Nicole Mockler

Professor Nicole Mockler is Professor of Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. With more than 30 years as an educator, including roles as classroom teacher, school leader, and education consultant in government and non-government sectors, she now serves as a teacher educator and researcher. Her academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Education with Honours in Ancient History, a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies, and a PhD in Education from the University of Sydney, a Master of Science in Applied Statistics from Swinburne University of Technology, and a Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching from the University of Newcastle. Her career trajectory encompasses positions as Lecturer at the University of Sydney, Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle from 2009 to 2015, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney from 2015 to 2017, and her current professorship since 2023. She holds an Honorary Research Fellow position in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford.

Mockler’s research specializations encompass education policy, teacher professional learning, curriculum and pedagogy, professional identity, and representations of teachers in public discourse. Notable projects include the University of Sydney SOAR Fellowship-funded Representations of Education in the Print Media (2018-2019), the ARC Linkage project Time-Use, Time Poverty and Teachers’ Work concluded in 2024 with collaborators from QUT, UQ, and UNSW, and Strengthening Teacher Induction Through Quality Teaching Rounds funded by the Commonwealth Department of Education. She has co-authored and edited 19 books since 2003, such as Analysing Education Policy: Theory and Method (2024, co-edited with Meghan Stacey), Constructing Teacher Identities: How the Print Media Define and Represent Teachers’ Work (2022), Questioning the Language of Reform and Improvement in Education (2018, with Susan Groundwater-Smith), Education, Change and Society (2017), and Teacher Professional Learning in an Age of Compliance: Mind the Gap (2009). Her work has over 3,000 citations with an h-index of 36. Major honors include the University of Sydney SOAR Fellowship (2018-2019), visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford and UCL Institute of Education (2018-2019), and Harris Manchester College Oxford (2019, 2023). Leadership roles feature President-elect of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Editor-in-Chief of The Australian Educational Researcher (2017-2022), and associate editor positions for Critical Studies in Education (2014-2016) and Teaching and Teacher Education (2015-2016).

Professional Email: nicole.mockler@sydney.edu.au