Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Chris Gabbett

There exists within Catholic education in Australia a significant gap between the formal missiology of the Church and the reality of faith, identity and distinctiveness within the Catholic school.  This 'mission gap' is borne of many factors; the increasing secularisation of Australia, a decline in practicing Catholics, the steady decline in teaching religious and a lack of coherence in formation of Catholic teachers and leaders.  This situation has meant that a secular culture is hegemonic in Australia and, increasingly, with Catholic schools.

The aim of this research is to use Gramscian frameworks to enable a renewal of Catholic school leadership.  This will involve a transformative mixed-methods approach, where spiritual assets of the community are recognised and promoted, with a view to creating a new hegemony, aligned to recontextualised Catholic identity within a uniquely Australia context.  

This research will contribute to the field of educational leadership in Catholic schools in the current Australian context.  The rapid transformation of Catholic schools in the post Vatican II period has created a faith leadership paradigm that can appear administrative rather than spiritual, with a contrived perspective of the role of charism and a disconnect between the mission of the Church and the perspectives of the school community.  Research into the efficacy and relevance of not only recontextualised faith perspectives but also a focus on an authentically Pauline manifestation of charism will enable Catholic school leaders in the Australian context a greater platform to utilise these as key levers for faith leadership.  The presence of small but significant theological opposition to a recontextualised perspective of the teaching of religion and the understanding of the role of Catholic schools in a multi-faith world is an ongoing concern for Catholic school leaders.  It is hoped that this research will enable a lived meeting point between theologically conservative and recontextualised perspectives in a school setting.  

The most significant contribution I hope this research to make is to use a synthesis of the recontextualised leadership paradigm of Pope Francis, the Gramscian theory of hegemony being challenged by the organic intellectual and the role of a transformative research paradigm to create proven methodology for change.  My goal is that school leaders can apply this model in their settings, and close the gap between the rhetoric of Catholic school leadership and the reality of the experience for our Catholic school communities, in a way that enables a lived culture of dialogue and a culture of authentic encounter with faith.

For more information, please email the Graduate Research School or phone 0746 311088.