• Australian history
• Childhood
• Children's rights
• Feminism
• Gender history
• Girl studies
• Social movements

Dr Isobelle Barrett Meyering joined Macquarie University in 2018. She is currently an ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Humanities and is working on a project, ‘Child Citizens: Young People and Australian Democracy since 1945’, which seeks to track changes in children’s conceptions and practices of citizenship.

This research builds on Isobelle’s previous project, ‘Contested Childhoods: A History of Children’s Rights in Australia (1959-2013)’, which explored how debates over children’s rights have shaped political, social and cultural life across a period of almost sixty years. This project was supported by a Macquarie University Research Fellowship from 2018 to 2024. During this time, Isobelle was a David Mitchell Memorial Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales (2019) and Visiting Fellow at the ANU Humanities Research Centre (2022).

Isobelle has also worked extensively on the history of Australian feminism, childhood and the family. Her book, Feminism and the Making of a Child Rights Revolution, 1969-1979 (MUP, 2022), foregrounds the radical vision of children's liberation articulated by Australian women’s liberationists in the 1970s. In addition, she has published on topics ranging from feminist parenting practices and lifestyle politics to suburban feminism and backlash movements.

Prior to joining Macquarie University, Isobelle completed her PhD at UNSW in 2017, where she also taught in history and gender studies. She worked as a research assistant at the University of Wollongong (2016-2017) and the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse (2009-2013).

Isobelle is currently co-convenor of the Children's Rights, Participation and Perspectives research stream in the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University. She has been a member of the General Council of the History Council of New South Wales since 2019 and was the organisation’s treasurer from 2019 to 2023. She previously served as secretary of Oral History New South Wales and was a founding member of the editorial collective for History in the Making, a national online journal for history students first published in 2012.