Samantha Schulz

Research Interests

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Education Policy Feminist Theory Gender, Sexuality and Education Postcolonial Studies Poststructuralism Race and Ethnic Relations Sociology of Education

APrf Samantha Schulz

Associate Professor

School of Education

College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Available For Media Comment.

Associate Professor Samantha Schulz (she/her) is a sociologist of education committed to educational and social justice. Sam leads curriculum development in the School of Education, and is co-lead for the Remote, Rural & Regional Portfolio, College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences. Sam is noted nationally as a scholar of social justice education, and recipient of multiple university-wide awards for research and teaching excellence. Sam’s expertise includes culturally responsive and relational pedagogies, gender justice, race and affect studies, and First Nations Education. Having taught and researched across a diversity of social contexts, including Kenya, India, China, and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, Sam’s research scholarship is focused on supporting educators and sectors to advance social cohesion through valuing cultural diversity and equity in education. Sam has led major research-consultancies culminating in sector-wide change. She is sought-after to deliver professional development for teachers and leaders nationwide, and Sam regularly provides expert media commentary on matters of national concern.
 
Key Research Fields: First Nations Education, Race and Whiteness Studies, Theorising on Affect, Culturally Responsive and Nourishing Schooling, and Gender/Sexuality Justice.
 
Key Teaching Areas: Culturally Responsive and Relational Schooling, First Nations Education.
 
Sam is co-convenor of the Pedagogies for Justice Research Group, member of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, and co-editor of the Routledge 'Local Global Issues in Education' Series.

Sam was chief investigator on the ARC Discovery Project 'Culturally Responsive Schooling' (DP220100651, 2022-24) with co-chief investigators Professor Lester Irabinna Rigney (UniSA, project lead), Professor Robert Hattam (UniSA), Dr Abigail Diplock (UniSA), Ms Mikayla King (UniSA), Professor Michalinos Zembylas (Open University of Cyprus), and Associate Professor Nadeem Memon (UniSA - Centre for Islamic Thought and Education, CITE). The project explored how the affective environments of schools attend to the diverse cultural, academic and emotional needs of their communities in the process of becoming culturally responsive, bringing together methods from ethnography, critical policy analysis, and educational action research. See: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.

Sam is presently leading the project, Teaching in an era of digital influence: Impacts on Australian Educators. See initial findings here:

‘Tell this fuckin’ bitch to pull her head in’: Affective infrastructures of gender injustice and manosphere classroom encounters

What happens when the manosphere goes to university

‘They eat snacks during class and swing on chairs’: The worrying, sexist behaviour of some young men at uni

Addressing gender-based violence in schools

Make me a sandwich: Our survey's disturbing picture of how some boys treat their teachers

'Not my boy': When teachers are harassed by students, some schools and parents fail to help

Date Position Institution name
2025 - ongoing Associate Professor University of Adelaide
2021 - 2024 Senior Lecturer University of Adelaide
2014 - 2021 Senior Lecturer Flinders University

Date Institution name Country Title
2014 Flinders University Australia Doctor of Philosophy

Year Citation
2025 Schulz, S. (2025). ‘Non-stop wokeism’: facilitating social justice teacher education amidst epistemic oppression and popular misogyny. Critical Studies in Education, 66(4), 517-534.
DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2025 Schulz, S., & Rozitis, S. (2025). Addressing gender based violence in schools. Journal : AEU SA, 57(1), 9-11.
2025 Li, W., & Schulz, S. (2025). ‘The most beautiful teacher’: patriotism, gender and affective governance in Chinese higher education. The Australian Educational Researcher, 52(5), 3525-3541.
DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2025 Schulz, S., McDonald, S., & Zembylas, M. (2025). ‘Tell this fuckin’ bitch to pull her head in’: affective infrastructures of gender injustice and manosphere classroom encounters. Gender and Education, online, 1-16.
DOI
2025 Weuffen, S., Guenther, J., Ober, R., Sinclair, K., Poelina, V., Fricker, A., . . . Baak, M. (2025). First Nations students lived experiences of Australian schooling: A systematic literature review. ISSUES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, 35(4), 1727-1761.
2025 Weuffen, S., Guenther, J., Ober, R., Sinclair, K., Poelina, V., Fricker, A., . . . Baak, M. (2025). First Nations students lived experiences of Australian schooling: A systematic literature review. ISSUES IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, 35(4), 1727-1761.
2024 Maher, K., Rigney, L. I., King, M., Garrett, R., Windle, J., Memon, N., . . . Hattam, R. (2024). Curriculum, democracy and pedagogies for justice: a collective futures dialogue. Curriculum Perspectives, 44(2), 105-119.
DOI Scopus3
2024 Schulz, S., & Diplock, A. (2024). Negotiating the structural and personal intensities of gender, affects and whiteness through culturally responsive becoming in mathematics. Critical Studies in Education, online, 1-18.
DOI Scopus3 WoS3
2024 Stahl, G., Schulz, S., Baak, M., & Adams, B. (2024). "You fight your battles and you work out how you're going to change": the implementation, embedding and limits of restorative practices in an Australian rural community school. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 52(1), 82-100.
DOI Scopus2 WoS2
2024 Schulz, S., Rigney, L. -I., Zembylas, M., Hattam, R., & Memon, N. (2024). Affect and the force of counter stories: learning racial literacy through thinking and feeling. Pedagogy Culture and Society, 32(5), 1307-1324.
DOI Scopus10 WoS10
2023 Memon, N., Schulz, S., Kelly, S., & Chown, D. (2023). Schools, religion, and affect: unpacking Australian educator discomfort. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 266-282.
DOI Scopus5 WoS4
2021 Agnew, D., Abery, E., Schulz, S., & Pill, S. (2021). When things go wrong: the implications for facilitators of work integrated learning placements in international destinations. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 11(3), 697-709.
DOI Scopus1
2021 Stahl, G., Baak, M., Schulz, S., Adams, B., & Peterson, A. (2021). Preventing violent extremism: Resourcing, stakeholder strategies and fostering belonging and connection in Australian schools. British Educational Research Journal, 47(5), 1177-1193.
DOI Scopus9 WoS8
2021 Whitehead, K., MacGill, B., & Schulz, S. (2021). Honouring Nancy Barnes, nee Brumbie (1927–2012), South Australia’s first qualified Aboriginal Kindergarten Director. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 46(3), 204-215.
DOI Scopus3 WoS2
2021 Baak, M., Stahl, G., Schulz, S., & Adams, B. (2021). ‘We have to be really careful’: policy intermediaries preventing violent extremism in an era of risk. Journal of Education Policy, 37(3), 461-481.
DOI Scopus14 WoS11
2021 Stahl, G., Baak, M., Schulz, S., & Peterson, A. (2021). A cautionary tale: CVE policy actors managing risk in Australian schools. Current Sociology, 71(5), 905-923.
DOI Scopus4 WoS4
2021 Whitehead, K., Schulz, S., & MacGill, B. (2021). From assimilation towards reconciliation with Amy Levai, nee O’Donoghue (1930–2013), South Australia’s first qualified Aboriginal infant teacher. Australian Educational Researcher, 50(2), 221-235.
DOI Scopus2 WoS2
2021 Schulz, S., Baak, M., Stahl, G., & Adams, B. (2021). Restorative practices for preventing/countering violent extremism: an affective-discursive examination of extreme emotional incidents. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(8), 1227-1245.
DOI Scopus7 WoS6
2020 Schulz, S., & Agnew, D. (2020). Moving toward decoloniality in short-term study abroad under New Colombo: constructing global citizenship. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(8), 1164-1179.
DOI Scopus9 WoS8
2020 Brabazon, T., & Schulz, S. (2020). Braving the bull: women, mentoring and leadership in higher education. Gender and Education, 32(7), 873-890.
DOI Scopus59 WoS35
2019 Schulz, S., & Rogers, B. (2019). The Toxic University: zombie leadership, academic rock stars and neoliberal ideology, by J. Smyth, London Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 235 pp., £79.99 (hardback) £25.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-137-54968-6. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 28(3-4), 367-369.
DOI
2019 Schulz, S., Sniedze-Gregory, S., & Banfield, G. (2019). The Activist Scholar In, and Against, the Neoliberal University. Social Alternatives, 38(3), 3-6.
2019 Schulz, S., Vass, G., Moodie, N., & Kennedy, T. (2019). Critical race and whiteness studies: Dark Times. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies.
2019 Schulz, S., Sniedze-Gregory, S., & Banfield, G. (2019). The Activist Scholar In, and Against, the Neoliberal University INTRODUCTION. SOCIAL ALTERNATIVES, 38(3), 3-6.
WoS2
2017 Fane, J., & Schulz, S. (2017). Working against “pedagogic work”: Challenges to engaging pre-service teachers in critical health education. Health Education, 117(5), 511-528.
DOI Scopus8 WoS5
2017 Schulz, S. (2017). Desire for the desert: racialising white teachers’ motives for working in remote schools in the Australian desert. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(2), 209-224.
DOI Scopus24 WoS15
2016 Fane, J., & Schulz, S. (2016). Re'-Learning health: Challenges in teaching health literacy and implications for the new national Australian HPE curriculum. Education and Health, 34(1), 10-14.
2015 Schulz, S., & Fane, J. (2015). A healthy dose of race? White students' and teachers' unintentional brushes with whiteness. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(11), 137-154.
DOI Scopus18 WoS11
2014 Miller, A., & Schulz, S. (2014). University literacy: A multi-literacies model. English in Australia, 49(3), 78-87.
Scopus8 WoS4
2011 Schulz, S. (2011). White teachers and the 'good' governance of indigenous souls: White governmentality and ernabella mission (1937-1971). Race Ethnicity and Education, 14(2), 209-232.
DOI Scopus11 WoS10
2007 Schulz, S. (2007). Inside the contract zone: White teachers in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. International Education Journal, 8(2), 270-283.
Scopus14 WoS9
2005 Schulz, S. (2005). The gifted: Identity construction through the practice of gifted education. International Education Journal, 5(5), 117-128.
Scopus12

Year Citation
2024 Stahl, G., Adams, B., Baak, M., & Schulz, S. (2024). Vulnerability, Extremism, and Schooling: Restorative Practices, Policy Enactment, and Managing Risk. Marlborough, MA: Rowman and Littlefield.
2019 Michael, L., & Schulz, S. (Eds.) (2019). Unsettling Whiteness. UK: BRILL.
DOI
2019 Michael, L., & Schulz, S. (Eds.) (2019). Unsettling Whiteness. UK: BRILL.
DOI
2017 Vass, G., Maxwell, J., Rudolph, S., & Gulson, K. N. (2017). The Relationality of Race in Education Research. G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S. Rudolph, & K. N. Gulson (Eds.), Routledge.
DOI Scopus2
- Riddle, S., & Apple, M. W. (Eds.) (2019). Re-imagining Education for Democracy. Routledge.
DOI

Year Citation
2024 Schulz, S. (2024). Death can be clarifying: Considering the forces that move us. In D. Bargallie, & N. Fernando (Eds.), Critical racial and decolonial literacies: Breaking the silence (pp. 261-275). Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press.
DOI
2021 Schulz, S., Blanch, F. R., & Elliott, S. (2021). Across field and classroom: The activism of Adam Goodes and the role of Australian teachers in tackling racism. In R. McGrath (Ed.), Athlete Activism: Contemporary Perspectives (1 ed., pp. 155-166). United Kingdom: Routledge.
DOI
2020 Schulz, S. (2020). “You’ve Got the Skin”: Entrepreneurial Universities, Study Abroad, and the Construction of Global Citizenship. In A. Peterson, G. Stahl, & H. Soong (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education (pp. 863-876). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI
2019 Schulz, S. (2019). “You’ve Got the Skin”: Entrepreneurial Universities, Study Abroad, and the Construction of Global Citizenship. In A. Peterson, G. Stahl, & H. Soong (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education (pp. 1-15). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
DOI
2019 Michael, L., & Schulz, S. (2019). Unsettling Whiteness: Disruptions and (Re)Locations. In Unknown Book (pp. ix-xx).
Scopus1
2019 Michael, L., & Schulz, S. (2019). Unsettling Whiteness: Disruptions and (Re)Locations. In Unknown Book (pp. ix-xx).
Scopus1
2019 Schulz, S. (2019). Images of a Good White Teacher. In L. Michael, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Unsettling Whiteness (pp. 175-190). UK: Brill.
DOI Scopus3
2019 Schulz, S. (2019). Images of a Good White Teacher. In L. Michael, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Unsettling Whiteness (pp. 175-190). UK: Brill.
DOI Scopus3
2019 Schulz, S. (2019). 'Beating their unclad chests': Voluntourism, international service and the place of critical pedagogy inside the neoliberal university. In S. Riddle, & M. W. Apple (Eds.), Re-Imagining Education for Democracy (1 ed., pp. 224-238). London: Routledge.
DOI Scopus4
2018 Schulz, S. (2018). White governmentality, life history, and the cultural politics of race in remote settings: Situating the teacher/voluntourist. In G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S. Rudolph, & K. Gulson (Eds.), The Relationality of Race in Education Research (1st ed., pp. 47-58). United Kingdom: Routledge.
DOI Scopus6
2016 Schulz, S. (2016). The new Australian ‘whitening machine’? Contesting whiteness in a nation growing whiter. In A. Dada, & S. Kushal (Eds.), Whiteness Interrogated (pp. 13-24). Oxford, United Kingdom: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
2016 Schulz, S., & Hay, I. (2016). Taking up Caletrio's challenge: Silence and the construction of wealth eliteness in Jamie Johnson's documentary film Born Rich. In I. Hay, & J. V. Beaverstock (Eds.), Handbook on Wealth and the Super-Rich (pp. 155-177). Cheltenham, United Kindgom: Edward Elgar Publishing.
DOI Scopus3
2003 Schulz, S. (2003). Christmas in October. In H. Johnson, M. Kinsman, S. Laszcuk, & A. Solding (Eds.), Cracker! A Christmas Collection (pp. 110-116). Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
2003 Schulz, S. (2003). Slipshod. In B. Dibble (Ed.), Anthology of Australasian Stories (pp. 84-88). Kathmandu, Nepal: Spiny Babbler.
2002 Schulz, S. (2002). Number Seven. In R. Clarkson, K. Harrison, G. Hudson, L. Jedynak, E. Sallis, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Forked Tongues: A delicious anthology of poetry and prose (pp. 35-42). Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
2002 Schulz, S. (2002). Number Seven. In R. Clarkson, K. Harrison, G. Hudson, L. Jedynak, E. Sallis, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Forked Tongues: A delicious anthology of poetry and prose (pp. 35-42). Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
2002 Schulz, S. (2002). D&M. In R. Clarkson, K. Harrison, G. Hudson, L. Jedynak, E. Sallis, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Forked Tongues: A delicious anthology of poetry and prose (pp. 88-98). Adelaide: Wakefield Press.
2002 Schulz, S. (2002). D&M. In R. Clarkson, K. Harrison, G. Hudson, L. Jedynak, E. Sallis, & S. Schulz (Eds.), Forked Tongues: A delicious anthology of poetry and prose (pp. 88-98). Adelaide: Wakefield Press.

Year Citation
2024 Schulz, S., & McDonald, S. (2024). ‘Not my boy.’ When teachers are harassed by students, some schools and parents fail to help. The Conversation.
2024 Schulz, S. (2024). Make me a sandwich: our survey’s disturbing picture of how some boys treat their teachers. The Conversation.
2017 Schulz, S., Kennedy, T., Moodie, N., & Vass, G. (2017). Leaning 'back in' to the critical: Reclaiming quality and excellence in contemporary global knowledge production on race and whiteness. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Journal.

2022-2024: ARC Discovery Project 'Culturally Responsive Schooling' (DP220100651)

2022-2023: Re-Imagining Catholic Education for First Nations Sovereignty (University of Adelaide HREC Approval H-2022-085)

2023-2023: Indigenising and Culturally Diversifying Pedagogy and Curriculum, L&T Innovation Grant (H-2023-37315)

2022-2024: Aboriginal Students’ Lived Experiences: Australians Together Research Project (2202-065)

Sociology of Education

Critical and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies

First Nations Education

Qualitative, Feminist, and Decolonial Research Methods

Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
2024 Principal Supervisor Working Relationally with First Nations and Low SES Students to Co-Produce Alternative Schooling that Works: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Autoethnography. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Kyall Forster
2024 Principal Supervisor Working Relationally with First Nations and Low SES Students to Co-Produce Alternative Schooling that Works: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Autoethnography. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Kyall Forster

Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
2021 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Female university students from rural China, a discursive-affective ethnography of gendered subjectivity formation Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Wenfei Li

Date Institution Department Organisation Type Country
2022 - 2022 Catholic Education of South Australia (CESA) Catholic Education of South Australia School or college Australia

Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country
2023 - ongoing Associate Editor Local Global Issues in Education Series Routledge Australia

Date Title Type Institution Country
2023 - 2024 Review of the SA Department of Education Country Education Strategy Advice South Australian Centre for Economic Studies (SACES) Australia

Connect With Me

External Profiles

Other Links