Dr. Mariko Francis
Details
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Department: School of Education
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Campus: Bundoora West Australia
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mariko.francis@rmit.edu.au
About
Lecturer, Inclusive Education
I have over a decade of experience in educational teaching and research with a focus on inclusive education. I have previously held teaching and research roles at the Australian Catholic University, Monash University and the University of Melbourne across undergraduate and postgraduate studies in both Teaching and Education degrees. I also teach academic traditions such as research methods and scholarly practices in the field of education.
My teaching expertise extends across tertiary, corporate, and community settings that focus on authentic relationship building, collaborative approaches to family-school partnerships, and supporting best practices in inclusive education, and I have contributed to designing, managing, and delivering VIT-certified teacher professional development workshops, conferences, and community-based seminars.
Beyond my academic roles, I have had a wide range of international industry experience with a sound knowledge base in business development and relationship management in the fields of advertising, marketing, editing, publishing, and cross-cultural communications. I am active in a volunteer role for education and cancer research at WEHI where I have supported the writing and procuring of grants for several cancer research teams. In addition, I am an active member of various special interest groups (SIGs) focusing on inclusive education and theoretical discourse on education and sociology.
Supervisor projects
- Haunting the Postcolonial Matrix: Institutional Ghosts, Possessive Logics and Arts-Based Disruptions
- 21 Apr 2025
Research interests
Research areas: Inclusive education, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), Disability Inclusion (DI) reform, Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Social-emotional learning and behaviour support, Policy implementation evaluation, Family-school partnerships, Supplementary education, High ability and gifted education, Mental health and wellbeing (DET), Survey and scale development and validation, Systematic reviews, Critical theory, Systems theory
My research focuses on disability inclusion and intervention practices across Australian education systems, such as the evaluation of the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) in consultation with industry and the Victorian Schools (DET). I specialize in systematic reviews and research focusing on data collection and evaluation using mixed methods approaches.
My PhD thesis explored the relationship between families and schools, and why parents supplement their children's education with academic classwork outside of general education settings. I combined systems theory and capital theories to expand on a critical ecological framework to investigate parenting practices in Australia.
I have focused on survey development for data collection in program evaluation, data analysis, interpretation, and reporting. My expertise and interests extend to academic editing, grant writing, and academic peer review including grant reviewing.
