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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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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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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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.
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Item'And how would you describe yourself?': researchers and researched in first stages of a qualitative, longitudinal research project(Australian Council for Educational Research, 1996-04)This article discusses methodological issues and some initial substantive findings from the first two years of the 12 to 18 Educational Research Project. The 12 to 18 Project is a qualitative, longitudinal study of girls and boys from the end of grade 6 and as they proceed through each year of their secondary schooling. The article discusses epistemological and ethical issues related to how and with what implications the researchers 'construct' the researched in this long-term empirical study. It then discusses background literature and some initial findings in the three areas with which the project is concerned: the development of gendered subjectivity in the years of secondary school; schools, inequalities, and students' changing relationship to curriculum; and students' changing thinking about their futures.