Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemStudent expectations of the future( 1992)Specific aims of the study To investigate how present-day students view the future and their place in the workforce of the future. To establish whether or not students regard their present educational experiences as an adequate preparation for their future work. To investigate acceptance of unconventional futures scenarios as possible futures.
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ItemGirls & post school achievement : discourse, meaning & subjectivity( 1998)In an overall sense the concern of my research is the question of gender. It is concerned with girls' engagement with the discursive fields which make up their lives, their acquisition of meaning and formation of subjectivity. Specifically, my research is concerned with the role of discourse in girls' acquisition of meaning about gender, achievement and success, and the ways in which teachers can develop strategies to support girls to negotiate the complex and contradictory discourses which surround them. As a poststructuralist feminist researcher I assume a keen awareness of the semiotic, discursive dimension of the social and from such a perspective consider the question of gender in relation to girls' education and post school achievement and career success. Through an emphasis on the discourses and texts which make up schools and educational practices, such a perspective makes relevant the emotional, psychic and physical embeddedness of girls in the discursively constituted categories to which they belong. The study undertaken is a critical engagement with one of the discourses shaping girls' identities. It draws on data gathered from a focused analysis of a selection of four celebratory feminist texts. The complex and contradictory nature of the meanings within the texts are examined, and the potential of this genre of feminist discourses to remake meanings and challenge the gender order of society is explored. My own personal and professional biography and the focus of the literature review have fashioned the specific questions I posed.
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ItemDisability, education and ethnic families: the changing Greek-Australian experience( 1996)This study set out to examine whether there would be a difference in the attitudes held towards people with disabilities by two different generations of Greek Australians. The first group were those who had spent their formative years in the mother country whilst the second had been born in Australia. It was assumed that the attitudes held would be shaped by both the experience and the communal value system. The working hypothesis was that the attitudes held by the Anglo oriented group of young Greeks would be more akin to the general community than to the Traditional Group. The literature indicates that children raised in a multicultural environment will begin to absorb the values of the dominant society even when their own ethnic group maintains a cohesive set of values and provides a context in which to live a fulfilling life. The literature suggests there are six areas where the Greek tradition might significantly vary from the dominant group. These can be illustrated by the specific questions:- causes attributed to disability, responsibility for care, access to social services, access and participation in mainstream education, access to employment, and the rights to personal development. A survey was undertaken to evaluate the attitudes system of the groups, two of Greek background and one of Anglo-Australians. The results, with two small exceptions confirmed the hypothesis and provided conformation of the proposition that attitudes towards disability are shaped by the cultural context in which one lives and schools need to take into account the structure of ethnic families of Greek background. To maximise the levels of cooperation and communication the family values must be understood and respected. For the schools to assist those with disabilities to achieve meaningful and satisfying lives it is necessary to ensure that the whole family unit benefits.