Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemWorking through tension : a response to the concerns of lesbian, gay and bisexual secondary school students(University of Melbourne, 2001)
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ItemProactive aggression in children : self-preservation or cruelty(University of Melbourne, 2009)
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ItemCircumscription and compromise theory : its impact on occupational preferences and outcomes(University of Melbourne, 2009)
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ItemBecoming green : the formation of environmental ethics in outdoor education(University of Melbourne, 2008)This thesis investigates and critically analyses key social and educational discourses on environmental ethics and explores what it means to be an environmentally ethical person and to enact environmentally ethical practices. It addresses the dynamic and complex relationships between subjectivity, ethics and pedagogy, specifically investigating the formation of environmental ethics among university students who are undertaking or have undertaken a course in Outdoor and Environmental Education (OEE) in Victoria, Australia. The study is located within interpretive methodological traditions and draws on a range of resources, including a qualitative longitudinal study of tertiary OEE students and a case study of OEE graduates teaching in secondary schools. Concepts drawn from poststructuralist theories inform the analysis of interviews, case studies, curriculum materials and popular discourses related to environmentalism. Three main lines of analysis are developed. The first is an investigation of the formation of what I describe as �green subjectivity�, that is, the processes by which tertiary OEE students and graduates understand, negotiate and practise environmental ethics and become �green�. The Foucauldian concepts of�government� and �technologies of the self inform the analysis of how Outdoor Education discourse and practice, linked to wider public discourses of education and the environment, shape possibilities for being and becoming green. The term �becoming� refers to both the process of how individuals develop green subjectivities over time and the argument that green subjectivity, as with other forms of subjectivity, is not fixed and final, but instead is in-process, dynamic and unresolved. Second, the claims, dangers and limitations of current conceptions of green ethics are examined, particularly in relation to neo-liberal and individualising practices. It is argued that the formation of green subjectivity in Outdoor Education coheres with the socially-dominant moral imperative to be a self-reliant, rational and responsible citizen, and I outline the shortcomings of an environmental ethic that is largely motivated and regulated by moral prescription and obligation Third, the possibilities for alternative imaginings of green ethics are investigated. I argue for an alternative to a common conception of environmental ethics as based on moral codes and norms, and propose a view of ethics that encourages individuals to actively and self-consciously fashion and question their own ethical existence m relation to the environment. This argument develops from the qualitative empirical studies of students, and draws on the Foucauldian concept of �aesthetics of existence� to bring greater analytic attention to the emergence of, and possibilities for, new forms of green subjectivities based on resistance and self-transformation. Overall, the thesis considers the implications of these three arguments for the teaching of Outdoor and Environmental Education, and for pedagogical practice more broadly, especially in relation to the importance of�place� and the spatial dimensions of pedagogy. Throughout, methodological discussions are accompanied by metareflections. These provoke a critical and reflexive review of guiding theoretical frameworks and offer a critique of pedagogical practice. The thesis concludes with suggestions for how the proposed reconceptualized view of environmental ethics and green subjectivity could be taken up in pedagogical practice.
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ItemDeveloping a framework for a pedagogical grammar of conversational English(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemTransition and identity : linguistic minority international students at an Australian University(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemOpportunity structures and the drama classroom : socioeconomic status as interactional topic and resource(University of Melbourne, 2008)
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ItemAn investigation of Ethiopian and Ethio-Australian secondary school students' school experiences in Melbourne(University of Melbourne, 2008)