Chris Peers

Between 2009 and 2015 Chris was the Director of IRECE conference (International Research in Early Childhood Education).

The first IRECE conference was held in the Republic of Ghana in January 2012, in collaboration with University of Cape Coast.

The second IRECE conference was successfully held in collaboration with the Universidad Diego Portales in January 2014 in Santiago Chile.

Team member 2010-2011: Contemporary Child Development Theory for Early Childhood Educators (DEECD/Bastow Institute Victorian State Government)

Leader 2011: Contemporary Child Development Theory for Policy Makers and Program Officers (DEECD/Bastow Institute Victorian State Government)

Leader/Team member 2011-12: Qualitative and Quantitative Baseline Evaluations of Commonwealth implementation of the Early Years Learning Framework (DEEWR, Australian Commonwealth Government).

Chris' current research explores educational policy concepts. He is interested in the cultural and economic forces that uphold or disrupt the formation of education and family policy in a global marketplace.

His expertise includes:

Psychoanalytic theory; epistemology; phenomenology and ontology; gender and sexuality; aesthetics; history of education; philosophy of education.

Chris' work involves the deconstruction of concepts that are foundational to education and the family.

He has recently completed a book about the intersection between education and econmic policy, focusing on the debate about class size.

Chris has supervised students in research about the arts in education; early childhood policy; history and philosophy of education.

2015: EDF3008; EDF4122

EDF 5181 EDF5182 [Visual Arts and Design for secondary pre-service teachers in the Master of Secondary Teaching]

Chris was a visual arts teacher between 2001 and 2006 in primary and secondary schools in NSW. He completed a BA in visual art at what is now the College of Fine Arts in UNSW between 1982 and 1984; he worked in a range of jobs and was a part-time political activist until he returned to study in 1995, completing a B Art Education with Honours in 1998. Chris then undertook a PhD on the history of art teacher education in Australia, graduating in 2003. He has worked at Monash since 2007, across the early childhood, primary and secondary programs, with special responsibility for the method Visual Arts for secondary teachers. Chris is currently undertaking his second doctorate at Macquarie University, on conceptions of the family in Western philosophy.