Lisa Smith is a Research Fellow with the Education Futures Academy at the University of South Australia. She is also an associate member of the Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion (CRESI).
Lisa’s PhD research investigated the school-based conditions and opportunities that enabled disaffected working-class students to turn-back-around within a mainstream setting. She developed the concept of ‘turn-back-around’ as alternative terrain for the exploration of disaffected working-class students’ perspectives and their articulation of the process of turning back to school when teachers, researchers and pedagogies had made sustained and concerted efforts to turn-around to them. The qualitative ... Read more
About me
Lisa Smith is a Research Fellow with the Education Futures Academy at the University of South Australia. She is also an associate member of the Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion (CRESI).
Lisa’s PhD research investigated the school-based conditions and opportunities that enabled disaffected working-class students to turn-back-around within a mainstream setting. She developed the concept of ‘turn-back-around’ as alternative terrain for the exploration of disaffected working-class students’ perspectives and their articulation of the process of turning back to school when teachers, researchers and pedagogies had made sustained and concerted efforts to turn-around to them. The qualitative methodology of this single school ethnography included: (a) semi-structured interviews with senior secondary school students, secondary school teachers and school leadership staff; (b) visual ethnographic methods that enrolled students as participatory co-researchers of their school and community lives; and (c) participant observation of school activities. This study also involved significant engagement with multiple theoretical perspectives including: the poststructuralist work of Foucault; Kemmis and colleagues’ theory of practice architectures; Anzieu’s psychosocial thinking tools of psychic skin and second or group skin; and Walkerdine’s theorisation of the role that affective histories play in working-class communities. Data was represented using narrative portraiture and analysed through the tracing of narrative arcs.
More recently, Lisa has developed expertise as a program evaluator, utilising a developmental evaluation approach and contribution analysis to support research-informed decision-making and continuous improvement.
Lisa’s research interests include social class analysis, class subjectivities, democratic school reform, relational pedagogies, equitable schooling practices and increasing schooling and higher education outcomes for students living in disadvantaged communities.
About me
Centre for Research in Educational and Social Inclusion - Associate Member
Research
Excludes commercial-in-confidence projects.
Understanding the Impact of Sustainability Education Programmes on School Environments, Keep South Australia Beautiful Inc, 15/08/2025 - 31/07/2026
Chartering Change: Building Developmental Evaluation Capacity for Equity Initiatives, Cwth Dept of Education, Skills & Employment, 27/08/2025 - 30/11/2025
Research
Research outputs for the last seven years are shown below. Some long-standing staff members may have older outputs included. To see earlier years visit ORCID or Scopus
Open access indicates that an output is open access.
| Year | Output |
|---|---|
| 2024 |
Open access
|
| Year | Output |
|---|---|
| 2025 |
Open access
|
| 2024 |
Open access
|
| 2024 |
Open access
|
| 2024 |
|
| 2023 |
Open access
|
| 2023 |
Open access
|
Smith, L. (2011). Experiential “hot” knowledge and its influence on low-SES students’ capacities to aspire to higher education. Critical Studies in Education, 52(2), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2011.572829
External engagement & recognition
| Organisation | Country |
|---|---|
| Charles Darwin University | AUSTRALIA |
| James Cook University | AUSTRALIA |
| Queensland University of Technology | AUSTRALIA |
| University of South Australia | AUSTRALIA |
| University of Tasmania | AUSTRALIA |
| University of the Sunshine Coast | AUSTRALIA |
| Western Sydney University | AUSTRALIA |
Teaching & student supervision
Supervisions from 2010 shown
| Thesis title | Student status |
|---|---|
| Improving computational thinking through the development of a low Earth orbit satellite | Current |
| In Search of Lost time in the Practice of Teaching | Current |
| The contribution of creative confidence to closing the gender gap in STEM | Completed |
