Associate Professor Jeanne Allen is internationally recognised for her research in the fields of teacher education, standardised educational contexts, teacher identity and student engagement and retention. Jeanne is inspired by the research she does and her work as HDR convenor, where she has insight into the professionals of the future and their work.
Entering tertiary education after an extensive career in secondary teaching and school leadership, Jeanne’s expertise also lies in French language and literature, and, in addition to her Dip Ed, MEd and PhD, she holds a BA (Hons) and an MA by research, conferred by Melbourne University, in this field.
Jeanne says:
“I began learning French in high school and have always been fascinated by all things French. I lived in Southern France for a few years in my 20s where I became fluent in the language, and it has just been a lifelong love affair of mine.”
Jeanne is currently working on an inter-disciplinary study (Education & Medicine) across Australia and the UK, which Jeanne co-leads with Professor Kay Mohanna, Prof of Healthcare Education, University of Worcester. The project, which is framed in the politics of belonging, investigates how a sense of belonging and professional identity develop among the increasingly mobile student population in the higher education space.
Inspired by a conversation they had at a conference in China in 2011, the project has continued to evolve. On this work, Jeanne says:
“We are hoping to find ways of retaining students through fostering a sense of belonging across different fields and study areas.”
This work builds on the team’s previous research on students’ expectations and experiences in internationalised and globalised higher education. Professor Mohanna was an invited guest scholar to GIER in March 2020.
Jeanne is a prolific writer and her most recent books are Teachers as professional learners: Contextualising identity across policy and practice (2021), published by Palgrave-Macmillan, and Learning to teach in a new era (2nd ed.) published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. She also continues her research into the French presence in colonial Australia and co-authored Courtesan and Countess: The Lost and Found Memoirs of the French Consul’s Wife in 2015 (Melbourne University Press).
On this Jeanne says:
““The inspiration for this was borne out of my research project in my Master of Arts in French Language and Literature, and my subsequent translation of Celeste De Chabrillan’s first set of memoirs. These memoirs were seized by police at their time of publication in 1854, due to the content they contained about members of the French aristocracy and are now very rare and valuable.”
To read more about Jeanne’s work and collaborations please see:
Teachers as professional learners: Contextualising identity across policy and practice
Learning to teach in a new era
Courtesan and Countess: The Lost and Found Memoirs of the French Consul’s Wife
