Biography
As a senior lecturer in pedagogy and curriculum, Lucinda conducts award-winning research into curriculum design’s role in teacher identity, autonomy and professionalism, especially in English. She is interested in creative teacher and student agency, and in teacher recruitment and retention. She draws on poststructural, feminist and new materialist theory in her research into educational discourse, metaphor and practice. She teaches in both English and inclusive initial teacher education units, and has a particular interest in quality doctoral supervision, via her blog Becoming a PhD Supervisor; the blog has had thousands of visitors from over 70 countries, and has supported doctoral supervisor training across institutions.
Lucinda publishes in a range of world-leading international journals, including The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education; Qualitative Inquiry; Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education; Gender and Education; Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy; Journal of Education for Teaching; Journal of Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education; Changing English; English in Australia and the Journal of Education Policy. She also serves as a reviewer for a number of these journals.
With roles on Deakin’s Faculty of Arts and Education’s ethics and academic progress committees, Lucinda is committed to the highest standards of integrity in both research and teaching. She is also a mentor in the Vice Chancellor’s Professional Excellence Mentor Scheme.
Lucinda brings to her role broad interdisciplinary experience in fine arts, film, literature, media, cultural and gender studies. In education, she has worked as: an English, History and Human Relations teacher; education manager for Museum Victoria and Anne Frank House; multimedia developer; curriculum writer and professional development leader.
Lucinda’s research is dedicated to promoting teacher professionalism, and challenging conservative neoliberal forces that seek to standardise and homogenise teachers’ creative practice; this is at times controversial and attracts both positive accolades and also right-wing commentary that misrepresents her stance.
She believes in valuing a broad range of evidence, including scientific evidence, in education, and is a passionate critic of policy pressure to produce “cookbook teachers” who must deliver scripted lessons; she believes teachers’ work is much more complex than following rules and templates, and that teachers need to be celebrated and appreciated rather than conscribed.
Read more on Lucinda's profileResearch interests
Higher degree by research supervision
This is a particular research interest and I am also available as a supervisor for potential student colleagues who are developing similar research interests.
English teaching
Curriculum design
Visual, creative and multimodal research
Gender
Affiliations
Australian Association for Research in Education
Gender and Education Association
Australian Association for the Teaching of English
Australian Literacy Educators' Association
Victorian Association for the Teaching of English
Teaching interests
English
Literacies
Digital and multimodal literacies
Curriculum and pedagogy
Inclusive education
Conferences
Recent Conference Presentations
Building, shaping, forming, researching with metaphor workshop with Dr Ben Whitburn, run at Deakin University Higher Degree by Research Summer School 2016
Meet the phallic teacher: curriculum design and identity in a neoliberal imaginary, Australian Association for Research in Education Conference 2015
The deep end: pedagogy and the public pool, Turning Learning Inside Out: Teaching and Learning beyond the Classroom Conference of the Public Pedagogies Institute, 2015
The Invisible Hand: Transversal Thinking with New Materialism in Curriculum Design workshop run at Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality, IV International Conference on New Materialisms 2015
Detonating the Research Plan: Exploding the Supervisory Process, co-authored paper presented at Monash University’s The Art of Critical Autoethnography Conference 2015
The Glitterbomb: Designing Curriculum and Identity with Girls’ Popular Culture paper presented at International Gender and Education Association Asia Pacific Biennial Conference 2014
Metaphor as Conceptual Framework paper presented at Deakin University CREFI’s Creating States of Unknowing: Researching and Writing Arts Practices and Learning Seminar 2014
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Metalanguage? Victorian Association for the Teaching of English Annual State conference workshop 2014
Sugar It or Shove It: Girls and Social Bookmarking paper presented at Monash University international Interactive Futures Conference 2014
The PhD Journey presented at Deakin HDR Seminar 2014
Interrogating Past, Present and Future: Girls’ Magazines Online
Australian Association for the Teaching of English Conference Workshop, Sydney, 2012
Getting Your Head Around the Australian Curriculum
Victorian Association for the Teaching of English Annual State Conference, Deakin, 2012
Awards
2016 Australian Literacy Educators' Association Inaugural Award for an outstanding doctoral thesis with impact on English curriculum or Literacy teaching and learning
http://www.alea.edu.au/grantsawards/alea-awards-2/alea-award-recipients (link to citation)
2015 Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Early Career Researcher Award
2015 Deakin University School of Education nominee for AARE Ray Debus Award for an outstanding doctoral thesis
2014 Deakin University Naomi and Isi Leibler Award for best PhD thesis in the social sciences
2014 Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education nominee for the Alfred Deakin Medal for best thesis across the university
2008 Winner Wimbledon Bookfest Enter Stage Write competition for best dramatic script for Mother Country, performed by Encore Youth Theatre, London, 11/10/2008
2005 ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) finalist for Best Secondary Education Resource for Voices and Visions from India CD-ROM
2003 ATOM award for Best Secondary Education Resource for Voices and Visions from China CD-ROM
2003 Winner, Secondary Teacher Reference Category, Australian Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing, for Film Asia
2002 Technology Showcase Winner, Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing, for Voices and Visions from Indonesia CD-ROM
1999 Silver Award, Summit Creative Awards, for Giving Feedback CD-ROM
1997 ATOM finalist for Best Training Multimedia Production, for Giving Feedback CD-ROM
1997 Finalist, Best Educational Product, International Digital Media Awards, Canada, for Michio Teaches Japanese CD-ROM
Scholarships
Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship 2011-2014
Publications
The teacher as digital writer? Conflicting identities addressed in pre-service curriculum design
Lucinda McKnight
(2021), pp. 1-22, Theory into practice, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Since feeling is first: the art of teaching to write paragraphs
Lucinda McKnight
(2021), Vol. 55, pp. 37-52, English in education, Hoboken, N.J., C1
Reading and responding to poetry: to know, to experience
Owen Bullock, Lucinda McKnight, Ruby Todd
(2021), Vol. 27, pp. 608-617, Qualitative inquiry, London, Eng., C1
Addressing pre-service teachers as digital writers: Conflicts and inconsistencies in practice
Lucinda McKnight
(2021), Vol. 60, pp. 202-214, Theory into Practice, Abingdon, Eng., C1
What if? Transforming English teaching in five dangerous words
Lucinda McKnight
(2021), Vol. 55, pp. 1-16, English in Australia, Australia, C1
Electric sheep? Humans, robots, artificial intelligence, and the future of writing
Lucinda McKnight
(2021), pp. 1-14, Changing English: studies in culture and education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Lucinda McKnight
(2020), pp. unknown-unknown, Black Women Theorizing Curriculum Studies in Colour and Curves, Abingdon, Eng., B1
Curriculum design in the Anthropocene: challenges to human intentionality
Lucinda McKnight
(2020), pp. 1-14, Curriculum challenges and opportunities in a changing world: essays in transnational curriculum inquiry, London, Eng., B1
Seven reasons to question the hegemony of visible learning
L McKnight, B Whitburn
(2020), Vol. 41, pp. 32-44, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Meet the phallic lecturer: early career research in a neoliberal imaginary
L McKnight
(2020), Vol. 32, pp. 505-517, Gender and education, London, Eng., C1
A broken paradigm? What education needs to learn from evidence-based medicine
L McKnight, Andy Morgan
(2020), Vol. 35, pp. 648-664, Journal of education policy, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Why 'clinical teaching'? An interdisciplinary analysis of metaphor in initial teacher preparation
L McKnight, A Morgan
(2020), Vol. 46, pp. 87-98, Journal of Education for Teaching, C1
Quality and tyranny: competing discourses around a compulsory rubric
Lucinda McKnight, Sue Bennett, Robert Webster
(2020), Vol. 45, pp. 1192-1204, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Literature 2023: a speculative curriculum of possibility
L McKnight
(2020), Vol. 55, pp. 56-64, English in Australia, Melbourne, Vic., C1
Teaching writing by formula: empowerment or exclusion?
Lucinda McKnight
(2020), pp. 1-28, International Journal of Inclusive Education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Naughtiest Girls, Go Girls, and Glitterbombs: Exploding Schoolgirl Fictions
L McKnight
(2019), pp. 13-28, The girl in the text, New York, N.Y., B1
Anthropocentric poetry: arts-based research for a new era
L McKnight
(2019), pp. 234-258, Educational research in the age of the Anthropocene, Hershey, Pa., B1
Tin shed science: girls, aesthetics and permeable learning
L McKnight
(2018), pp. 1-47, Research handbook on childhoodnature: assemblages of childhood and nature research, Cham, Switzerland, B1
Pathways and praxis: designing curriculum for aspirational programs
L McKnight, E Charlton
(2018), pp. 207-222, University pathway programs: local responses within a growing global trend, Cham, Switzerland, B1
L McKnight, L Graham
(2018), pp. 1-27, Education research and the media: challenges and possibilities, Abingdon, Eng., B1
A bit of a dirty word: 'feminism' and female teachers identifying as feminist
L McKnight
(2018), Vol. 27, pp. 220-230, Journal of gender studies, Abingdon, Eng., C1
L McKnight
(2018), Vol. 30, pp. 222-238, Gender and education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
L McKnight
(2018), Vol. 18, pp. 202-215, Cultural studies - critical methodologies, London, Eng., C1
Sponsors of pleasure: wide reading re-imagined through social curation
L McKnight
(2018), Vol. 25, pp. 300-311, Changing english, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Feel the love: moving beyond representation to a more inclusive English
L McKnight
(2018), Vol. 53, pp. 8-17, English in Australia, Melbourne, Vic., C1
Displaced metaphors: poetic engagements with language in a digitised world
R Todd, L McKnight, O Bullock
(2017), Vol. 21, pp. 1-1, TEXT: journal of writing and writing courses, Nathan, Qld., C1
The invisible hand: designing curriculum in the afterward
L McKnight, D Rousell, J Charteris, K Thomas, G Burke
(2017), Vol. 30, pp. 635-655, International journal of qualitative studies in education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
The fetish of the lens: persistent sexist and ableist metaphor in education research
L McKnight, B Whitburn
(2017), Vol. 30, pp. 821-831, International journal of qualitative studies in education, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Naughtiest girls, go girls and glitterbombs: exploding schoolgirl fictions
L McKnight
(2017), Vol. 10, pp. 7-22, Girlhood studies, Brooklyn, N. Y., C1
Supervisory scratchings: critical autoethnography complicating "process" in doctoral supervision
L McKnight, J O'Mara
(2017), pp. 1-12, Journal of curriculum and pedagogy, Abingdon, Eng., C1
Meet the phallic teacher: designing curriculum and identity in a neoliberal imaginary
L McKnight
(2016), Vol. 43, pp. 473-486, Australian educational researcher, Berlin, Germany, C1
L McKnight
(2016), Vol. 13, pp. 195-205, Journal of curriculum and pedagogy, Abingdon, Eng., C1
L McKnight
(2015), Vol. 27, pp. 909-927, Gender and Education, C1
Is the frame broken? Seeking new metaphors for textual study in English
L McKnight
(2015), Vol. 50, pp. 7-14, English in Australia, Sydney, N.S.W., C1
Meet the phallic teacher: curriculum design and identity in a neoliberal imaginary
L McKnight
(2015), pp. 24-24, AARE 2013: Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual International Conference, Fremantle, W.A., E1-1
Funded Projects at Deakin
Other Public Sector Funding
VCE literature benchmarking research and report.
Dr Lucinda McKnight
- 2019: $5,455
Industry and Other Funding
Teaching writing today: A collaborative study
Dr Lucinda McKnight, Timothy Mannix, Ms Mandy Goff, Ms Andrea Hayes, Ms Helen Billet, Ms Elisse Hay
- 2020: $2,920
Supervisions
No completed student supervisions to report