I am an educator and educational researcher working in the areas of education policy, teacher professional identity and learning, curriculum and pedagogy.  I have worked in education for the past 30 years, as a classroom teacher, school leader and education consultant in Government and Non-government sectors, and more recently as a university-based teacher educator and educational researcher. 

My research and writing are in the areas of professional identity, professional learning, curriculum and pedagogy, and education policy.  I hold a Bachelor of Education with Honours in Ancient History, a Master of Arts in Women’s Studies  and a PhD in Education, all from the University of Sydney. I also hold a Master of Science in Applied Statistics from Swinburne University of Technology and a Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching, from the University of Newcastle.

I have co-authored and edited 18 books since 2003, including Analysing Education Policy: Theory & Method (Stacey & Mockler, 2024), Constructing Teacher Identities: How the Print Media Define and Represent Teachers's Work (2022), Questioning the Language of Reform and Improvement in Education: Reclaiming Meaning (Mockler & Groundwater-Smith, 2018), Education, Change and Society (Welch, Connell, Mockler et. al., 2017), Student Voice: Beyond Legitimation and Guardianship (Mockler & Groundwater-Smith, 2015), Teacher Professional Learning in an Age of Compliance: Mind the Gap (Groundwater-Smith & Mockler, 2009), and the Australian Curriculum: Classroom Approaches series (Mockler & Talbot, Talbot & Mockler, 2012-2013).  

I am Professor of Education at the University of Sydney, where I teach and research in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, and Honorary Research Fellow at Department of Education, University of Oxford. In 2018-2019, I was a University of Sydney SOAR Fellow, and held Visiting Fellowships at the University of Oxford and the Institute of Education at University College London. In 2019 and 2023 I was Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford. I was Editor-in-Chief of The Australian Educational Researcher for six years, from 2017 to 2022, and have previously been the Communications Co-ordinator for the Australian Association for Research in Education (2012-2016), Series Editor of the book series Local/Global Issues in Education (2013-2016), and Associate Editor of the scholarly journals Critical Studies in Education (2014-2016) and Teaching and Teacher Education (2015-2016).