The Wheeler Centre

In early 2021, in the wake of the global #MeToo movement, an online petition in Australia generated more than 500 testimonies from school students, depicting experiences of sexual assault during their time at school and asking for more emphasis to be given to consent education in secondary schools. 

In response, the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) advised that consent education would be introduced into the Australian curriculum in holistic, age-appropriate ways. 

This event explores research conducted by the Literary Education Lab (University of Melbourne) in collaboration with the Stella Prize. The ‘Reading Consent’ report looks at the ways high school English curriculum can best highlight diverse perspectives on issues of consent, and demonstrates that the teaching of literature is an important site for consent education. 

At this in-conversation event, young adult authors who contributed to the report – Cath Moore and Rebecca Lim – as well as high school English teacher Antony Monteleone, will join the report's lead author Professor Larissa McLean Davies to discuss its findings. Panellists will consider the implications of this research for pre-service English teacher preparation and in-service professional learning, as well as the support that teachers need to lead conversations about consent in English classrooms. 

Join us to explore the intersections of literacy and consent, and the untapped potential of high school English to shape students’ experiences of power and consent. 

Presented in partnership with Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the Stella Prize & the Literary Education Lab