Dr Graham Parr - Researcher Profile

Graham Parr

Address

Faculty of Education
Building 6, Clayton

Biography

Graham Parr began his teaching career as an itinerant French horn tutor in secondary schools across Melbourne, in between performing and recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. From there his interests in teaching and writing drew him away from music and performing to take in his other passions, English and Literature. He subsequently taught English, literature and drama in Victoria and the USA for ten years before joining the Department of Learning and Educational Development at the University of Melbourne as a Links to Schools lecturer. In 2003, he moved to the Faculty of Education, Monash University, where he currently is a senior lecturer in English language and literacy education.

His research interests include: professional learning, professional identity, teacher education, literature teaching, English curriculum and pedagogy, literary theory, professional knowledge and educational work. In 2007, he completed his PhD, titled Inquiry-based professional learning of English-literature teachers: negotiating dialogic potential. In this project he was investigating literature teachers' personal professional identities and the interrelationship between these identities, teachers' professional learning practices and the socio-political contexts of these practices. One particular focus of the project is an investigation into the way inquiry-based learning groups situated within schools, and mediated by a university-based critical friend, can generate rich dialogic professional learning and knowledge. In 2008, he was a joint winner of The AARE Award for Doctoral Research in Education. Drawing on this research, in 2010, he published Inquiry-based professional learning: Speaking back to standards-based reforms.

Since 2009, Graham Parr has lead groups of pre-service teacher education students from Monash University in an annual three-week international teaching practicum in Johannesburg, South Africa. This ongoing project is sponsored by Monash's Centre for International Engagement, Monash South Africa's Office of Community Engagement, and works with international partners including Monash South Africa, Oasis South Africa, and a number of schools and community organisations in Johannesburg.

Research & Supervision Interests

    Professional learning, professional identity, teacher education, literature teaching, English language curriculum and pedagogy, literary theory, and professional knowledge.

Qualifications

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Institution: UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
Year awarded: 2007
DIPED
Institution: University of Melbourne
Year awarded: 1989
BA (HONS)
Institution: University of Melbourne
Year awarded: 1988

Publications

Books

Doecke, B., Parr, G., Sawyer, W. (eds), 2011, Creating an Australian Curriculum for English: National agendas, local contexts, Phoenix Education, Australia.

Doecke, B., Parr, G. (eds), 2011, English for the Australian Curriculum, Cambridge University Press, UK.

Parr, G.B., 2010, Inquiry-based Professional Learning: Speaking back to standards-based reforms, Post Pressed, Teneriffe Qld Australia.

Loughran, J.J., Berry, A.K., Brandenburg, R.T., Clemans, A., Keast, S., Parr, G.B., Riley, P.J., Robb, D., Tudball, E.J. (eds), 2010, Leading professional learning: A case book of practice, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton Vic Australia.

Clemens, A., Berry, A.K., Blaise, M., Keast, S., Loughran, J.J., Parr, G.B., Riley, P.J., Robb, D. (eds), 2009, Leading Professional Learning: Willing to Lead, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne Vic Australia.

Berry, A.K., Blaise, M., Clemans, A., Loughran, J.J., Mitchell, J., Parr, G.B., Riley, P.J., Robb, D. (eds), 2008, Leading Professional Learning: Cases of Professional Dilemmas, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne Vic Australia.

Doecke, B., Parr, G.B. (eds), 2005, Writing=Learning, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA.

Book Chapters

Parr, G., Doecke, B., 2012, Writing and professional learning: A 'dialogic interaction', in Teacher Learning that Matters: International Perspectives, eds Mary Kooy & Klaas van Veen, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 158-175.

Coulombe, M., Parr, G., 2011, Castaways, aliens and colleagues in a new curriculum world: Reading and implementing The Australian Curriculum: English, in Creating an Australian Curriculum for English, eds Brenton Doecke, Graham Parr & Wayne Sawyer, Phoenix Education, Australia, pp. 235-251.

Loughran, J., Berry, A., Clemans, A., Keast, S., Miranda, B., Parr, G., Riley, P., Tudball, E., 2011, Exploring the nature of teachers' professional learning, in Navigating in Educational Contexts: Identities and Cultures in Dialogue, eds Anneli Lauriala, Raimo Rajala, Heli Ruokamo and Outi Ylitapio-Mantyla, Sense, Rotterdam, pp. 93-102.

Parr, G., Bellis, N.K., 2011, Journeys in Australian literature classrooms: Investigating the social, in Teaching Australian Literature: From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings, eds Brenton Doecke, Larissa McLean Davies and Philip Mead, Wakefield Press, South Australia, pp. 153-176.

Parr, G., 2011, Toward an understanding of literature teaching in Australia: Hanging on and letting go, in Literary Praxis: A Conversational Inquiry into the Teaching of Literature, eds Piet-Hein van de Ven & Brenton Doecke, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp. 69-87.

Parr, G.B., 2008, Writing about learning: Learning through writing, in Leading Professional Learning: Cases of Professional Dilemmas, eds Amanda Berry, Mindy Blaise, Allie Clemans, John Loughran, Jane Mitchell, Graham Parr, Philip Riley and Doug Robb, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne Vic Australia, pp. 9-12.

Parr, G.B., Bellis, N., 2005, Autobiographical inquiry in pre-service and early-career teacher learning: the dialogic possibilities, in Writing = Learning, eds Brenton Doecke and Graham Parr, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA Australia, pp. 19-39.

Doecke, B., Parr, G.B., 2005, Writing: a common project, in Writing = Learning, eds Brenton Doecke and Graham Parr, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA, pp. 1-16.

Parr, G.B., 2001, If in literary hypertext a traveller...: pre`paring for the travel, in P(ict)ures of English: Teachers, Learners and Technology, eds Cal Durrant and Catherine Beavis, Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Australia, pp. 227-246.

Journal Articles

Parr, G., 2012, Leading an international teaching practicum: negotiating tensions in a site of border pedagogy, Asia - Pacific Journal of Teacher Education [P], vol 40, issue 2, Routledge, Australia, pp. 97-109.

Doecke, B., Parr, G., 2011, The national mapping of teacher professional learning project: A multi-dimensional space?, English in Australia [P], vol 46, issue 2, Australian Association for the Teaching of English Inc., Australia, pp. 9-19.

Belcher, C., Parr, G.B., 2010, 'Commonness', diversity and disequilibrium in christian higher education: Narratives in and of institutional worldviews, Journal of Christian Education [P], vol 53, issue 3, Australian Christian Forum on Education Inc., Epping New South Wales Australia, pp. 7-17.

Parr, G.B., 2009, Book Review of 'Rethinking English in schools: A new and constructive stage' (Viv Ellis, Carol Fox and Brian Street, Eds.), English in Australia [P], vol 44, issue 2, Australian Association for the Teaching of English Inc. (AATE), Australia, pp. 65-69.

Doecke, B., Parr, G.B., 2009, 'Crude Thinking' or reclaiming our 'Story-Telling Rights'. Harold Rosen's Essays on Narrative, Changing English (An International Journal of English Teaching), vol 16, issue 1, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 63-76.

Bellis, N.K., Parr, G.B., Doecke, B., 2009, The making of literature: A continuing conversation, Changing English [P], vol 16, issue 2, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 165-179.

Doecke, B., Parr, G.B., 2008, Imagining a national English curriculum: Connecting with and speaking back to standards-based reforms (Editorial), English in Australia, vol 43, issue 3, Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE), Australia, pp. 2-7.

Parr, G.B., 2007, Writing and practitioner inquiry: thinking relationally, English Teaching: Practice and Critique, vol 6, issue 3, The University of Waikato, http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/journal/index.php?id=1, pp. 22-47.

Parr, G.B., 2006, Silent No More: Stories of Courage in American Schools [Book Review], English in Australia, vol 41, issue 1, -, -, pp. 57-58.

Parr, G.B., Bellis, N., 2006, 'To be strictly educated'?: Learning and teaching in an age of neo-liberal agendas, English in Australia, vol 41, issue 1, Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Australia, pp. 7-17.

Bellis, N., Parr, G.B., 2005, Responding to the forum: a professional conversation, Idiom, vol 41, issue 2, The Victorian Association for the Teaching of English, Carlton Vic Australia, pp. 39-45.

Parr, G.B., Wilson, J., Godinho, S., Longaretti, L., 2004, Improving pre-service teacher learning through peer teaching: process, people and product, Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, vol 12, issue 2, Carfax Publishing, Abingdon United Kingdom, pp. 187-203.

Parr, G.B., 2004, Professional learning, professional knowledge and professional identity: a bleak view, but oh the possibilities...., English Teaching: Practice and Critique, vol 3, issue 2, University of Waikato, http://www.tmc.waikato.ac.nz/english/ETPC/article/pdf/2004v3n2art2.pdf, pp. 21-47.

Parr, G.B., 2004, Teachers' professional learning environments: impoverishment and possibilities, Idiom, vol 40, issue 3, Victorian Association for the Teaching of English, Australia, pp. 28-36.

Parr, G.B., 2003, Teacher professional learning and transgression?: inquiry on the boundary, English in Australia, vol 138, issue Spring 2003, Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Norwood SA, pp. 63-79.

Conference Proceedings

Belcher, E.C., Parr, G.B., 2011, Exploring worldview and identity in an Institution of Christian Higher Education, Research and Development in Higher Education: Reshaping Higher Education, 04/07/2011-07/07/2011, Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, Inc., Milperra New South Wales Australia, pp. 40-49.

Parr, G.B., 2005, Teacher professionalism: pessimism and/or possibilities?, Doing the Public Good: Positioning Education Research. Australian Association for Educational Research 2004 Conference Papers, 29 November 2004 to 02 December 2004, AARE, http:www.aare.edu.au/confpap.htm, pp. 1-29.

Parr, G.B., 2004, Quality assurance in professional learning, or how to stifle rich professional learning in one easy step, Proceedings of Get Real and All That Spiel Conference of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English, 04/07/2004 to 07/07/2004, AATE.

Other

Parr, G.B., 2009, Teachers learning through writing... not just 'writing up' what they've learned, Leading Professional Learning: Willing to Lead, vol other, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne Vic Australia, pp. 106-108.

Doecke, B., Parr, G.B., North, S.M., Gale, T., Long, M.G., Mitchell, J., Rennie, J.A., Williams, J., 2008, National Mapping of Teacher Professional Learning Project, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) / Faculty of Education, Monash, Canberra, ACT, Australia, pp. 1-244.

Mitchell, I.J., Berry, A.K., Mitchell, J.M., Mitchell, J.A., Parr, G.B., 2004, An introduction and background to the principles of learning and teaching P-12, Monash University, Melbourne, pp. 1-9.

Mitchell, I.J., Parr, G.B., Berry, A.K., Mitchell, J., Mitchell, J., 2004, Principles of learning and teaching: draft 12, A background paper for the Department of Education and Training (DE&T), Faculty of Education, Monash University, DE&T, http://www.sofweb.vic.edu/pedagogy/pdfs/bgpaper1.pdf.

Parr, G.B., Mitchell, I.J., Berry, A.K., 2004, Steering, rowing, or swimming with the tide: tensions in Victorian secondary school education, In Loughran J. & Doecke B. (EDS) Environmental scan of learning and teaching: a report for the department of education and training, Vol 2, DE&T, Australia.

Postgraduate Research Supervisions

Current Supervision

Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Chinese ESL students' writing in Australia: negotiating practices and identities.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Effective use of technology in the English classroom..
Supervisors:
Bulfin, S (Main), Parr, G (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
From beliefs to practices: Exploring interculturality in the English language classroom in Indonesian academic settings..
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Joint), Phan, L (Joint-co).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Impact of English on middle-class Tamil women living and working in Chennai, India, and Melbourne Australia.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main), Brown, J (Associate).
Program of Study:
(MASTER'S BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Inquiry models and service learning in education.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Professional learning for Israeli literacy teachers: A narrative inquiry.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main), Bulfin, S (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Reflective Practice for Pre-Service English Teachers in Indonesia..
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
Teaching, Learning and Assessing Creativity in the English Classroom.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main), Bulfin, S (Associate).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The Curricula of English as an International Language (EIL) program and their effects on students' perceptions of English and its users..
Supervisors:
Gearon, M (Joint), Parr, G (Joint-co).
Program of Study:
(DOCTORATE BY RESEARCH).
Thesis Title:
The teaching of writing in senior english in Australia in the midst of curriculum change.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).

Completed Supervision

Student:
Belcher, E.
Program of Study:
Worldview in Christian higher education: a multi-dimensional investigation into experience, narrative and conceptions of worldview. (PHD) 2012.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Student:
Kirwan, P.
Program of Study:
ON THE ROAD TO BECOMING AN ENGLISH TEACHER: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC NARRATIVE INQUIRY. (Masters) 2012.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Student:
Manara, C.
Program of Study:
Intercultural dialogue and English language teaching: Indonesian teacher educators' narratives of professional learning. (PHD) 2011.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).
Student:
Tamala, M.
Program of Study:
Negotiating professional identity in the ELICOS industry: An education professional's journey through a time of significant change. (Masters) 2012.
Supervisors:
Parr, G (Main).