Centre for Educational Research

Welcome
Message from the Director

Welcome to the Centre for Educational Research (CER), a research centre of the University of Western Sydney, located in the College of Arts.

CER works with individuals and communities to find solutions to the educational and social policy priorities of the twenty-first century.

Our research generates the knowledge, theoretical insights, and innovative approaches needed to address the educational and social concerns of contemporary society.

In CER, education is viewed as a pedagogical process that occurs in multiple sites across the lifespan. As such, learning is inseparable from the social worlds and everyday lives of individuals and communities. Recent social, economic, cultural and technological changes have challenged traditional social domains such as the family, health, welfare and educational institutions, and the ways that individuals learn and conduct their lives.

CER responds to these challenges by addressing three fundamental research questions:

1. What personal, social, cultural, economic, and political processes shape the lives of individuals, communities, and societies?

2. How do these processes affect the implementation and experience of education?

3. What educational innovations will build the personal, social, cultural, economic, and political resources and capacities of individuals, communities, and societies?

CER’s key objectives are to:

• conduct high quality interdisciplinary, applied, and theoretical research into real world social problems to identify innovative educational directions and solutions;
• establish collaborative research partnerships across the university and with government, industry, community organisations, and other agencies;
• build strong, strategic local, national, and international relationships with similar researchers and centres; and
• attract eminent scholars and researchers to visit and work at CER.

To address these objectives, CER utilises the strength of inter-disciplinary, multi-method research. CER researchers include social scientists with expertise in psychology, policy, curriculum, pedagogy, sociology, cultural studies, health, and Indigenous studies.

Collaboration is central to research in CER. Increasingly, governments, businesses, community groups, and professional bodies, as well as educational organisations, are turning to robust social research and innovative education strategies to address difficult social, economic, cultural, and political issues. CER attends to this need through collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines, and through collaboration with governments, businesses, community organisations, professional associations, and other external agencies.

I am delighted to welcome you to CER and encourage you to contact us to find out more about our research and research education programs.

Professor Christine Halse
Director

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Location

The Centre for Educational Research is located on the Bankstown campus of the University of Western Sydney.

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