Faculty of Education - Theses

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Author: Barron, Rosie Joy × Start date: 2010 × Type: Masters Research thesis ×

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    Positive education and social justice: two cases of school-based wellbeing programs for marginalised populations
    Barron, Rosie Joy ( 2017)
    This thesis explores the increasing influence of positive education in Australian school-based wellbeing programs, with a specific focus on those directed toward marginalised student population. Two examples of this phenomenon are analysed in terms of how the needs and problems that positive education addresses are represented and how understandings of social justice are articulated. It adopts a case study approach supported by a Foucauldian theoretical framework, and draws on concepts and analytic strategies associated with problematisation and genealogy. The first case study focuses on Aboriginal Girls’ Circle, a wellbeing program delivered in a secondary school in rural NSW that was developed to address the perceived needs of Aboriginal young women. This customised program is informed by Circle Solutions, a wellbeing intervention delivered in various Australian schools. Here the contrast is between a general program for all students and one that is targeted to particular populations. The second case study explores the introduction of positive education into several South Australian schools in line with the State Government’s ‘State of Wellbeing’ policy agenda, and focuses on two particular school-based projects. It examines representations of the needs of the schools and communities involved, attending to how positive education is positioned as part of efforts to work against economic and social marginalisation. I conduct an analysis of these cases independently, focusing on different dimensions of the phenomenon studied. I then consider the insights derived from this analysis in relation to a few dominant discourses in critical scholarship on therapeutic education. I outline how this thesis contributes to this body of scholarship, and conclude by identifying some limitations and future directions for research in this area.