Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemJourneys to university and arrival experiences: a study of non-traditional students transitions at a new Australian university( 2011)The broad context for this study is the rapid shift in recent decades from elite to mass Higher Education in Australia, and new government policies and institutional strategies which are geared to building university graduate numbers and increasing successful participation by working-class and other non-traditional students in degree courses. This study of a cohort of commencing humanities students at a new university aimed to produce a more in-depth and holistic account of non-traditional students’ transitions in Higher Education in Australia than is available through large-scale survey-driven reports or available through studies focused on curriculum matters; notwithstanding the valuable contribution to knowledge made by many of these studies and reports. This is a mixed-method study weighted towards the analysis of 33 students’ biographical stories produced through in-depth interviews and contextualised by survey results and other data. The study investigated the students’ social and family backgrounds, their educational experiences prior to coming to university, their aspirations and career goals, their dispositions towards Higher Education and their preparedness for degree level studies on arrival. It also investigated the daily lives of these students in the early weeks and months of their time at university, and investigated on-campus and off-campus matters impacting or intruding on their first-year studies including financial worries, paid-work commitments and household duties. And it explored how students were dealing with the difficulties they faced, and the resources they were bringing to meet various challenges. In seeking to understand the wider context or backdrop to these students’ experiences and perspectives the study drew on strands of youth sociology concerned with persistent inequalities amidst rapid social change, non-linear life-course transitions, and pressures on young people to produce their own biographies. In seeking to understand the nature of people’s class-based relationships with educational institutions and practices, and education’s role in social reproduction, the study drew on work by Pierre Bourdieu and some scholars who draw on and critique his ideas. The thesis foregrounds a framework which draws on theories and concepts from critical social psychology – including the work of academic Margaret Wetherell and therapist Michael White – concerned with the transformative potential of biographical reflexivity and narrative practice. This framework aligns to the narrative research method of using in-depth interviews to produce biographical stories about people’s lives in education.The study found that the majority of these non-traditional students at a new university had strong educational aspirations and clear career goals, were socially and intellectually engaged and satisfied with their courses, felt well supported by families and by the institution, and were generally enjoying successful Higher Education transitions, despite various difficulties and challenges most faced on-campus and off-campus. The study also argued that students’ reflexive capacities and their use of ‘narrative as a discursive resource’ (Taylor 2006) seemed to be contributing to their production of learner identities, including a strong sense of belonging in Higher Education. Several interviewees described ‘finding themselves’ through participation in Higher Education. Overall, conceptually, this study brings some new questions to analyse the contemporary relevance of arguments about working-class people ‘losing themselves’ in Higher Education. The study’s analysis and presentation of non-traditional students’ successful first-year university transitions at a new university supports the view that there is in Australia a changing relationship of working-class people to Higher Education; a field which remains beset by inequalities but one which has become literally and culturally more accessible. This accessibility is evidenced in the collective stories produced here and more generally in the take up by working-class people of the new places and opportunities which have become available in the current political climate.
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ItemRethinking indigenous educational disadvantage: a critical analysis of race and whiteness in Australian education policy( 2011)This thesis examines Indigenous school education in Australia, through analysing themes of difference, race and whiteness in contemporary education policy. The study asks why educational inequality and disadvantage continue to be experienced by Indigenous school students, despite concerted policy attention towards redressing these issues. It seeks to better understand how Indigenous education is represented in policy and scholarly debates and what implications this has for Indigenous educational achievement. I argue that in order to succeed Indigenous school students are often expected to assimilate into an education system that judges success according to values and expectations influenced by an invisible ‘whiteness’. The investigation of these issues is framed by insights and approaches drawn from three theoretical frameworks. Michel Foucault’s concepts of ‘discourse’, ‘disciplinary power’, ‘regimes of truth’ and ‘normalisation’, and Iris Marion Young’s work with issues of difference, ‘cultural imperialism’, oppression and justice are brought into critical dialogue with critical race theory (CRT). In particular, CRT is engaged as an attempt to bring some new perspectives to understandings of race and difference in Australian education policy. This combination of theories informs an examination of policy (and policy related texts) guided by Foucauldian discourse analysis and critical policy research methods. Through my analysis I develop a number of arguments. First, that the combined theoretical approach I engage is useful for uncovering some of the silences and assumptions that have typically influenced attempts to achieve educational justice for Indigenous Australians. Second, in the documents I analyse, the ways in which Indigenous students are described commonly positions them as deficient and suggests that these deficiencies are to be remedied through exhibiting more of the behaviours and attitudes of non-Indigenous students. Third, that the commitment to ‘inclusion’ within the policies analysed is important, but typically maintains a relationship in which a powerful and central white ‘norm’ remains invisible and dictates how and when the ‘Other’ is included. Fourth, that in seeking to understand equity issues for Indigenous students it is important to look also at the broader education system and its dominant values and goals. Through analysis of policies related to education for ‘all students’, I suggest that educational success is commonly identified and assessed according to ‘white’ norms, within schools that are expected to improve and be accountable within a neo-liberal agenda, which is largely supportive of standardisation and sameness, and not readily accommodating of ‘difference’. Overall, this study has attempted to bring some important conceptual approaches to analysis of current education policy in Australia in order to build greater understanding of Indigenous educational disadvantage. It has sought to open possibilities for addressing issues of race and justice that are characterised by listening, support of difference and responsibility, and commitment to disruption and discomfort.