Dr Lesley Friend
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education
Biography
Dr Lesley Friend is a lecturer in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education within the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice. Lesley has extensive experience in working across multiple university platforms as researcher and lecturer; has taught children of different age groups across international boundaries; and has worked as a consultant with government bodies in Queensland and the Middle East to improve the quality of teaching and educational outcomes for students. Lesley's ethnographic PhD explored how cultural difference interplayed with the concept of place, power and sociomateriality in two primary classrooms in Queensland and the United Arab Emirates. Her research interests include literacy and language learning within the context of globalisation.Personal details
Positions
- Lecturer
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philsophy in Education (Australian Catholic Uni)
Professional memberships and associations
Australian Association for Research in Education
Australian Literacy Educator's Association
Institute of Professional Editors' Association
Queensland College of Teachers
Teaching
Lesley teaches and coordinates undergraduate and postgraduate early years literacy, language and English units.
Experience
Before coming to QUT Lesley worked as a teacher and consultant within domestic and international contexts. As well as teaching primary school in Queensland she has taught early childhood education in the Middle East. Lesley worked as a consultant for Education Queensland International to improve teacher practice in Qatar and as critical friend and researcher on the trial of the New Basics Project for Education Queensland. Her PhD was influenced by experience in these diverse contexts. Lesley is a keen editor and contributes to the following teacher professional organisations: ALEA Meanjin and AARE Global Contexts and Social Justice SIGS.
Publications
- Friend, L. & Mills, K. (2021). Towards a typology of touch in multisensory makerspaces. Learning, Media and Technology, 46(4), 465–482. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/227575
- Friend, L., (2017). IRE and content area literacies: A critical analysis of classroom discourse. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 40(2), 124–134. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/227660
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Lesley, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).