"Dropping out," drifting off, being excluded : becoming somebody without school
- Authors: Smyth, John , Hattam, Robert
- Date: 2004
- Type: Text , Book
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'Voiced' research as a sociology for understanding 'dropping out' of school
- Authors: Smyth, John , Hattam, Robert
- Date: 2001
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Journal of Sociology of Education Vol. 22, no. 3 (Spetember 2001 2001), p. 402-415
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- Description: How people obtain more complex understandings of the phenomenon of 'dropping out' of school is one of the most urgent policy and practice issues facing educational practitioners, policy-makers and sociological researchers at the moment. Smyth and Hattam argue that a different 'sociological imagination' is required--one that is simultaneously more attentive to the lifeworlds of young people and more reflexive of its own agenda.
Early school leaving and the cultural geography of high schools
- Authors: Smyth, John , Hattam, Robert
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Educational Research Journal Vol. 28, no. 3 (June 2002), p. 375-397
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- Description: Early school leaving is one of the most protracted educational problems around the world, but one of the least understood. Central to the issue itself, is the failure by the educational policy community to have ways of adequately ‘naming’ the problem. The study reported in this paper examines early school leaving from the position of 209 young Australians who had left school or who were at imminent risk of doing so. While acknowledging the considerable complexity of the decision making processes that lie behind this problem, this article provides a tentative theorising that traverses aspects of what we call the ‘cultural geography of the high school’ as a partial explanation of what is occurring. The question being pursued was how the culture of the school contributed to or interfered with early school leaving.
Tackling school leaving at its Source: A case of reform in the middle years of schooling
- Authors: Smyth, John , McInerney, Peter , Hattam, Robert
- Date: 2003
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British journal of sociology of education Vol. 24, no. 2 (2003), p. 177-193
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- Description: One of the most pervasive educational issues confronting Australia, and other countries, at the moment is the declining completion rates in high schools. While a period of success was experienced after the Second World War, there is now a pressing need to reform high schools in the ways they connect with young lives. In this paper, we present a 'sociology of the high school' as a way of encapsulating the high school as an institution that: is still largely stuck in a 'continuity of practice' (Elmore, 1987); has an 'attachment to familiar pedagogical routines' (Eisner, 1992); fails to listen to students; is hierarchically structured; treats students in immature ways; is hung up with passing on content; and seems more concerned with insulating itself from, rather connecting with or appropriating, young lives into the curriculum. As an alternative, we examine the notion of middle schooling that requires a version of whole school reform that engages with structures, cultures and changing pedagogy in ways more resonant with, and respectful of, young lives. We examine the tensions and dilemmas experienced at Investigator [1] High School in Australia, and conclude that the centerpiece has to be breaking the mold of the 'scripted' teacher and its replacement by the 'teacher-as-improviser'.
Thinking Past Educational Disadvantage, and Theories of Reproduction
- Authors: Hattam, Robert , Smyth, John
- Date: 2015
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Sociology Vol. 49, no. 2 (2015), p. 270-286
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- Description: This article proposes a critique of critical sociology of education as a means of thinking past theories of reproduction which are the doxa for our field. The article problematizes key words such as 'disadvantage' and pursues a critique of reproduction theory, drawing on Rancière’s foregrounding of equality as an axiom rather than an outcome. The article goes some way towards showing how we might practically think past theories of reproduction by offering an alternative version of educational equality. © The Author(s) 2014