Rate My Professor Josephine May

Primarily a historian of education specialising in the history of Australian education, Josephine May's research interests include entry pathways to higher education, experiences of first-in-family students, visual representations of educational subjects, and the impacts of gender, class, age, race, ethnicity, and memory. Key publications encompass Reel Schools: Schooling and the Nation in Australian Cinema (2013), Portraying Lives: Headmistresses and Women Professors 1880s-1940s co-authored with Tanya Fitzgerald (2016), Claiming a Voice: The First Thirty-Five Years of the Australian Teacher Education Association (2009), and First-in-Family Students, University Experience and Family Life: Motivations, Transitions and Participation (second edition 2024). Her articles appear in journals including History of Education Review, Australian Journal of Adult Learning, Journal of Australian Studies, and Paedagogica Historica. May contributes to editorial boards such as History of Education Review and was inaugural Chair of the Dictionary of Educational History in Australia and New Zealand Editorial Board. She was President of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (2011-2012), executive member of the International Australian Studies Association (2004-2008), and chaired the Inaugural Australian Enabling Educators Conference. Currently, she is working on a book-length study of the first female principals in NSW secondary girls schools.