Toni McCallum

Dr. Toni McCallum is a Lecturer in Early Childhood at Charles Darwin University, affiliated with the College of Indigenous Futures, Education and Arts. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Newcastle. Her work focuses on the gendered dimensions of domestic and family violence, including coercive control, queer theory, and feminist new materialisms. She employs creative methodologies like drama and fiction to explore lived experiences of violence.

Her recent research examines the impact of complex trauma on children exposed to domestic violence, particularly in Indigenous communities. Toni collaborated with the Northern Territory Government on a grant-funded initiative to develop culturally responsive resources for schools addressing violence prevention. She is a co-facilitator of an interdisciplinary working group across three universities, investigating family violence through race, class, and gender lenses. The group presented at the 2021 National 'Stop Domestic Violence' Conference and submitted recommendations to Queensland’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce in 2021.

Her interdisciplinary collaborations span criminology, social work, sociology, anthropology, education, and law. She teaches in the Master of Teaching (Early Childhood and Primary) program and has designed curricula on the sociology of education.