting access to higher education.

Another is a free Massive Open Online Course for parents/carers called When I Grow Up: Supporting Children’s Aspirations, which 2,000 people from 95 countries have completed so far.

In addition, she’s helped conceive and implement a new Master’s course at the University of Newcastle that helps school leaders build evidence-informed practice in relation to young people’s educational and occupational futures.

Opening up conversations

Her work is being recognised as empirically and conceptually innovative. It’s opening up important new conversations about higher education equity within the context of shifting axes of inequality and social change.

Sally also regularly delivers on-demand professional development for teachers and career advisors, focusing on higher education access and equity. Plus, she often communicates her project findings to the general public and key stakeholders through both written and broadcast mediums.

Examples of these mediums include The Conversation, Teacher magazine, the Independent Education Union, Times Higher Education, The Newcastle Herald, the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), British Educational Research Association (BERA) and the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE).

She’s also participated in interviews with ABC radio and national current affairs channel The Wire as an expert in higher education equity.

Contributing to policy change

When it comes to translating her work into actual impact, Sally has been part of two teams of researchers working on grants from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE), Australia’s leading research and policy centre focused on higher education equity.

The first was Community influence on university aspirations: Does it take a village? The multi-site qualitative study, situated within eight diverse NSW communities, examined the role of local communities in shaping young people’s access to higher education.

The second was Aspirations, equity and higher education course choice: The path travelled – an innovative study investigating how the educational and occupational aspirations formed during schooling relate to students’ actual post-school pathways.

These two grants have led to significant outputs targeted at both academic audiences and end-users, including publicly available project reports, national and international conference presentations, refereed journal articles, a book chapter in an international edited collection published by Bristol University Press, and a co-authored monograph published by Routledge called Community matters: The complex links between community and young people's aspirations for higher education.

Recognition and real-world impact

Sally is extremely proud of the recognition for her innovative work – and, importantly, its real-world impact.

“One of my articles investigating the participation of Indigenous Australians in higher education shifted attention to the intersection of race and social class to help redefine dominant discourses of Indigeneity. It was selected to be part of a special issue on Indigenous education in the Q1-ranked journal Critical Studies in Education.”

Another example is her field-leading work on first-in-family students, published in three Q-ranked journals. In addition, Sally leads the national First-in-Family Network with Curtin University’s Professor Sarah O’Shea, Director of NCSEHE, a  network which brings together academics and practitioners who share research and innovations in practice to support first-in-family learners in higher education.

“We also continue to receive extremely positive feedback on the courses we have developed and run. Participants say it has challenged and opened up their thinking. Teachers have developed new strategies for the classroom. And parents and community members talk about the new tools and language they have to support young people in pursuing meaningful post-school futures.”