Claire Sinnema

Claire Sinnema’s research focuses on curriculum improvement and how educators and leaders within and across settings can improve curriculum design, enactment and impact through their practice, and the role of policy in those improvement efforts.  Her touchstone for improving curriculum is the improvement of educational equity.

Much of Claire’s research on curriculum, educational leadership and educational improvement policy and practice, educational networks, and practitioner inquiry has been funded through contracts and grants  from national  and international funders.  She takes a systems perspective, working with policy makers and practitioners across system settings on the design, implementation and evaluation of curricula.  Attention to the coherence of initiatives across systems is central to her commitment to improving the quality of curriculum learners’ experience, and realising equity and inclusion curriculum aspirations.

Claire utilises a range of methodological approaches including mixed methods, qualitative, quantitative, problem-based methodology and theory-of-action approaches and, more recently, social network analysis. These methods allows deep understandings of the complex causes of educational inequity and provide a basis for effective intervention toward equitable, inclusive education for diverse learners.

Claire’s postgraduate teaching also focuses on improving equity-focused collaboration in educational  contexts.