Catherine Burgess

Catherine Burgess is Professor in Community-led Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. She holds the position of Associate Dean Indigenous Strategies and Services and coordinates the Learning from Country and Leadership in Aboriginal Education programs. With extensive prior teaching and leadership experience in secondary schools, Burgess specializes in Indigenous education, decolonising education, cultural mentoring, Aboriginal community-controlled cultural immersion, pedagogies for Aboriginal students, culturally nourishing schooling, and Country-centred teaching and learning. Her work emphasizes Aboriginal community-led approaches to teacher professional learning and curriculum development, particularly through immersion programs and systematic reviews of educational outcomes for First Nations students.

Burgess has an extensive publication record, with over 1,364 citations on Google Scholar. Key publications include 'Decolonising Indigenous education: the case for cultural mentoring in supporting Indigenous knowledge reproduction' (2022, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, cited by 98, with M. Bishop and K. Lowe); 'Towards an Australian model of culturally nourishing schooling' (2021, Journal of Curriculum Studies, cited by 88, with K. Lowe et al.); 'A systematic review of pedagogies that support, engage and improve the educational outcomes of Aboriginal students' (2019, The Australian Educational Researcher, cited by 80, with C. Tennent et al.); 'Beyond cultural competence: Transforming teacher professional learning through Aboriginal community-controlled cultural immersion' (2019, Critical Studies in Education, cited by 79); 'Factors contributing to educational outcomes for First Nations students from remote communities: A systematic review' (2019, The Australian Educational Researcher, cited by 70, with J. Guenther et al.); and 'Learning from Country to conceptualise what an Aboriginal curriculum narrative might look like in education' (2022, Curriculum Perspectives, cited by 51, with K. Thorpe et al.). She has received funding from University of Sydney Indigenous Research Grants, including the 2025 Ngarangun DVC(R) Indigenous Research Grant for Researching SLIC. Her contributions influence teacher education practices and policy in Aboriginal education through collaborative research projects and leadership roles.

Professional Email: cathie.burgess@sydney.edu.au