Associate ProfessorAlexandra McCormick

PhD (Sydney), MA (Hons) International Studies, BA (Hons) English and Comparative Lit. (U.E. Anglia), Grad. Cert. (Higher Ed.)

Based in the Sydney School of Education & Social Work (SSESW) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Alex has coordinated and led a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and progrmames in education, including one on communication and education in the International Development Studies Stream in the Masters of Social Justice.

Through analysis of complex inter-relations between policy actors, discourse and contexts, Alex's research concerns processes of policy formation and enactment in education and international development policy and discourse, investigating global social policies in multi-scalar decolonising and postcolonisal contexts. Her recent work on the Sustainable Development Goals builds on prior inquiries into global movements of Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals in Australian, Southeast Asian and South Pacific contexts, through critical discourse anlaysis and focused ethnographic research.

Alex focuses on advocacy and policy engagement of civil society organisations working in education, with a current collaborative project about migrant and refugee education on the Thai-Myanmar borders. In other projects, Alex has explored dynamics in the doctoral supervision relationship and higher degree research experiences, also from perpectives of (de-)colonisation and global contexts, maintaining attention to persistent insitutional and social (in-)equities and (in-)justices in education discourse, policy and praxis across these areas.

With a committment to exploring education beyond and within formal schooling, before undertaking her doctorate in Comparative and International Education and Master of International Studies, Alex taught English for three years at high schools in Japan and at primary level in Sichuan, China. She has taught adults and young people at non-government and private institutions in Australia, and worked with NGOs assisting refugees with relocation in the UK and Australia. Alex taught on the Refugee Language Programme at the University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, and guest lectured at UTS. She has conducted education policy research as an independent consultant for government agencies internationally.