Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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ItemCan we find out about girls and boys today – or must we settle for just talking about ourselves?: dilemmas of a feminist, qualitative, longitudinal research project(Australian Association for Research in Education, 1997-12)Question - What does the postmodern ethnographer say to the interviewee? Answer - Enough about you - now let's talk about me. This paper addresses the problems and experiences of engaging in a longitudinal, qualitative project of empirical research while trying to be seriously reflexive about what we are constructing as researchers. The particular project is the 'The 12 to 18 Project' running in Victoria.
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Item[Review of the book Knowing women: origins of women's education in nineteenth-century Australia](Cambridge University Press, 1997)The article reviews the book "Knowing Women: Origins of Women's Education in Nineteenth-Century Australia" by Marjorie Theobald.
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ItemConstructing and deconstructing 'girls' as a category of concern in education - reflections on two decades of research and reform(Falmer Press, 1998)In the 1970s, many countries began to initiate projects of reform for girls and women in education. In the decades that followed, a large and diverse body of feminist research on education was developed. And, at the turn of the century, the media and education policy-makers are raising new questions about what has taken place: have the aims of reform now been achieved? have feminist agendas 'gone too far'? is it boys who now deserve special attention? should economic agendas replace social concerns in constructions of education policy? This chapter reviews some of the ways of thinking and types of initiatives that have taken place in Australia since the early 1970s.
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ItemResearch methodology, education and theoretical fashions: constructing a methodology course in an era of deconstruction(Taylor & Francis, 1997)In this article a case is made both for the utility of deconstructive questions, and also for the danger of taking such questions as a sole or over-riding methodological agenda in education. The discussion is mounted by attention to grounded contexts and dilemmas rather than by a commitment to abstract concerns about ‘power’ or ‘Other’ or ‘polyphony of voices’. The framing dilemma is how one might construct a research methodology course that is neither positivist, relativist, nor reifying of current theory as an enduring answer for students. The article takes two substantive fields of inquiry in education (inequality and access in education, and research on gender and education) to argue that following through some substantive issues for educational research can provide ways of thinking about the relative merits, power, pertinence and relationships between quantitative, qualitative and deconstructive agendas. Finally, the article outlines a research methodology course constructed by the author to attempt to put in practical form the assumptions about education and research methodology which are argued in this article.
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ItemThe 'facts of the case': gender equity for boys as a public policy issue(SAGE, 1999)Despite the trend toward gender studies in the social sciences, studies of masculinity have been largely absent from educational research. This volume presents a collection of the current critical scholarship on the creation of masculinities in schools, relations among competing definitions of masculinity and femininity, and linkages between masculinity and school practices. With contributions from the leading scholars in the field, Nancy Lesko studies masculinities in North American, Australian, and British schools. This book covers all levels of schooling, from preschool to graduate school, and school settings from computer labs to football fields. This fascinating addition to Sage’s Research in Men and Masculinities Series provides a thoughtful examinationof how masculinities are constructed among teachers, students, and administrators, locating these analyses within broader social, economic, and ideological contexts. Masculinities at School is a must read for scholars of education, sociology, men’s studies and gender studies.
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ItemTransitions and the year 7 experience: a report from the 12 to 18 Project( 1999)This article discusses students' comments about the experience of shifting from primary to secondary schooling, and of their first year of secondary school. The material was gathered from research carried out in three Victorian primary schools and four Victorian secondary schools in 1993 and 1994 as part of an ongoing qualitative, longitudinal study which is following students through each year of their secondary schooling. This article discusses the meanings students give to their experience of transition against earlier research and policy documents which use different methodologies and which talk of different cultures of primary and secondary schools. It argues that student reactions are more complex than are indicated by methodologies which take comments at face value and that their concerns challenge some common assumptions about the problem of disruption in the break between primary and secondary. The article also notes widespread changes in students' lunchtime activities compared with primary school and discusses ways students assess the new curriculum and teaching styles of the secondary school.
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ItemHow do young people think about self, work and futures(Australian Institute of Family Studies, 1998)The 12 to 18 Educational Research Project, commenced in 1993, is a longitudinal study that is following a number of young people at four different Victorian schools through each year of their secondary schooling. Twice each year, interviews are conducted with 24 students (six students at each of the schools), either alone or with their friends, the interviews are video- and audiotaped. The aim of the study is to follow qualitatively the thinking of these young people, and their pathways as they go through schooling and then enter life beyond this.In this article, we discuss some findings from this work in progress looking in particular at how young people in the early and middle years of secondary schooling are thinking about self, work and futures, and we consider in what ways gender is an issue in their approach.
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Item[Review of the book Solidarity of strangers: feminism after identity politics]( 1997)Solidarity of Strangers takes up one of the key problematics of contemporary politics, contemporary social theory and contemporary feminism. Once difference is adequately acknowledged, once the critiques of universalism and essentialism are taken on board, what forms of politics and association remain?
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Item[Review of the book The male in the head: young people, heterosexuality and power]( 1998)The Male in the Head is an account of how young people in England construct heterosexual sexual relationships, and an argument that the process, for both women and men, is controlled by male interests. The book is based on two major interview projects carried out in London and Manchester between 1989 and 1992 and these, in turn, arose out of a concern to investigate ‘risk-taking’ in sexual relationships in the wake of concerns about AIDS. The authors argue that the privileging of male bodily pleasure and the lack of a speaking space for an ‘independent female sexuality’ not only reproduces the power inequalities of men and women, but contributes to a culture of sexuality in which ‘safe sex’ is difficult to consistently enact.
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ItemGender equity and the boys debate: what sort of challenge is it?(Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1997)Recently public and policy discussions about gender equity have become strongly concerned with boys. This article discusses some aspects of the form, the context and the implications of these developments in Australia (and notes some points of similarity and difference with developments in the UK). It focuses on three main areas: the ways examination and other 'indicators' have been used in public policy constructions of gender inequality; secondly the issue of what types of reforms constitute gender equity as a project; and thirdly, the issue of research agendas and the entry of masculinity to gender research.