Dr Toni McCallum is a Lecturer in Early Childhood in the College of Indigenous Futures, Education and Arts at Charles Darwin University. She teaches into the Master of Teaching (early childhood and primary) programme and has developed curriculum on the sociology of education, social justice and equity.

Toni has a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Newcastle graduating in 2018. As an early career researcher her research interests centre on the gendered nature of domestic and family violence, specifically coercive control. She also has an expertise in queer theory and the fiction of prominent queer writer Anna-Marie Jagose, the subject of her Masters thesis. Toni’s recent publications use post-humanist and ecological systems theory to position domestic violence as a set of practices. Her research employs creative fiction and drama to foster empathy, insight and understanding of the lived experience of domestic violence.

Toni has over 20 years’ experience in the journalism and editing industry before entering academia. As a professional writer and editor she believes clear, accessible writing in university is important and works with her students and colleagues to facilitate this.

Toni’s research has recently moved into the effect of complex trauma on children exposed to domestic and family violence. She recently advised on a grant to the Northern Territory Government for funding to a Darwin school to take a community-based approach to preventing domestic, family and sexual violence. Working with mainly Indigenous children and their parents, along with the community and teachers, culturally responsive and appropriate resources and skills will be developed in the school. 

Toni chooses interdisciplinary collaborations combining research perspectives from criminology, social work, sociology, anthropology, education and law. She is currently a co-facilitator of an interdisciplinary working group with Griffith University, researching the impacts of family and domestic violence, and particularly coercive control, using an intersectional lens of race, class and gender.