Faculty of Education - Research Publications
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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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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.