Dr Alexandra Cutcher, BEd (Newcastle), MEd (UWS Nepean), PhD (Sydney) Alexandra has almost 30 years of experience in secondary visual arts education in public and private schools in Australia, has taught in Canada and is a practicing artist. She has had many leadership roles in the Department of Education and the Board of Studies in NSW, with particular emphasis on curriculum and professional development. She currently lectures in the School of Education at Southern Cross University, Australia. Alexandra’s research interests focus on the functions of the arts – as historical record, representation of experience, language, aesthetic object, research methodology, catharsis, reflective tool, entertainment, therapy and documented form. Her doctoral research is entitled The Hungarian in Australia: A Portfolio of Belongings. It examines notions of belonging and alienation through the lens of the experiences of one post-war Hungarian migrant family in Australia. It utilizes arts-based and autobiographical research methods and is a post-modern research text, with multiple points of entry including painting, printmaking, digital forms, creative writing, narrative and poetry. The work represents a benchmark in the field, and was awarded the New South Wales Institute for Educational Research Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research in 2004. Alexandra’s current research interests lie with the uses of visual and performative modalities in teaching, research and its representation, professional development and classroom management.
Journal articles
A small voice in the making of a nation: autobiography and the self-portrait, Oral History Association of Australia Journal (2001)
Book chapters
Crossing borders and learning languages: wandering into unknown territories, Creating scholartistry: imagining the arts-informed thesis or dissertation (2009)
Seminar presentations
Show and tell: an arts-informed thesis unpacked, University of Sydney, Faculty of Education and Social Work Seminar (2009)
The arts have many functions – as historical document, entertainment, artefact, narrative, catharsis, therapy, analytical...
Conference publications
Reflecting on making and presenting Arts Informed Research: a biography on the process of creating a doctoral thesis (with Robyn Ewing), Narrative, Arts-based, and "Post" Approaches to Social Research (NAPAR) Conference (2011)
Imagine what it’s like to step into unknown territories, in the dark, armed only with...
Art for the sake of teaching: visual reflective practice, Making a difference: Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) annual conference (2010)
Making a measurable and constructive difference in the lives of our students is the core...
Small histories, art histories, my histories: rethinking historical research, Rethinking the past: experimental histories in the arts conference (2006)
Longing and belonging, Representing cultural diversity, mediating cultural difference: the fourth International Conference on Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations (2004)