Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemSexual harassment and the interplay of masculinities in a secondary school( 1996)This thesis is a qualitative study which draws on elements of feminist post-structuralist theory to research why some boys sexually harass girls in school. In particular, this research explores the interplay of sexual harassment and masculinities. The literature reviewed focuses on the complex and contradictory nature of students' gendered identities and supports the feminist post-structuralist belief that boys are active agents in establishing their identities and that these are organised hierarchically. This study involves the teacher as researcher and the use of ethnographic research methods. It presents the perspectives of five teenage boys who attend the same co-educational school in the Western suburbs of Melbourne and provides as direct evidence to the reader the boys' opinions and beliefs about the sexual harassment of girls by boys at school. The major findings of this research suggest that some boys use sexual harassment in school as a key signifier to position themselves as 'masculine' and that the culture and institutional structure of the school can reinforce this phenomenon.
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ItemStudent learning with Internet: is it emancipatory?( 1996)Learning is regarded by some educators to be of great value only when it contributes to an enlightened, empowered and emancipated view of the student's role in their own education (Barthes, 1977, Brunner, 1994, Freire, 1972, Grundy and Henry, 1995). Internet is a relatively inexpensive computer technology which some have seen to offer a practical vision of such 'new age' learning (Goodman, 1995). The study took place at a 1500 student K-12 co-educational single campus independent school, south-east of Melbourne, at which the author is a teacher of English and Economics. Since 1994 the school has attempted to integrate Internet computing across the curriculum. One entrepreneurial curriculum investment has been the establishment of a small group of senior students whose interest and technical competence in computer based electronic communication has led the school to license it to take on a key role, with privileges, across the school's computer resources. The challenge was not to perceive the information technology as extending individual instruction, but to examine instructional reform in methods by which students learn in the context of group problem solving and how the computer would be used in this regard (Koschmann, 1994). Largely autonomous and self-evaluating, this School Internet Group (known as the SIG) provided the data for this study. Utilizing an interview based case study methodology (Scheurich, 1995) the study sought to elicit responses from five of the group members relating to their emergent understanding of their own 'SIG-thinking' and its personal significance. The subjects were asked first to characterise SIG-thinking in a metaphor which were treated as complex semantically creative 'signs' that represent a blending of imaginal and symbolic thinking. This metaphoric projection provided a narrative structuring device to each student's story. These subjects' self-defining metaphors became their psuedonyms in their stories. The study was concerned both with the public realm of social interaction and with the private realm of autonomous cognition. The students' stories were incorporated within a narrative analysis in which the concepts derived from theoretical sources and empirical possibilities were applied to the data to determine whether instances of these concepts of emancipation and empowerment were to be found (Polkinghorne, 1995). The narrative style findings of the study may inform school policy at the research site, where a number of associated staff were able to read or sense implications for a loosening of the 'straight jacket of academic success' that restricts resonant, adaptive curriculum reform. The study may be useful for schools considering different principled policies or their own action research in the educational use of computers. For the reader beyond there are four criteria for judging the emancipatory quality of the educational experience.
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ItemOne class reading: a description of the habits, experiences and attitudes of Year Nine boys( 1996)In this study one Year Nine class in an inner city Catholic boys school was examined using a questionnaire, selective interviews and an attitude scale. The issues being investigated were their experiences and attitudes regarding their leisure reading. There was a special focus on fiction. This thesis does not aim to identify causal relationships rather to describe the experience of the class in detail and to identify areas for further action, both in relation to study and working with the students.