Youth Research Collective
The Youth Research Collective’s research, teaching and engagement projects are informed by a holistic approach to young people’s lives in a context of social, economic, political, and environmental change.
The Youth Research Collective includes a focus on research in formal and informal settings and investigates a broad range of interconnected issues relating to education, youth transitions, wellbeing, employment, justice, home, digital technologies, citizenship, and rurality. The Collective continues the tradition in youth research established three decades ago by members of the Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. It seeks to position young people as active contributors within research endeavours, using strengths-based approaches to engage with young people’s views and experiences. The Collective uses innovative research methodologies and where possible incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore and understand young people’s lives.
Statement of capabilities
The Youth Research Collective (YRC) has expertise in longitudinal, qualitative and quantitative research techniques. As well as research, the Collective has expertise in professional development and program development for professionals in the education, youth and health sectors both nationally and internationally. The YRC has the capacity to supervise postgraduate students.
Services available
- Research & Consultancies
- Postgraduate Student Supervision
- Teaching
- Publications & Resources
Natalie Calleja | Natalie Calleja has worked on a variety of research projects that aim to examine how education can meaningfully engage with young people. She is a postgraduate researcher at the Youth Research Collective, interested in thinking with young people about what sociomaterial interactions are shaping who they are becoming and their feelings of belonging. Natalie uses intersectionality, equity, and social change as critical lenses to consider how education can meaningfully engage with young people. She also teaches subjects at the Faculty of Education that examine sociology in education, national and global education programs and policies, and student wellbeing. |
Dave Camilleri | Dave Camilleri is a Teaching Specialist and researcher at The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Education. He has worked with adolescents in a variety of contexts for the past 18 years. Despite leaving formal education early at 16, he worked as a secondary school teacher before completing a PhD investigating the relationships between engagement, creative ability, and classroom culture with a particular focus on high ability students who are disengaged from regular schooling. He was awarded the Dr Lawrie Shears Doctoral Scholarship in 2016 for outstanding PhD research. Dave’s current research looks at wellbeing and creativity in young people. |
Jenny Chesters | Jenny Chesters is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education. Her research interests include inequality in educational attainment and transitions between education and employment throughout the life course. Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters reporting the results of quantitative data analysis. Her teaching includes research methodologies, and she coordinates the capstone projects of Master of Education students. Jenny is a member of The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) and a member of the International Sociological Association (ISA). |
Hernan Cuervo | Hernan Cuervo is a Professor in the Faculty of Education. His research interests are in the fields of sociology of youth, rural sociology, rural education and theory of justice. He is a Chief Investigator in the ARC projects “Life Patterns” and “Securing the Next Generation in Farming Careers”. He is currently the Academic Leader of the Youth Research Collective (YRC) academic group; and previously he was Associate Dean (Diversity & Inclusion, FoE). He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Youth Studies (2019-2022, Springer). Hernan is a co-editor of the book series 'Perspective on Children and Young People' (Springer) and an Associate Editor of The Australian Educational Researcher and the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education. |
Anne Farrelly | Anne Farrelly has worked as a researcher on a range of local, national and international projects developing wellbeing, respectful relationships and child safety curriculum, training educators in program delivery and evaluating implementation of trauma informed and gender-based violence prevention programs. Her research interests include critically reflecting on the work of practitioners across a range of professions in supporting children and young people’s right to agency and safety. Her teaching at the Faculty of Education reflects these interests exploring the conceptualisation of childhood, the ethics of family and gender and supporting pre-service teachers in critically reflecting on practice to support inclusion for all young people within education. |
Jun (Eric) Fu | Jun (Eric) Fu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Youth Research Collective. His research interests include digital citizenship, young people, media and digital literacy education, education mobility and international students. He also teaches several breadth subjects (undergraduate level) and subjects for Master students at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. |
Melyssa Fuqua | Melyssa Fuqua is a Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her fellowship research explores how sporting clubs influence aspiration and participation of rural youth in tertiary education and work, and the clubs’ role in their wider community. Originally from Massachusetts, Melyssa was a P-12 teacher in rural Victoria for a decade before returning to higher education and research. She is a manager of the Rural Education Research Student Network connecting research students, early-career researchers, and experienced scholars; and hosts the annual International Emerging Rural Scholars Summit. Melyssa is on the editorial team of the Australian and International Journal of Rural Education. |
Annie Gowing | Annie Gowing coordinates the Master of Education program at The University of Melbourne and leads the Student Wellbeing Specialisation within that course. The ways in which student wellbeing is understood, implemented, monitored and evaluated in schools is a longstanding practice, policy and research focus and her PhD study was on school connectedness which, along with school climate, the teacher-student relationship, and the concepts of compassion and care in the school context and their inter-cultural understandings, are her key research interests. |
Natalie Ann Hendry | Natalie Ann Hendry is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education. Natalie investigates the relationships between digital media, health and education, focusing on youth, mental health, sexuality and finance. As a critical scholar, Natalie positions her work within media and communication studies, cultural studies, critical health, and sociology, through diverse methodologies including digital ethnography, group workshops and creative methods. In 2021, Natalie published her first book, tumblr, co-authored with Katrin Tiidenberg and Crystal Abidin. Before undertaking her PhD, Natalie was a teacher and consultant, with experience in community, secondary (health and humanities) and youth hospital-based education settings. |
Quentin Maire | Quentin Maire is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education working on the ARC-funded Life Patterns project. Quentin is a sociologist researching schooling, education and young people, with a particular focus on social inequalities. He explores the role of credentials, curriculum, and social class in the making of youth inequality. He is a comparativist, uses quantitative and qualitative methods, and seeks to historicise contemporary social phenomena. |
Charlotte McPherson | Charlotte McPherson joined the Youth Research Collective as a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2023. Her postdoctoral research explores working-class young people’s navigations of employment opportunities and relationships to community in rural areas of Victoria and Scotland. Charlotte is a qualitative youth scholar interested in understanding the lives of young people from their perspective. Her research expertise lies in how young people’s lives are shaped by social class and social change, and she is interested in young people’s relationships with place and sense of social justice. Charlotte serves on the editorial team for the Journal of Youth Studies. |
Suzanne Rice | Suzanne Rice is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education. She has been a researcher at the University of Melbourne since 2008. She has three research foci: supporting school students’ development of career knowledge and skills through better careers provision, building a better teacher workforce through understanding how to attract and retain excellent people in teaching, and ensuring national testing programs benefit students and teachers by reducing negative impacts. She has been widely published in prestigious journals such as Teachers and Teaching and Journal of Education Policy, and has led research projects worth over $4 million. |
Maddison Sideris | Maddison Sideris is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, research assistant for the Life Patterns project and sessional tutor at Deakin University. Her PhD research explores how Australian youth are negotiating their intimate relationships in their transition to adulthood through digital practices and COVID-19. She completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours)/Laws in 2021 and was awarded First Class Honours for her thesis exploring how young women construct their identities on Instagram. |
Michelle Walter | Michelle Walter is a teaching specialist and lecturer in higher education at the Faculty of Education and centre for the Study of Higher Education at the university of Melbourne. She is a lived experience researcher focusing on feminism, mental illness, disability, help-seeking, stigma and the mental health of tertiary students. She is particularly interested in developing teaching methods to support tertiary student mental health and arts based, creative research methodologies with a specific focus on Autoethnography as a feminist research methodology. |
Nadishka Weerasuriya | Nadishka Weerasuriya is a PhD student, academic tutor and research assistant for the Life Patterns project. Her PhD examines the ways in which transnational young people negotiate identity and belonging in their everyday lives between cultures, looking specifically at the role of language in these processes. She is generally interested in research around the recognition and representation of young people from marginalised and/or peripheral social groups and communities. Nadishka also tutors in several breadth subjects, as well as for a range of subjects in the Master of Education. |
Johanna Wyn | Johanna Wyn is a Redmond Barry Professor, Faculty of Education. Johanna is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Academy of Social Sciences, UK. She leads the ARC funded Life Patterns longitudinal research program. Her research explores how young people navigate their lives in a changing world, with a focus on the areas of transition, gender, well-being and inequality. Wyn’s work recognises that young people, as active citizens and cultural creators, shape and contest the nature of youth. |
Rosie Yasmin | Rosie Yasmin is a lecturer in the Youth Research Collective. Her research interests include education, wellbeing, social justice, capability and rights-based approaches, resilience, human rights, international development, gender, third sector, and mixed-methods and participatory research methodologies. She coordinates and teaches several Master level subjects at the Faculty of Education. She also taught Master level subjects at the School of Social & Political Sciences (SSPS), Faculty of Arts and breadth subjects (undergraduate level). She worked in academia in Bangladesh and in international NGOs. |
Hanyue Zhong | Hanyue Zhong is a PhD candidate. Her research interest is around rural education, education policy, and educational equity. Her PhD project is to investigate the enactment of education modernization policy in Chinese rural schools. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2166-2268 |
Helen Cahill | Helen Cahill is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of education at the University of Melbourne. |
Bronwyn Davies | Bronwyn Davies is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of education at the University of Melbourne. |
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Research Projects
The team at the Youth Research Collective is involved in a wide range of research projects.
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Research Publications
Read the array of publications the YRC has produced, including a series of research reports.
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Research Higher Degree Students
View a list of recent graduates as well as students currently studying a higher degree with the Youth Research Collective.
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Life Patterns
Life Patterns is an Australian Research Council funded project following the lives of young Australians since the 1990s. The project has followed two cohorts of young Australians, beginning in 1991 and 2005. The project will follow a third cohort who will become members in 2021.
Masters Programs
The Youth Research Collective contributes to the Faculty of Education's world-renowned Master of Teaching program and the new Master of Education, which includes nine specialisation options.
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Master of Teaching
Discover the unique and innovative Master of Teaching curriculum, which combines theory and practice to offer powerful insights into children and young people, and how they learn.
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Master of Education
Delve into contemporary education issues, connect with the latest developments in the field, and garner the expertise to move beyond the classroom with a Master of Education.
Undergraduate Studies
The Collective contributes to a range of undergraduate studies, including a suite of breadth subjects on youth, citizenship & identity. Available breadth subjects include:
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Concepts of Childhood
This subject examines the questions raised by this continuing body of research and relates them to current understandings of childhood and to recent changes in policies regarding children in diverse local and international contexts.
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Youth Leading Change
This subject explores young people as change-makers and problem-solvers against a backdrop of social transformation in Australia and globally. It provides students with thinking tools for addressing local and global problems in everyday life and skills for leadership.
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Ethics, Gender and the Family
The family continues to be regarded as a private institution that should be immune to public scrutiny, despite the increasing intervention in the family by public institutions - notably, the law, education, medicine and social services.
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Learning and the Digital Generations
Students are introduced to the complex and emerging relationships between learning and digital communications. Drawing on the idea of digital generations, it enables students to gain an understanding of the ways in which digital communication is integrated into the lives of new generations.
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Youth and Popular Culture
Explore how children and young people construct and reconstruct their sense of selves against the backdrop of pervasive contemporary popular cultures.
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Annual reports
Please find the latest Annual Reports available for download in PDF format
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Research Reports
View a full list of research publications that the Youth Research Collective has been involved in.
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Podcasts
Listen to some podcasts that the Youth Research Collective has been involved in.
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Youth Participation Model
The Youth Participation Model framework is designed to assist those planning for child and youth participation
Contact us
Tel: (03) 8344 9633
Fax: (03) 8344 9632
Email: yrc-info@unimelb.edu.au
Postal address
Youth Research Collective
Faculty of Education
University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010
Location
Level 5, 100 Leicester Street, Carlton
The Youth Research Collective’s research, teaching and engagement projects are informed by a holistic approach to young people’s lives in a context of social, economic, political, and environmental change.
The Youth Research Collective includes a focus on research in formal and informal settings and investigates a broad range of interconnected issues relating to education, youth transitions, wellbeing, employment, justice, home, digital technologies, citizenship, and rurality. The Collective continues the tradition in youth research established three decades ago by members of the Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. It seeks to position young people as active contributors within research endeavours, using strengths-based approaches to engage with young people’s views and experiences. The Collective uses innovative research methodologies and where possible incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore and understand young people’s lives.
The Youth Research Collective (YRC) has expertise in longitudinal, qualitative and quantitative research techniques.