SEMINAR: Accomplished Education Researcher Seminar Series

Privacy has been defined as “the protective buffer within which people can avoid another party’s taking something from them, keeping watch over them, or entering into their lives in a way that is both unwelcome and undesirable”. It is a premise of this paper that such a position needs to be taken very seriously as school personnel have the capacity to engage in practices which show great disregard for individual and family privacy. This is demonstrated through the results of a preliminary comparative case study, thus also illustrating the value in comparative education for understanding Australian educational issues. The intention in conducting the case study was to illustrate a scenario that has the potential to become widespread, if it is not already so. Particular attention is paid to assessment, pedagogical and curricular practices that derive from patterns of systematic and mandatory disclosure that are confessional, performative and public.